A ketchup-catchup

I feel like I'm in a time machine at the moment. One that is speeding up time far too quickly for my liking....

So, what's happened?!

Well, I've been back to the UK for a week, exams have well and truly started, the ski season has re-started and snow is falling on Grenoble!! My battle with French bureaucracy has also finally finished, I have a job and I'm going back to la Plagne for Christmas! 

Going back home for a week at the end of October was a great breath of fresh air after the first tough 6 weeks of university out here. But it was also very difficult to leave again. After over a year of living away from the UK, I thought I was used to just spending a week here and there in the UK but oh no, how I was wrong! I've definitely missed the UK, the language and my home and as most French students go back to their family home over the weekend, I wish I could do the same occasionally. I love the independence that I have here (sometimes I even catch myself doing real adult things like food shopping and buying winter tyres for my car!) but some weeks I would pay a lot of money just to go home for a couple of days, have a big hug from my Mama and Papa and have some nice home-cooked food, which I haven't had to cook myself! Living here is proving to be exactly what I wanted but it's meant I'm at another crossroads and I'm not quite sure which road I'll take just yet. 

Doing adult things is another thing I have had to get used to. When you've grown up in a country, all the difficult stuff is done for you.. according to the government you exist, you normally have the nationality of that country so you're not an exception and things like national insurance numbers just come flying through the post at the appropriate times. The last 3 months have been a massive eye-opener for me and I feel like I've had an incredibly intensive and short course to living life as an adult. I've also learnt that parents put a lot of work for us kids, something we definitely don't appreciate until we fly the nest!
As with everything in France, everything is as complicated as it possible can be, meaning that when you finally get the answer you need, the feeling of relief and happiness is incredible! After 4 months of to-ing and fro-ing around various offices around Grenoble, I have fiiiinally got a numéro de sécurité sociale!! I actually cried when I walked out of the office clutching the piece of paper with my number on it, you know when you've been living in France for far too long when that happens..! My advice to anyone: keep banging on at people until they finally give you the required answer. They know the answer, you just have to ask the right question in order for them to give it to you.
I have also managed to sort my life out in terms of finally looking after someone(thing) else other than myself. Having a car is a great source of freedom but it also requires some degree of organisation and care! In the last 3 months, I've managed to sort out allll my paperwork, encounter my first ever break down and fit 4 winter tyres - a concept totally alien to us Brits who normally (!!) experience around 1 day's worth of snow a year! 

All too quickly, the ski season has also arrived and in style! After passing the test to get onto my formation, I have spent the last 2 weekends 'en formation' in Les 2 Alpes - which has been great for my skiing.. not so much for my exams though! Although I've moaned and moaned (and moaned) about having to get up at 6am for the last 2 weekends, I'm starting to realise how lucky am I. On Saturday morning, a friend and I drove up to 2 Alpes and due to the amount of snow that fell on Friday, the roads were still covered but by 9am we were on the pistes. It was cold and snowy but as the sun came out on Sunday, I realised how lucky am I to have this life and the experiences that I'm getting out of it are second to none. Through all the frustrations, the tears and the days when I really, really just want to go back to the UK, for now I'm glad I chose France over the UK.. hopefully that'll continue!!

This week is the last (official) week of the semester and I can't believe how quickly 3 months have passed. It seems like just last week that I spent my first night in my apartment (1st September) and that my Dad left me in this big, mountainous city to fend for myself. (5th September) I have learnt so much, in terms of French, Spanish and even a bit of English as well as how to actually live my life without the guidance of parents and other responsible adults! I've also learnt how to make my own decisions, whether that is a good thing or not I'm not too sure..! Next week I finish lessons and then it's off to la Plagne where experience #2493525 is going to start.. I'm looking forward to going back but a little apprehensive as to what I could experience, only time will tell!

Bisous, happy holidays everyone and hopefully I'll be back in the UK sooner than thought - watch this space!
xxxxx

PS. I've recently found out that my blog has been featured on Third Year Abroad - it's a great website for anyone preparing for their study abroad year or if you just want to find out more about living and studying abroad.. go check it out! 

