Saturday 24 September 2011

La Vie Paloise


I'm now only two days shy of being here a whole month. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown. It has been a trying month at times, quite stressful and frustrating. It's also surprised me of how much a culture shock it was to move from England to France. I always had the view that it would be quite simple (apart from la langue, bien sur), considering that France is so close to us, it's a European country that I have visited on numerous occasions etc. But really, it is a completely different way of life. It's so strange to come to live in a town where nothing is open on a Sunday. We have spent the majority of our Sundays sitting in McDonalds because there is really not much else to do. I've also sincerely struggled with the amount of time it takes to get anything done! Like I said, I have been here nearly a month and still not sorted all my paperwork. I have to tell myself to take a deep breath and calm down.

I do feel quite settled here though. Although I'm having trouble meeting French people and speaking French, I don't feel as homesick as I thought I would. I think it's helped having met people that I get on well with, they've almost become my little family here. I feel I am understanding people a lot more but I still need to get over this confidence thing of not speaking French. It's making me feel very frustrated. I want to improve but I'm finding it so difficult.

So, over the next few weeks, my goals are to obviously speak more French and to take more photos!

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Bonjour a tous!

So I'm here, in France! I have been here just under two weeks now and the whole experience has been quite overwhelming! I'm starting to get used to the French way of life (in other words, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork) and although I don't feel like my speaking has improved I'm finding that I understand people a little better. It's still early days though so I'm not going too hard on myself!

So, a bit about Pau and the university here. Firstly, I can see the Pyrenees from my university residence window, and in my opinion, I personally think that is really awesome. The Boulevard des Pyrenees truly offers some spectacular views of the mountains and I'm taken aback everytime I go down there... I can't believe I'm living by the moutains! Pau itself is a really nice city/town (? I'm not quite sure which it is yet) and the locals seem very friendly. My accommodation is nice, very basic but it's clean and tidy so I can't complain. The only downside is the lack of the internet, it's driving me insane.. I am currently stealing a connection from the public hotspot but it's so unreliable.. I can't wait for our super-fast fibre optic broadband to be installed in a couple of weeks!

Classes start on Monday although we haven't picked any modules yet... I'm going to take this as standard, haha. I'm going to watch my friends white water raft tomorrow at the Stade d'eaux-vivres (apparently the Olympic kayak-canoeing champion lives in Pau) and I'm going to attempt to surf on Saturday at Anglet, if that fails I will be basking in the beautiful Pays Basque sun.... ahhh!

Will try and upload some pictures soon!
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