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