ONE WEEK TO GO...

So...there is only one week to go now until the big move to France and if at all possible, I am more excited than before... I am SUPER excited! Everything is finally beginning to feel real and it is slowly sinking in that I’m moving to France, an hour away from the City of Lights and a TGV away from countless cities...

After having watched Pete (boyf) pack for university last week and seeing how much crap you can accumulate from various draws and cupboards in your bedroom, it has suddenly dawned on me that the 20kg weight allowance on my Ryan air flight is going to be impossible to fit all of the necessities that I need for my seven month trip abroad... I’ve never been one of the light-packing kinds so I going to need to turn over a new leaf and miraculously make this work! I suppose I shall start with the essentials and work from there.  Looking bronzed in the middle of winter= essential. The fake tan is being packed. It’s going to take a while...

Whilst I’m in Le Mans I’m going to be working as an English Teaching Assistant. I chose this option after quite a lot of consideration... I realised that I was far too lazy for a full-time job and the early starts and also not completely ready to give up my student life-style, so I guess teaching was the middle ground. Plus you get paid, bonus! This whole process has been co-ordinated (with some minor glitches) by the British Council and my god it has been a longggggg process but I’m almost there...

It all began over 10 months ago when Andrew Watts, the University of Birmingham year abroad tutor, tortured us with numerous lectures on what to expect from our time abroad and what our options were. The final leg of the process was in July this year when I received my ‘arrêté d’affection’ and was assigned two ‘collège’, both of which are in the city of Le Mans...

The things that I am most looking forward to are:

·         TGV madness

·         Being stereotypically French: eating croissant and baguette with butter and jam for brekky EVERY matin (hopefully),

·         Making new friends

·         Visits from Pedro

·         Visits from friends

·         Getting much better at French and French grammar

·         Day trips to Paris

·         Weekend trips to many of France’s cities

·         Rendez-vous’ing with Becks, Victoria, Sarah, Lorna, Charlotte and whoever else will have me!

·         Visiting the ’24 heures du Mans’ or other car/motorbike races in Le Mans

Right now, there are no more obstacles to complete! I have: booked flights and accommodation, obtained every document needed for the French bureaucratic nightmare, been in touch with the other assistants in Le Mans, started packing (I WILL fit it all in) and now I’m beginning to say my goodbyes...:(

I’m just 168 hours away from the year that I’ve been both dreading and longing... Wish me all the luck in the world!

à la prochaine  xxxxxxxxxx

Off to Le Mans...

Hello, I’m new to this blogging lark so I can’t promise that you won’t get bored half way through this post but bear with me! My name is Kate Wright and I study French and Geography at the University of Birmingham and now my third year has snuck up on me and I now find myself three weeks away from my year abroad to France...

I leave for my seven month trip to the city of Le Mans, France on the 28th September and as much as I pretend to myself that it doesn’t, the thought of this makes me feel terrified. Of course I am amazingly excited about it all as well, it will be such a good experience, and to quote Lauren Kennedy- I shall come back ‘all worldly’! It’s weird because part of me feels ready to get out there, but then another part keeps reminding me of the things that I’m going to miss: my family, my boyfriend, my friends...even my stupid fat cat! I don’t think I will ever feel entirely ready so I will just accept that during the first few days I will probably be extremely homesick and nervous but everything will be okay! I can see that an extremely important motto is going to be ‘keep positive’ and I shall no doubt need reassuring of this in the first few days.

However, at the moment, I’m far more concerned with the everlasting pile of French bureaucracy that I have to fill in, send off or apply rather than worrying about making friends or wondering if my French will be up to scratch (clearly not). With all this paperwork, I feel like I’m moving to another planet when actually it’s just across the channel! Whoever’s idea it was to obtain a ‘certificate of good health’ and the other crazy stuff we've been asked to do  was clearly just trying to make life hard for us Erasmus students!

I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel now though- I’ve completed over three quarters of my to-do checklist and have 20 days to go...not bad going! Obviously I’ll think of a million other things that need doing 24 hours before departure but that can't be helped...

I decided to make this blog as a kind of diary so I can look back and remember what I hope will be an amazing year...with a primary aim of getting pretty damn good at French! Hopefully, I will look back at this first blog in a couple of months and wonder why I was getting so worried- but hey ho, I’ve been told by a certain person who is more wise than I, that 'nerves are positive energy.’ We shall see...

Hope you enjoy following my blog throughout the year,
Bisous xoxoxox