First Few Days...

Bonjour friends!

I thought I'd give this blog thing a go, seeing as I'm doing something somewhat interesting with my life at the moment. Mainly I think this will be nice to look back on in years to come, and a good way for my fam and pals to have an insight into ma vie.

So yeah, I've moved to Bordeaux. Still seems weird that that's actually in the past tense now, after such a long time leading up to it. My mum (hi mum) came with me on Tuesday and we stayed in an Airbnb (actually two Airbnbs) until Saturday when she went home and I moved into my new place. I'm living in a house with a French lady and her daughter, as well as 3 other lodgers. I have my own little mini apartment inside the house with my bedroom and an en suite which is nice, and the living room and the kitchen are communal areas. Here's a nice wee pic of me in my room, which is very French.

I've met everyone who lives in the house, but I can't remember any of their names except the landlady and her daughter's. There's also a dog and a cat, I think the dog's name is Bidou. But in my shock and slight panic at being spoken to in French and expected to reply, I am apparently incapable of taking in and remembering names. Someone could tell me their name was Idiot and I probably wouldn't even flinch.

Bordeaux is amazing, I really love the city. Mum and I explored it quite a bit, but I'm looking forward to discovering more of it. There's so much going on, so many different areas with loads of bars and restaurants and nice wee boutique shops. I love the way people sit and eat and drink outside, pretty much all of the restaurants have outdoor seating which you don't really find at home (mainly because of the weather but still). The moving to a different country/city part of my year abroad I've discovered isn't scary at all, maybe because I've already moved to Aberdeen from Edinburgh and lived in 4 different flats in the past 3 years... I've discovered a few things since being here, one being that in France the pillows are square (weird) and that all of the mugs sold in any kind of shops are TINY. I had to go to Ikea to find a normal sized mug. Also French people apparently must not use conditioner, as thats quite hard to find.

My local shop is Lidl, which I am quite pleased about, they sell some interesting things that we can't get at home, like Nem (in the picture) and a bottle of Bordeaux red is 2, 5€. Buzzing.

It's the language thing that's the scary part. Hopefully after a few weeks I'll get used to having to speak in French, because the thing is, I think I'm actually ok at speaking it, it's when someone replies or asks me a question that I panic and don't know what they've said. Probably because I've done a lot of reading and typing in French, but had next to no experience actually speaking it. So in the moment I struggle to speak or have a conversation, because it's fast and new. It's also exhausting! Hopefully, though, that will improve while I'm here. Uni starts soon, which is terrifying but also good because I should be able to meet other Erasmus students. I'll probs write another blog post after I've started Uni, and have more to say about it!

À bientôt xxx

Photo gallery