A Visit to Bon Marché, Thursday, 26 November

Bon Marché is Paris’s oldest department store and takes great pride in the fact that it is the only Grand Magasin on the left bank. Although bearing no resemblance to the other work created by one Gustave Eiffel, it is just as enduring a Paris landmark having been around since 1852. “Bon Marché” translates as a bargain, but you are unlikely to find anything of that sort here. This is an ultra chic store, with at least one-third of the ground floor given over to makeup and perfume. There is a separate building for the épicerie or food hall. While Harrod’s still rates our number one for food halls, the Bon Marché is very impressive. And overall, considering the whole of both stores, both Ginnie and I feel that Bon Marché leaves Harrod’s looking pretty shabby.

When we went down there today we spent some time looking at the Christmas windows. Sadly, no pictures could possibly do them justice since they are works of computer art; telling stories, constantly changing, and full of humour and excitement. But there was one thing that the épicerie didn’t have. In fact, we have searched high and low in Paris for it and it seems to be completely unavailable. Would you believe we cannot find barley. Yes, that’s right, plain, ordinary barley for making a soup seems, in Paris, the food capital of the world, to be an unknown quantity.

Ginnie went on to her last day of school with mixed feelings. The school, like the last one she attended a couple of years ago, runs on the basis of a continuous intake; with new students coming into classes every Monday. While they are rigorously tested to establish their ability levels, it is still somewhat confusing. The Alliance Francais is the largest language school in France with hundreds of students from all over the world studying every day. Here they can learn the language from the most basic level to the most technical specialist French such as that used in the law and in medicine.

It appears as if the teachers (all 130 of them) have quite a heavy load, beginning with a meeting at 8.30 in the morning. Classes start an hour later and at Virginia’s level the tutor takes a class for three hours, until 12.30. This is followed after lunch by a class of different students from 1.30 to 4.30 after which there is another meeting of the staff. Remember that each class has about twelve students from all over the world and all teaching at even the most basic level is in French. In the building no language other than French is to be used.

At the same time, many of the students work as hard, if not harder, than the teachers. One of the students in Virginia's class was Eduardo from Colombia. Eduardo is twenty-five years old and he is in France finishing a Masters degree in engineering at the Sorbonne. While here, so as not to waste time, he is doing three hours study in Italian every morning, three hours French every day at the Alliance Francais and then straight to the Sorbonne for three hours every evening. As if that isn't enough he then works in a bar until the small hours in order to help pay for it all. Virginia describes him as "a great guy, full of fun." So the next time I think I complain about my workload, Virginia has promised to remind me of Eduardo.

Whether the continuous intake is good teaching or just a convenience for the school, is difficult to know. It must be very difficult for the teachers and it also means that it is virtually impossible for students to build up any sense of camaraderie with one another. Anyway, whether it is good or bad, doesn’t really matter. That’s the way it is, and maybe that’s the best way of dealing with students from all over the world who have no common language. A very high level of teaching skill is required in such a situation and Virginia, while not always happy with the structure, was in absolute awe of the teachers and the ways in which the communicated to this disparate body of students.