Day #66 - funfairs + where is the wifi

I am typing this from my deathbed. I have caught the common cold and have therefore been a coughy, coldy ill-bag for the past week. Some may call it man flu, I'm calling it The End of Days.

To make it worse, I was forced to the realisation this week that we are officially in l'Université de Rouen's essay season, except, unlike in Edinburgh, it's not so much an essay season as an each-individual-class-expects-an-oral-presentation-plus-a-written-essay-plus-an-in-class-exam-over-the-next-two-weeks season. Safe to say, peeps be stressed, and by "peeps" I mean "people with 7 different classes", and by that I mean me. Me. I have so much work.

an unrelated photograph of the sunset over saint-hilaire

Of course, I haven't actually been doing any work, because what's the point in that? I'm an ERASMUS student! ERASMUS students don't do work! ERASMUS students take long weekend trips to Barcelona for literally no reason and take instant photographs of each other drinking wine on balconies and riding bikes. That's it. There is no essay-writing. Most of my free time is spent sleeping or eating biscuits in bed, if I'm being quite honest with you. The rest is filled with trips to funfairs, day-drinking in cafés and going to the cinema.

My increasing laziness is only exacerbated by the fact that the French seem to have a sort of "you make it up" system. They can feed you as much information as you like, but none of it ever appears to be useful, and you end up waffling for six pages. The most common type of essay that I am asked to write in university is a synthèse, where they say to you, "Right, write about [insert topic here]," and you have to come up with your own problématique - that is, you come up with the discussion point, because the professors are too lazy to come up with their own questions. And the whole thing is in French. 

The other point is that the universities seem to be very wary of the Internet, as though it's not something that all of their students and professors access every single day. One of our lecturers legitimately said to us: "Why should the university pay me if I put your homework online?" Also there is NO WIFI IN THE LIBRARY. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE ENTIRE ESSAYS WITH A LIMITED COLLECTION OF BOOKS AND THE PALTRY 3G ON MY PHONE???? It's enough to make anyone want to run away to Barcelona.

I quite fancy Barcelona, actually, if anyone fancies lending me a few euros for a plane ticket. I haven't been able to find the time, unfortunately, but I did use this Tuesday's jour férié (it's a bank holiday. Sort of) to head down to la Foire Saint-Romaine on the Seine.

the funfair (it's much bigger than it looks)

La Foire, or the fair, was absolutely flippin' massive - it's been there since the end of October and it's sticking around until November 23rd, but it's huge, stretching all across one bank of the river. There are 3 rollercoasters and 14,000,000 opportunities to win a goldfish, as well as food stalls - I tried my first croustillons - and other classic funfair rides. I was there for an hour and a half or so and I only managed to get about a third of the wandering in. If I was feeling lazier, I would have taken the bus to get from one end to the other, except there is only one bus every hour and a half on the jours fériés so I had to use my feet like any other common or garden peasant.

The fair is clearing off just in time for Rouen's Christmas market to get settled outside the Notre Dame (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen, guys, I'm local now) and I have to say that I am possibly the most excited human being ever. Apparently the Christmas market is terrible, but from November 28th there will be a ferris wheel and an ice skating rink and mulled wine and that is all I truly want.

nice lil photo of the cathedral taken from the top of the funfair ferris wheel

 I hope that the exam season works itself out, in a way, because I've been occupying my brain with far more exciting things, like planning trips to Lyon to see the Fête des Lumières and trips to Paris for the Christmas market at the Champs-Elysées and the jardins du Trocadéro (the bit right in front of the Eiffel Tower). Rouen itself is currently in the middle of something called the Semaine de Zazimuts (me neither), but that means that there's loads of little things going on around the town; for example, I'm going to go watch a Charlie Chaplin film on Saturday, accompanied by a live orchestra. Pas mal.

I haven't got much else to say besides that. I feel like I spent my first 6 weeks here wishing I was busy, and now I am, I just want to stay in bed all day with a cup of Earl Grey and maybe paint my nails. My French has improved tenfold though, and I am a happy little bean in spite of the fact that I have about three friends with whom I can actually speak fast, fluent, flawed English. And that's OK! As long as I pass all my classes and I am allowed to return to Edinburgh for fourth year, where I will be able to speak fast, fluent, flawed English for the rest of my life if I so desire.

being just slightly problematic at the funfair

Hope all is well my good friends.