My French home, la Plagne ♥

University, is it really worth £9000?

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Who said growing up was easy?

Choosing what you're going to do after school is a massive deal for anyone currently going through sixth form as teachers give endless pros and cons to this university and that university, this course and that course and the (seemingly small) figures of the possibility of getting a job at the end of spending £9000+ a year during 3/4 (plus the rest) years. 

I have come from a background where going to university is the norm. Had I turned round at the end of 13 years of education and said that I was considering 'sacking' off university, I think my parents probably would have despaired and wondered exactly where they had gone wrong. This isn't to say that by not going to university, you're going to end up working at McDonald's with very little prospects, on the contrary, I believe people with 'real world experience' actually can do a lot better than students who leave university with a 2:1 degree and absolutely no concept of a 9 - 5 working week but in my family, there was never any 'so what are you going to do after school?', it was more 'so which university are you going to go to?' 

However, the value of university education has been put to the test recently. I left school in the summer of 2011 and whilst applying for deferred entry to UK universities, the news came that the fees would be rising to £9000 as of 2012 - a.k.a the year I was planning on going to university. Suddenly, rather than choosing a university in a city that I liked and a course that I thought I would vaguely enjoy, I started to really think about the value of a degree and whether just doing a course that interested me would end up being worth the possible £50 000 of debt.

And it's not just the debt. Once you leave university, you then have to find a job and unless the economic climate increases tenfold in the next 3/4 years, it is still going to affect us as graduates. The increase in tuition fees and current situation have had a major impact on how sixth formers are now thinking in terms of university, with some deciding to go down the apprenticeship route, some deciding to look at options abroad and others deciding just to bite the bullet and experience 'the best 3 years of their life' regardless of the various pitfalls they may face in future years.

However, there isn't a right or wrong when it comes to choosing what you're going to do after school. In my final year, I found a lot of people were quite critical of me taking a gap year, especially in light of the fee hike that was going to hit me straight in the face. 'Do I, don't I?' was a recurring theme through the last few months and there were times that, thanks to peer pressure, I really doubted my decision. Things like 'if you take a gap year you're never going to get a job' and 'you'll never go back to education once you've had that taste of freedom' were constant reminders of how others felt about what I was doing. Looking back, I wish I had had the confidence in my own choice - a gap year turned out to be the best year of my life and although I considered taking another gap year or two, education pulled me back - travelling around the world is great but there are other hurdles I want to get over first. 

Apart from learning about different cultures, languages and people, a gap year also allows you to really consider what you want out of life and in turn, what you want out of university. I, personally, do not like making decisions. This was the same at GCSEs - I ended up taking 10, as I couldn't decide on 9, at A Level - I took the International Baccalaureate and did 7 subjects rather than the typical 3/4, and as for university, well I travelled around the world trying to find the answer. But in all fairness, it helped. A gap year meant I could book flights on a whim - one whim meant I ended up in Australia for 2 months - and it meant I could experience another life and not just the one my peers thought I should be pursuing. 

Half way through my gap year and I'd spent a good 4 months in France. And that was it. I was in love with languages. It sounds cheesy but I love how they work, how once you've conquered the basics you realise that languages are not at all connected - at school, you get endless vocabulary but ultimately you can't directly translate any of the words - the way a culture sees the weather, for example, is different to how another culture sees it and their use of language to describe what they see is totally unique. I was talking to a French man the other day and he said something really interesting: the way French and British people see things and use language to describe what they see is totally different. When a English-speaking person speaks French, it is not that you are just speaking a different language but you are also having to see the world in a completely different way. In English, we will describe what we see in its simplest form, whilst the French will interpret it and describe it in relation to how they feel. Even simple phrases such as 's'il vous plait' shows this - in English this literally translates as 'if it pleases you', I mean, can you ever imagine going into a shop and asking for a kilo of potatoes 'if it pleases you'. French is very much related to emotion, whilst English is a no-nonsense language. Learning languages is not just a educational experience but a cultural concept too. 

