Bonjour et bonne année! I have now returned to France after spending a lovely two weeks at home for Christmas and New Year, which seemed to pass very quickly (as have the almost 2 weeks that I’ve been writing this post for…) My time at home was filled with nice things such as seeing family, meeting friends and of course the festivities, but I think it’s always nice to get back into a normal routine after Christmas.
Arriving back in France was an odd feeling: it’s familiar but it still feels new. There’s a different smell about it. The air smelled different when I got off the Rhone Express and my room smells of an unfamiliar washing powder. Although perhaps I should be thankful that it doesn’t smell like sour milk after an incident I had before I left for Christmas which involved a fresh carton of milk turning against me and bursting under my sofa.
The beginning of January is when the French celebrate the epiphany. My French housemate bought us a ‘Galette des Rois’, a huge pastry with a layer of frangipane inside that hides a small figure. Whoever comes across the small figure is labelled as the king and gets to wear the crown. One of my housemates was absent when we did this so we saved him a piece, and after 5 minutes of chewing we started to say how typical it was that it was in the leftover – COUGHSPLUTTERWHATTHE – oh, or not. It was actually a new housemate who found it and was therefore quickly promoted to king!
I’ve seen lots of posts in the Facebooks groups recently about January blues and homesickness which, after about day 3 back here, thankfully faded into the background for me. If there’s anything I’ve learned about homesickness it’s that it gets better with time. You can’t just run away (sorry to my family who may be reading this and thinking ‘please book the next flight’), you have to push through it. You’ll start off by thinking “If I can just get through ___ then I have ___ to look forward to.” Slowly, the gaps in between will become less difficult and you’ll find you don’t really need to rely on things to get you through, you can just take things as they come. I also have a ‘nice things to do’ list alongside my actual to do list to maintain a nice balance.
Since I only work 12 hours a week and my rent is expensive, I decided to look for a small tutoring job. I found a family who wanted somebody to tutor their children in English for 4 hours a week, which suits me well and gives me something else to focus on. I’m not sure how long I’ll continue as it’s currently 4 days a week (1 hour a day), but I’m going to see how it goes as it’s at a time of day where I wouldn’t be doing much else! The children are adorable but the older one also speaks German and therefore often accidentally speaks to me in German and wonders why I look so confused when I can’t place the words into either English or French lexis. The only incident so far is when I forgot which floor their apartment was on and ended up flapping around in the lift going up and down, not knowing that the dad was in the other lift going up and down looking for me until we eventually cascaded on the ground floor. He hasn’t sacked me yet.
TripsParis
The Spanish family who I au-paired for in summer 2016 have always wanted to go to Paris but were too worried as they don’t speak any French or English. Being the hero I am, I took up the offer of a trip to Paris with them (I know, what a hardship) during my second weekend back here. There are parts of Paris that I love: the Latin Quarter, Montmartre and the Champs Elysées, however I did almost slap myself for accidentally thinking “I’m a bit bored of the Eiffel Tower…”
The weekend passed without too many hitches, other than me constantly having to stop abuela from making conversation in Spanish with everybody in queues and restaurants, and having to rescue her in the train station when she toddled off through the complete wrong barrier. I was also roped into a 3 hour guided tour, in Spanish, of some areas which I hadn’t seen before, although do not ask me their history because I was far too cold to focus! Another new experience was a commentated boat trip down the Seine.
St Étienne
Trying to make the most of our days off coinciding, a friend and I decided to take a trip to St Étienne, the capital of the Loire department which is about 45 minutes away from Lyon by train. We had pretty low expectations after being told that it is moche, however the sunny weather and pretty buildings made the daytrip worthwhile.
…Does IKEA count as a trip? No? Ok, I’ll not mention that one then.
Nuages:
- I have genuinely been smacked with a suitcase. Upon emerging from the metro station, a man spun around from a broken lift and hit me with his suitcase at full pelt. My friend and I still can’t see how it was possibly an accident but I’m hoping not to see him again!
- I found out that some of my students actually live on the streets, which kind of makes me appreciate them turning up even more, despite it being sad.
- My laptop brightness is stuck at 100% which means I am genuinely writing this in my sunglasses as I’ve blamed the blue light for my sleeping problems.
Highlights:
- I have finally been paid by CAF.
- I won a 50€ Ryanair voucher for writing a bit about my time here! (If anyone can read French and indeed cares: https://erasmusu.com/fr/erasmus-lyon/experiences-erasmus/experience-erasmus-a-lyon-france-par-lauren-565223)
- Revisiting the Latin Quarter in Paris.
- Finding a very cute whiteboard for 3€ reduced from 10€ in the sale!
As the title of this blog suggests, I have realised that, in terms of teaching weeks, I am now over halfway through my contract. It’s the strangest feeling: part of me is counting down the days and the other part of me never wants to leave! Let’s see what part two brings…
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