Souvenir of Fort Boyard... and La Rochelle

Many many years ago, i went to do my Degree of Computer Science in La Rochelle, France. The best thing about La Rochelle is its located nearby beautiful beaches and islands. My studio apartment and my university was just a few hundred meters away from the Atlantic sea.

Another attraction that we might have heard is Fort Boyard. The fort is located between the Ile d'Aix and the Ile d'Oleron. Fort Boyard is also a reality show (aired on NTV7 every Saturday at 8.30pm) whereby the contestants have to complete challenges to win prize money.

It was told that the construction of the fort started back in 1801, under Napoleon.
The fort had a purpose to protect the coast (and especially the arsenal of Rochefort) from possible incursions by foreign navies (the British especially). At that time, cannons only had a limited range, and the distance between the two islands of Aix and Oleron was too large to block the passage.

You can have a nice view of Fort Boyard for a few euros with a boat trip from La Rochelle to l'ile d'Aix.

Les 35 Heures

If you were working in France some time ago, this was the best thing for you as an employee : Les 35 heures!

The working hour was reduced from thirty-nine to thirty-five hours in France sometime in 2000.

This didn't mean all workers suddenly stopped an hour early every day. Companies negotiated with their employees and introduced policies to work it out. Some firms settled on 5 seven-hour working days, others gave a half-day off per week, or a day off every fortnight. For example, some people will leave office earlier everyday, some will work half day on a certain day and others will get additional off-day once every two weeks.

Try to phone an office in France on Friday afternoon, and you'll get the feeling of the thirty-five working hours in France :)

It seems the thirty-five working hours really work in France. Even the new law introduced by the government of Nicolas Sarkozy to revert to thirty-nine working hours is being met with resistance ... from employers.

French Alphabet (I)

Learning to speak french is not easy, especially if we're not in France and we've never been in France in our life. The very first thing we need to learn in french is its alphabet pronunciation. Once you've mastered the alphabet, it will be easy to pronounce other French words.

For the English speaking people, you'll find that most letters from "A" to "Z" are pronounced differently in French. In the beginning, you might also confuse on how they pronounce the letter "e" and "i", "g" and "j", and so on...and how about ''u"? Anyone would like to give it a try?

Watch (the video below) and learn how to correctly pronounce the different letters of the French alphabet...