Arguably though, if you really want to learn languages, the best way is to go to the country and completely immerse yourself. You can learn endless bits of vocabulary and grammar but none of this helps unless you can actually use it in a real life situation. Recently, in a English class, we had a fill-in-the-blanks to do and we ended up talking about 'cubic meters of luggage' which according to my French prof is perfectly acceptable in the UK. I've obviously been living under a rock for the last 19 years of my life as I have never heard this phrase. Yes, it's perfectly acceptable on a grammar level and it makes sense if you think about it, but imagine turning up to a Ryanair desk at Luton airport and saying 'oh yes, I have 5 cubic meters of luggage, how much will that cost?' No. The check-in agent would laugh as much as the French check-in lady laughed at me when I tried to pronounce 'Haute-Savoie'. 

So in a round-about way and with several diversions, I feel this really underlines the question - is a university degree really worth £9000? In terms of Medicine and Law, perhaps yes. Both are notoriously difficult in your home country, let alone trying to learn it all in a different language or in a different culture. But for other degrees? Studying abroad could widen your perspectives and by taking up an apprenticeship you will have a much more practical knowledge base, rather than knowing just the theory. 

As with everything however, all 3 options have their pros and cons. Whilst a degree in the UK costs £9000, you will be following a well-trodden route and going for postgraduate jobs, you will be on an even playing field with your fellow peers - the only difference being how much work you all put in. Studying abroad is a cheaper option but it's treading out into the unknown. If you were to go back to the UK and look for postgraduate jobs, how will employers view your degree? Will you have to take an even more expensive Masters in the UK in order to validate your degree? At the same time, you'll probably be word-perfect fluent in at least one other language and have skills that the UK graduates don't possess. And as for an apprenticeship? You will have a foot in the door - most businesses take on apprentices who then work their way up through the company. But what if you get bored? Yes, you have the skills for the work that that company does, but how will another company who does similar work view you? Faced with a graduate at a job interview how will you fare? And what if you want to change course? Applying to a completely different company, how will they view your 3/4 A Levels and your wealth of business experience? But you do have experience and they can count on you to be a hard worker. An apprenticeship also means you avoid student debt, tuition fees and unlike your student friends, you actually have some cold, hard cash to burn. 

In the words of Steve Jobs, who was ultimately one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his generation, 'Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by the dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.'

And I couldn't agree more. Other people will always have more reasons than you for why you shouldn't do something, but who cares, as long as you are doing something you enjoy. This could include 10 gap years before finally settling down into university, going to some far flung country to complete your degree or deciding that that apprenticeship with McDonald's will really help your CV. Eventually you will be laughing your way to the bank. 

'Girls will be girls and boys will be boys'.. apparently.

Not a bad place to spend a Saturday morning...

They don't seem to keep to this rule in France though. Due to my surname being a very common boy's name and my first name being a rather unusual spelling of Roseanna, teachers and people in authority often refer to me as a boy. Great. Cue, therefore, their surprise when they call my surname, look for a boy, to see a tall, blonde English girl say 'yes, yes that's me...'

And this is exactly what happened yesterday. Yesterday I spent the morning and early afternoon skiing on the glacier of Tignes in order to pass a test, in order to access a 'formation' to become an 'initiateur'. Go figure. Basically I got up at 5am, got on a bus at 6am and by 9am, I was at 3000 odd metres ready to skiiiii! Not bad for 13th October! Being an 'initiateur' means that after the 'formation' I'll be able to take classes from the university and teach them how to ski, scary! Yesterday consisted of one piste of big turns, followed by a piste of small turns and then at the end of the day we were told if we had passed or not.. and surprise, surprise, I passed! So that means I now have a 5 day course over half term (which is in 2 weeks!) and then hopefully I'll be able officially qualified to take people out on lessons! Only downside is it means I'm probably not coming back to the UK until April 2013, as I'm working (hopefully!) in la Plagne over Christmas, followed by skiing in February half-term, but hey, I guess we'll just see how it goes!

