New Year

So been back in France all of a day, and already settled into my old habits, fbing constantly and nervous drinking! Need to find a new hobby that fills the space in the evenings. Forgot how it’s so different from home, back home I never have a moment to myself and am never on fb. Me and pip R have decided we need to find another form of socialising that doesn’t involve drinking! Was doing so well for money last term, then in December managed to get into my overdraft and spend most of it… was supposed to last until June, merde. So many relationship things to update. Where to starT?!…

Odd things about France (to be continued…)

1. A lot of places, including my appartment, don’t have seats on the toilets and I really can’t figure out why! One German friend thinks maybe it’s because they don’t want to have to clean them, but I’m not sure. Either way I reckon I’m gonna have thighs of steel by the end of the year after all this squatting!

2. Before moving into the uni accomodation I stayed for a month with a family whilst I took French lessons. Every meal time they’d set out tiny glass tumblers, and then only ever fill them half full, meaning everyone kept on having to ask for them to be refilled (it was 36 degrees, I was constantly gasping!). Maybe it’s something to do with when you’re drinking wine, but they did the same no matter if it was water, wine or juice? Maybe they just liked feeling like giants.

3. The famous French bureaucracy. Okay so this isn’t exactly odd, more frustrating. I’m taking part in an Erasmus exchange, studying for a year at a university here which is renowned for hosting international students. Given that, you’d expect them to be kind of used to helping and guiding students and getting them enrolled. Instead, most of us spent two weeks going backwards and forwards between offices, departments and the post office, just to fill out one form! To actually then pay to inscribe (€4.57) we had to go back and forth between the same people 4 times, taking into account that they have 2 hour lunch breaks every day, no one seems to work a full week and even if an office is staffed there are some afternoons where they just won’t do certain things. Actually starting lectures and uni work will be a breeze compared to this brain ache! Haha.

4. They eat really, really fast! At the French language school there were loads of other international students, and they all noticed this too. I always thought that the French would savour their meals, setting the world to rights over the many courses, but in our experience it just wasn’t the case. At the host family the mum would constantly tell the daughter to hurry up ‘depeche-toi’, and they didn’t really talk during the meals. One of our professors reckoned it’s because in school they are encouraged to eat quickly so that the other students can take their places in the dinner hall.

My first blog!

So I’ve taken on the dream, left my friends, family, cat and boyfriend in order to move to France for a year, eek! I’m terrible at writing and even worse at remembering, so hopefully this blog will give me a focus and leave me with a years worth of memories that I will cherish and (most importantly) learn from!

I’ve already been here for two weeks, so feel like there’s a lot that needs to be written down before it’s completely forgotten. Also need to write a blog for my module at uni, and this can be the place where I can let off steam and blog about things that I’d rather not share with all my lecturers!