Is school out yet?

I have come to love the British schoolchild. Sadly though, the school year is now done in Great Britain. There is a remarkable difference between giving tours to British school groups and giving tours to North American school groups. By some miracle, the British are generally able to discipline their students and keep them in line. The sounds of British teachers doing roll call (and they do it often) and students calling: "Sir, sir!" is music to my ears.

Most of the groups we have seen at Vimy are very well educated in the history of the First World War. It's amazing to give a tour to a class of 15 year old boys and have them not only listening to what you have to say but actually looking interested!

School in GB has only been out for a few days, but already I miss those schoolchildren. Today I gave a tour to a Canadian grade 10 class on a French course here in France. It's been a while since I've interacted with a North American school group (I think back in horror to my days at Parliament) and I'd forgotten how wiggly they can be. It's been a while since I've had to *shush* a group while I was trying to talk (not including the time I shushed a blind kid who was having things described to him...whoopsie! But that's a story for another time.). Oh, and those Brits are so polite! They always address you by name or "miss" and when a tour was done, all would say "thank you," without having to be prompted! Keep in mind, there are exceptions to every rule, but by and large, we loved the British kids.

The French kids on the other hand, well that's an entirely different matter. Generally their teachers don't seem to believe in discipline, and if they weren't snickering at your accent, they'd be mocking your grammatical defficiencies. It never came to it, but I was just waiting for the group that would push me to the point where I would stop the tour midway and switch to English and then see how much of the rest of the tour they would enjoy. I did, however, threaten this once or twice: "Tu veut continuer la visite en anglais?" I thought not.

My goodness, what my grade school teachers put up with!

School is out all over this part of Europe now though, so make-way for the boozy late afternoon French visitors. They come en masse!

It's not so much that we're opposed to the French visitors because they're French, it's moreso because the local French people view the memorial site as a park, a nice place to enjoy the sun. There was a time (and they remind you of this often) when they could picnic on site, as well as wander right through the shell-holes and mine craters. We have more recently realized that if this continued, those land features would no longer exist for future generations to see. The site has also placed a bigger emphasis on commemoration, and so were you to have a site full of sun bathers, picnickers, and screaming children in what is, essentially, a vast cemetary of unmarked graves, it would be much more difficult to maintain an atmosphere appropriate or condusive to commemoration.

And that's your lecture on the challenges of being a tour guide.

Allez les Bleus...

(the French cheer)

The World Cup has made my stay here in France quite a bit more interesting, but it all ended tonight.

For the last few matches in which France played, they would set up big screens on the square in front of the train station here in Arras. The whole square would be packed with people just standing around watching the game together. Then, after France's semi-final win, the whole town errupted. There were firecrackers and flares being set-off, people shimmying up flag poles, dancing in fountains, and parading through the crowded streets. It was general madness, though fairly well behaved.

Tonight I went down to the square for the first half, but once the game became tied, the mood became way too serious and I decided that it would be more comfortable to watch from home. Now, one REDICULOUS head butt, extra time, and a shoot-out later, Italy has won the "Cup du Monde" and France will take 4 years to get over it. I poked my head out the front door right after the game ended and the streets were oddly quiet. What a change from the other night when you could hear the commotion and horns until well past 2am. If I were Zinedine Zidane (France's very good-looking come-back kid who just ended his career by inexplicably head-butting an Italian player) I would think twice before returning to France any time soon. Poor guy.

I know my roommates will be crushed that tonight is not the biggest party to hit France since the last time they won the World Cup, but at least we'll all sleep in peace...

Oh, and the World CUP is not a cup at all. Why call it a "cup" then? You can't even drink champagne out of it.

All these things I can ponder later. For now, I need to mentally prepare to meet the Prime Minister of Canada next week at Vimy. That's right, Stephen Harper is coming to town. Maybe he'll bring me a uniform that fits. Or a stetson like the one he gave to George Bush.