Yesterday just proved to me however, how I think I made the right choice. Yes I could be in England, getting a degree which is much more recognised in the UK but being here means I can speak (nearly!) word perfect French, I can communicate with all and every French person I meet, I can ski at the weekend and I'm surrounded by some of the most amazing scenery that I would never, ever be able to see in the UK. Studying abroad is a scary prospect but the opportunities you will get are unique and although you may be diving into a pool of the unknown, from my point of view it's an amazing experience. Even through the tears, the frustrations and the homesickness I've had over the past year whilst living in France I wouldn't ever go back to the UK and take up my place at Leeds. (Although I really, really regret never being able to live in such an awesome city or experience the all year drinking fest which is Freshers!!)

For now though I have to go back to the real world and finish my French economic notes.. wahoo. Hope everyone's keeping well!

Bisous xxx

A rainbow above campus on a Wednesday morning! 

C'est la vie!

And that's that! In what seems like 2 minutes, I've finally completed the first 2 weeks of French university! And what a learning curve it has been.. I've learnt how to sit through 2 hour lectures on economics and law in my second language, I've learnt how to speak Spanish (again) and I've learnt that English is actually not very easy! I've also got a new car, bought a full length mirror (I'm wayyyy too vain!) and managed to spill pasta ALL over my apartment!

All in all though, things are going really well. I'm currently going through a bit of a reminiscing stage as it is exactly a year (a year tomorrow actually!!) that I packed my bags and jumped on a train to Paris to start the most incredible months of my life. Paris then took me back to London and from London I took a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and out onto Melbourne, Australia. I spent 7 amazing weeks on the east coast of Australia, driving up in a little, beaten up blue Mazda, covering a distance of 6000km. From there, I went back to England (boo, hiss!), spent 10 days in England before catching a flight out to France, to spend a ski season looking after kids and working as a 'fille au pair'. Fast forward 5 and a bit months and on the 10th May 2012, I found myself finally coming home on a plane to the rainy Midlands. 3 weeks sped by before I headed off my next adventure - this time interrailing around Eastern Europe. After doing an all-nighter, we finally arrived in Bulgaria, before heading to Serbia, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and finally to Germany and back 'home' to France. I then spent the final 2 months of summer back in my mountain home in la Plagne, 'working' before heading for a week to get all my stuff in order to then come to university. Ooft! So I guess that makes 5 weeks spent in England in the last year and the rest spent travelling around the world? Not bad really, although if you look at my bank account, I'm not sure it'll agree! And of course the best part, my parents spent the grand total of £100 on it all - all the rest was a product of my own hard work..!

It is amazing to think about how much things have changed though. When I left for Australia I was in a very different position, personally, mentally, everything. If you'd told me last year how I would be this year, I would have laughed and perhaps considered what I was doing. Although this has been the best year of my life, I feel I have lost some people who were (and are - although they don't seem to feel the same) the most important people in my life. But hey, I guess that's part of growing up and moving on, I guess my time to move on will come at some stage! On a more positive note though, I feel like I have developed as a person (so cheesy!) and I'm so much more independent than I ever was when I was at school. I also know what I want out of life and where I want to be, regardless of whether other people think it's the 'right thing' to do or not.

Work, work, glorious work. Anyone fancy a translation from their third language to their second language? 

But yeah, back to the present. I have finally started lessons and although doing everything in either my second or third language is a tad bizarre, I'm really enjoying it! I've also made lots of friends (which is always a bonus!) so I'm not yet regretting my decision to move over here permanently. The weather is also much better which is a serious advantage! Temperatures still get to the mid 20s during the day and although snow is starting to fall on the mountains that surround Grenoble, it definitely doesn't rain as much here as at home! (although we had a storm the other morning when I was on my way to school, thunder and lightning and everything!) I've also learnt that French students are very much fair weather students. If it rains, it probably means about half of the year will come to lectures so I should probably discourage them from going to the UK for their year abroad!