Josie

x

Day #45 - Why year abroads can totally suck

The title of this post is a little more pessimistic than I was going for. However, I think it's really important for people to understand what I mean by it, and, as I'm actually heading back to the UK tomorrow, so it seems only right that I should do a sort of round-up of my first half-term here in Rouen.

When you set off for a year abroad, there are plenty of pamphlets and websites telling you how 'exciting' years abroad can be - people travel the continent, make friends for life (the University of Edinburgh was particularly keen to tell me the ERASMUS programme's marriage statistics), learn more about themselves, find self-confidence and master their second or third languages to near-bilingualism. A year abroad is frequently toted as 'the best year of your life'.
Personally, I wasn't particularly bowled over by the idea of leaving all my new friends at university behind - they become your adopted family in so many ways, and leaving an entire support network was (and still is) absolutely terrifying to me. With the whole 'you're-going-to-have-to-do-Freshers-again-but-in-French' thing added on top, I was not too excited. Nevertheless, I filled out all my forms, got all my paperwork in on time, and started finding accommodation and courses online.

When I first arrived in Rouen, there was a sort of floating honeymoon period where I stayed with my friend Eleri (whose name should only ever been noted down in this blog if it is followed by the words 'my lifesaver') and we spent about two weeks attempting to complete our timetables. If we didn't achieve much - or anything - in a day, we would simply shrug, then head out into the town centre and sit out in the sunshine, drinking wine. I ate a lot of pastries. Once she got her wi-fi installed? Ah, it was bliss.

Then there was a sort of... slump. It came about two and a half weeks in. Two and a half weeks of sleeping on a friend's sofa bed, two and a half weeks of being messed around by the banks, by my university in Rouen, by my university back home. Two and a half weeks spent living out of the same suitcase. The fact that the days were getting colder and Autumn was closing in was just a cherry on top.
It was at this point that I started complaining - mainly to my other friends on exchange programmes across Europe and beyond (we may be scattered across the globe but they're very important and helpful when it comes to things like this). It turns out that this is quite a common problem. I even found articles online and blogs trying to outline the '5 Stages of Moving Abroad'. There aren't always 5 - sometimes there are 3, or 18 - but all of them suggest that at some point, things get really hard and gross. You see all your friends on ERASMUS exchanges having fun and don't understand why you aren't. You don't have the motivation to get up and talk to anyone, or go to classes, or listen to anyone speak any other language besides your own. What you really want is a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich and your old bedroom back. I quite like calling it The Slump, and not The Week And A Half You Spend In Bed Watching RuPaul's Drag Race And Complaining On The Internet, but they take exactly the same form.

RuPaul's Drag Race; beacon of hope for ERASMUS students everywhere

I didn't really get it. I was doing everything right - I finally moved into my new house and set up my bedroom as best I could, and I didn't even feel particularly homesick. I just felt... kind of... not right. It didn't quite add up. Where were all my friends I had been promised? Why didn't the French kids understand me? And I was way too poor to do all the cool trips and holidays and weekends away that the pamphlets talked about.

But about four weeks in, something changed. I'm not sure whether my brain kind of broke and I just decided to go with it. Maybe it was because I realised that I had to take action when making friends, rather than waiting around for someone to talk to me. Maybe it was the fact that, slowly, I was piecing my timetables and my courses together. But things got better. I made some friends. I learned where you can find fresh milk. I started going to classes. Things started to get good. I've got a little bit of that French laissez-faire attitude now, guys. I have friends who are willing to help me smuggle bacon into the country. I have places to go and things to do and it's almost taken a month just to re-realise that France is HUGE and I can go ANYWHERE I LIKE. It's a slower pace of life than I was used to with my hectic Summer and my squillions of societies back in Edinburgh, but the travelling and the new experiences more than make up for it. And I think that, if this is how it is now, then it can only get better.

But, if you're having the same deal, just remember that everybody goes through The Slump.

So as for best year of my life? It's got potential. But ERASMUS grant will finally come in two weeks. Then it'll be hur är det, Sweden and hola, Barcelona with my new friends!

