Troon Town Twinning Association: "Blog" |
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Troon Town Twinning Association: "Blog" |
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Hi,
I had the privilege of receiving the Liz Trantor Memorial Bursary to enable
me to spend time in France over the summer of 2008. I had a very successful
trip and the bursary was a great financial aid to me.
I travelled with Lise Barriere, a young French student who had spent 4 months in Troon, and was welcomed warmly into her home just outside Villeneuve-Sur-Lot. In the first week I also spent time with two other families in order to meet new people and experience the way different families in France live. The first was with a family who own a restaurant in Penne d'Agenais (L'Air du Temps), so I was able to explore this historic village and converse in French with the teenage son for a couple of days. Then I went and stayed in Villeneuve with the family who own the large 'Bazaar' home hardware store. Here, I experienced the Friday evening marché in Villeneuve where all the locals meet in the centre of town and buy and eat a meal of local produce, with music playing and a lot of mingling involved too!
During the next couple of weeks I spent most of my time with Lise - enjoying the countryside, speaking with her family and friends every day to improve my French, visiting Villeneuve and Agen and learning more every day about the culture today in France. C'est vrai que j'ai profité bien de ces semaines, surtout parce que mon français a amélioré chaque jour! I loved everything about this area of the south west of France - from the weather, to the wonderful food, and even to the accent!
In my last week I chose to travel to Bordeaux and stay there for several days in order to do some sightseeing. Using the very efficient tram system I saw le Grand Théâtre, la Cathédrale, le quai, le musée d'art contemporain, les jardins botaniques et la grande statue et fontaine à Quinconces. I really enjoyed my stay in Bordeaux as I was able to have some independence and the city was very impressive and lively.
The bursary especially helped me to pay for my return flights for the journey - with the best option for me being Glasgow - Bristol - Bordeaux; and also for my time in Bordeaux for travel, accomodation and living costs. This exchange was a very fruitful one and Lise and I developed a deep friendship which will last a long time and help us both to practice our English/French language skills as we keep in contact. I am now just coming to the end of a six-month internship in Paris, where Lise now also lives, so we have met up with each other many times and had a great time together.
Thank you for the help of the Town Twinning Association and I very much hope
that another exchange will be arranged for two new people in Troon and
Villeneuve this summer.
Best regards,
Yvonne
Hello everyone. Welcome to the new dedicated Web-Site for the Troon-Town-Twinning-Association. Twinning is for everyone. It offers the opportunity for us to meet our European partners and learn through the friendships which are made between people from all walks of life in our two towns.
If you are a visitor to this site and have not previously participated in Twinning why not consider joining? (you can get an application form at “Join” on our site).
This blog gives an additional opportunity for members to contribute to the life of our association. I hope that others will come up with material for this or other parts of the Site, and continue to contribute from time to time.
We are getting more than 100 “hits” a week to the Town-Twinning Web-Site – quite an impressive figure so soon, for a new site, for a very small organisation. So somebody is interested!
We have received two general suggestions: 1.We need to keep the site “alive” by updating it and not letting it become a “fossil” site. 2. Members want to contribute to the content of the site.
To try and respond to both We’ve created a “blog” page. This is a page where members can post a contribution about anything loosely related to the Town-Twinning – a personal experience, a view on something twinning related, etc.
We hope that people will come forward with material for this page or any other part of the site that they think appropriate. We could for example expand the “Archive Page” by linking in multiple pages if members have reminiscences and or photos of past events. Perhaps we could create a “Gallery” with additional photos.To submit material, send your text in any format that suits you – A Word document, a plain text e-mail, or pen and paper by ordinary mail. Photos are best sent in their original full size as it is easier then to adjust them to the size that will keep them looking good, but not occupy too much “Web-Space.” We can scan good quality photo prints or slides.
Please send your contributions and comments (positive or negative) to us at our e-mail address: info@troontta.org