Oh the weather outside is frightful...

A few weeks ago, the newspaper weather page said it would snow in the region. It didn't. Then last week I woke up one morning to see facebook full of 'It's snowed in the UK' type posts. It didn't snow here, it wasn't even forecast. So imagine my surprise on Friday morning when I wake up to see the ground covered in white.

I was going to write about things I've found difficult with the French systems this week, but that post has been left half written and at some point I'll return to that. But this post always links in with that in a way.
France is known for skiing, hundreds of thousands of people come here every year to do just that. A country that has mountains, and snow. So forgive me for expecting that the country would know how to deal with snow. I've learnt now that regional differences are huge. The Ile-de-France cannot deal with it very well at all. The city of Paris itself did not see any snow, but the Seine et Marne department did, and it varied considerably from town to town. Take Meaux for example, we got a fair bit of snow, but not enough to stop daily life. Now take Val d'Europe (Serris) on top of a hill, they got a considerable amount. The difference? 10km!

Because the school I work in takes students from across the local region, it created difficulties. The bus companies were not willing to run buses to the outlying villages. The radio were telling people to be on 'orange alert'. I turn up to the school, my first class had just 4 students. This was because of the buses, the school in Meaux quite surprisingly doesn't have too many students from Meaux. Then at break time a teacher started talking to me about snow and France. Turns out that this region and home are very similar. The radio will become obsessed with it on a morning etc etc. He told me that where he comes from in France, it'd be dealt with. No problem. But here, life just comes to a halt.

I wait in the staff room two hours for my next class. However no students turn up, just as we realise this; the fire alarm sounds and we are off outside. Turns out someone activated it for fun. I then go home.

At least I finished the book 'Mockingjay' in the two hours.

Then I decided to go to Disneyland to take some snowy photos (as I can probably call photography a small hobby of mine). I didn't do any rides, just take photos. It was mid-afternoon and whilst a lot of snow had melted, enough remained to have a visible effect on my photos. I was there about an hour, but got what I needed. I'll do another blog soon! Christmas is round the corner, and so I'll be writing about Christmas in France before returning home to the UK, for the holidays!