Daily Life

Starting to get used to French life

After the first week which had really shocked me and told me that I don't speak as much French as I thought, I started the second week a bit more relaxed. The weekend with the other people was really nice and I felt great because I had been able to get to know new people. The one who wanted to communicate with me in English was also quite nice, we were writing a lot during the day, so I was happy. I didn't even miss anybody so much (of course I missed my family and my friends but not thaaaat much), so it was really a good start.

The lectures were exhausting as usual and I discovered that some of the French people I had asked to send me their notes didn't take it so serious, so I had to start the whole procedure (it was really not easy for me! ) again. But well, that's life and I had to learn doing things like that. In the Marketing lecture I found out that I was really good in the last test, I had 20 of 20 points (in France the grades are from 0 - 20) and that was a great motivation. Furthermore, he was a really interesting and funny professor (even if that was not on purpose), so the lesson was quite easy to stand.

The lectures on friday were the most boring ones. The professor didn't have any structure in what he was telling (or we didn't get the structure) and so it was very hard to understand anything. Fortunately he gave us some sheets of paper with tasks on it in order to practise the things we would learn in the main lecture afterwards. It was really hard to have a lecture on friday until 6pm and my German friend did even have one afterwards until 8pm! Fortunately I didn't choose that one.

So at 6pm I went to the bus station in order to get home and relax - the next day there would be a large Erasmus party and even if I don't like parties I would go there to get to know some new people maybe. I also wanted to meet the guy I was writing with in English but it never worked out during the week, so maybe it would work out the weekend.

So I relaxed, went to the supermarket to buy nutrition, skyped with my family and my boyfriend and washed my clothes on Saturday. Then, I had to read a lot of texts for several lectures and as I didn't speak French so well I had to look up almost every word and it took me so much time. Tired and exhausted I watched a series when my "English friend" wrote me if I wanted to drink something in the evening. And as the weeks before it did never work out I didn't really want to tell him that I didn't have time that night. So I told him that I would have time but that I had to go to a party afterwards at about 11pm. We decided to meet at 8pm at the train station and I was a bit excited, because we had written a lot but I have never met him.

The first meeting with my new "best friend"

So I got ready for the party and took the bus at 7:30pm to the train station. Of course, I was there too early so I waited and tried not to die because of the coldness. Finally, there was someone coming towards me and it was really him. He looked nice (I hadn't seen a picture before) and we decided to eat something at McDonalds (because it's quite expensive to eat in a restaurant in France). We found something to talk about immediately and didn't stop the whole evening. From McDonalds we went to a bar he knew and continued talking and drinking some Cocktails. Suddenly it was already almost midnight and I had totally forgotten the Party. But actually I preferred staying at the bar, so we stayed a bit and finally went to the Party together. As me he also wasn't the big party fan, but we wanted to try it anyway and I had the impression that he just went there because of me. But I just deleted that thought from my mind and we arrived there.

It was loud and chaotic and we had to wait outside the "VIP-room" because my friend wasn't Erasmus and it was reserved for the Erasmus students until 2 am. So we waited, drank something and tried to talk, but because of the loud music that was not quite possible. Finally we entered into the VIP-room and I met some people I already knew. But everybody was so drunk! I met the nice English girl and we talked a bit and sat down. She wasn't the party girl neither so we stayed there and observed the other people in the room. We did that for several hours until we decided to take the first bus back to the student's residence. My friend said he would come with us until the bus station and go home afterwards. We had to run because we started a bit late from the club and the train station was far, but we arrived on time.

When I came home I only fell into my bed and slept until 12 am the next day. It was so relaxing but I felt tired anyway. I found a message on my mobile phone that he really liked the last night even if he is not a party fan. Even if I didn't want to, it made me happy to receive a message like that. Even more beacuse my boyfriend started to become quite jealous because I was going out and met other people - that really bothered me, because I didn't go for a Erasmus semester to stay at home all the time, I wanted to get to know new people!

So for the rest of the day I just relaxed, watched some series, wrote with my friends and got ready for the following week full of French lectures and texts to read.

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