Josie
x

P.S. I'm going to Paris today! Don't expect tourist photos, though, Meg's a local now x

Day #31 – Calm down, France

I have long regarded France as a wonky version of England. There's a reason that, while students of Asian Studies have entire lessons on their timetables devoted to dealing with culture shock, the European students are merrily sent on their way with a cheery thumbs up and maybe some comments about bringing back cheap wine and salad dressing (God, do my family love French salad dressing)

And, I mean, yeah, France is basically Britain, isn't it? The weather is just as unpredictable, there are still things like hospitals and cars and hairdressers, and the French use more Englishisms in their everyday speech then they would like to admit (see: 'cool', 'alright', 'let's go', 'what?', 'dead', all swear words). Sometimes I swear I've just moved to Keighley, or Leith, except a sort of dystopian version where everybody speaks French and eats a wide variety of cheeses. But there are some definite differences that remind me that I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore.

1. thE WEATHER

WHAT THE HECK, FRANCE. IT IS THE 10TH OCTOBER AND THERE IS SUN IN MY EYES. SUN. STREAMING. I'M SO SWEATY. YOU TAKE YOUR HIGHS OF 19°C AND YOU CAN SHOVE IT UP YOUR- although, speaking of that, I was caught in what can only be described as an apocalyptic downpour yesterday and I had to hide in Lidl for half an hour. (I bought a massive tin of chili con carne and a bar of chocolate; it was a successful trip). I have also had evenings where I've been so cold I've had to wrap up under my duvet in two jumpers with the laptop charger clutched between my hands because it's the only warm thing in the house. Go figure.

LIAR

2. French people do smoke as much as we think they do...

...but they hate when you point it out. They get all huffy and defensive and say stuff like, “English people smoke too!” Like, yah pal, the English smoke, but the French smoke. They smoke like chimneys. They chew on the ends of those e-cigarettes at bars and in cafés, then switch to a regular clope the second they step outside. They have smoke pouring out of their noses even when there is no cigarette in sight. That's how evolved they are.

3. Some people are just walking clichés, and I'm at peace with that.
Yes, boy in a green velvet blazer eating a baguette in the campus cafeteria. Yes, French housemate who somehow smokes while playing the trumpet in the conservatory. Yes, elderly woman carefully cutting her own brie to enjoy with her wine at a table on the pavement on a sunny market day. You guys do you.

4. Nobody drinks proper milk.
For a country where dairy products seem to make up about 80% of everyone's diet, France cannot make milk for neither love nor money. Firstly, everyone seems to ingest UHT milk, which creeps me out and should creep you out too. The second problem is that the French have different levels of milk. Full-fat milk. Baby milk. That's fine. Then there's vitamin milk. Creamed milk. Aisles and aisles of branded milk. And none of it goes in the fridge?
And I'm the weird one for wanting to put it in my tea.

nothing to do with milk, really, but quite nice

5. French TV sucks
Literally nobody watches French TV, apart from my mate Safiya, who found the French equivalent of 'Take Me Out' (for all those keen beans, the direct translation of 'Seduis-moi si tu peux' is actually 'Seduce Me If You Can'), but she's English and therefore does not count. And also...

6. The French will dub everything.

You know how sometimes artsy people will say things like, “Yah, well, I prefer to watch old films with subtitles rather than dubbing, because otherwise it can really lose a certain je ne sais quoi in the audio?” That's me now. I have become one of those people. 

I went to go see '22 Jump Street'. It was dubbed. 'Friends' is dubbed. 'How I Met Your Mother' is dubbed. The last straw came for me when we watched the 1989 American film 'Dangerous Liaisons' in my Literature and Cinema course. It is an English-language film. It was dubbed in French. And the teacher put the English subtitles on the bottom. At that point my brain turned into sand and I launched myself into space.

I have more things to say about France, but I'm going to leave it at that, because even talking about the dubbing in 'Dangerous Liaisons' has made me so angry I've had to put my panini down. And that's very angry.

Next time: “Can you make friends in French?” (Answer: No. God, I'm lonely.)

Josie

P.S. Hi Mum, me again, that last line was a funny joke. I have at least four friends.