I have also decided what I'm going to take as my optional module...... - skiing! That's right, I am going to have some of my university grade devoted to my skiing ability.. beaut! I have actually signed up for the ski instructor course so it means I get a qualification at the end and all. Then my grade is produced at the end of the ski instructor course. They seem to mark things like commitment, lesson planning, development etc etc so I think it will be quite interesting to see how it goes and whether it'll actually be quite easy to get a good mark or not. I feel like a bit of a cop out doing skiing, while most of my friends are studying Russian, German, Croatian etc but it's easier for me - I do my whole module in 4 days, so while everyone else has 2 hours extra of lessons each week, I finish the whole thing in the first 4 days of the October half term. This does, however, mean I may not be coming home in October, but it was too good an opportunity to miss. I have also learnt that I have a job back in the village de vacances that I lived in this winter which is SO cool, but it also means I won't be coming home at Christmas either. So I guess the next time I'll be heading back to the UK will be around April time.. bizarre, but hey c'est la vie!

Grenobloise campus.. beaaaaautiful.

I think that's all for now, after a 3 hour nap this afternoon (thanks to a rather late night last night) I think I should probably get up and do something with my life i.e. attack the piiiiles of work I have or cook myself some food.. hard choice. On second thoughts, perhaps I'll just stay in bed.

Bisous, xxx

"Freshers' week"

By some miracle I seem to have completed my first 'week' at Stendhal! And by some other miracle I have understood everything that has gone on - success! (well I don't really get what I'm supposed to be doing for inscription pedagogique (registration part II where I have to go tell the university exactly what exams I'm supposed to be sitting..) but neither do any of the French I was sitting with, so guess we're all in the same boat) And by some other, even bigger miracle I have made some friends, French and everything!! :D

Week 1 (actually half a week as I only started on Wednesday) has actually been quite interesting! I now understand what I'm supposed to be doing and all my courses seem to be quite interesting so all is heading in the right direction. Friday was the forum des options, otherwise known as..well I don't actually know the word in English..a forum of options? Basically it's where we had lectures and stuff running throughout the day and we picked which ones we went to, then they told us more about the option then when we do inscription pedagogique next week, we should have picked one of them. Simples! At the moment it looks like the one I'm going towards more aimed at teaching students but it should help me improve my shoddy French writing. Failing that, I want to pick German back up again, but maybe 4 languages is 1 language too far?

University in France is *so far* what I have expected. Lots of paperwork, lots of students (there seems to be a good 300 who do LEA in my year), lots of pressure but for now I'm happy I chose here over going back to the UK.
As expected however, the university culture is very, very different to that in the UK.

In the UK....
- Freshers' week and an all year first year drinking fest. Freshers' week is very much a rite of passage at universities in the UK and first year seems to normally consist of partying for the majority of the week and then turning up to the odd lecture hungover and very tired.
- Associations/sport teams. As with school, there are sport teams galore and associations for everything and anything you could possibly want an association for. Socials again tend to revolve round drinking and putting poor freshers through the worst initiation the second/third years could think of.
- Accommodation. Almost everyone lives in halls in first year and then move onto houses for second year.
- Contact time. As long as you're not doing medicine, it seems to me that there isn't much contact time as far as UK university is involved which can be great!
- Getting far away from home as possible. In the UK, most people will choose a university that is as far away as possible from where they come from. Once you leave for university in September, you'll be back for Christmas and that's about it.

In France...
- Fresher's week definitely doesn't even feature on the agenda. We have semaine d'intégration with some evening events but I'm afraid 'funky-rentrée-crepes' doesn't quite compare to UK Freshers. As for an all year drinking fest? Only 1 in 3 students will go into second year out of my current year, so there's a little more pressure to work..!
- Associations/sport teams. In terms of hockey/netball etc they don't really understand them here. So in Grenoble we'll have to settle for the best (and just about only) sport association - Ecole de Glisse - SKIING! :D Socials again don't really feature on the agenda except small soirées organised amongst the students. And as for Varsity? Inter-university sport? Haha jog on!
- Accommodation. We have the equivalent of halls - which here are called 'residences' but as far as I've heard they're not really buzzing and they're pretty old and horrible. So we also have residences étudiantes which are private and quite expensive (and very impersonal!), then we have the good old appartment, where most people share ('colocation') or live by themselves.
- Contact time. It's basically like school. For my first year I have 23h of lectures/lessons etc etc not including 'personal work'. Next year I have 25h and the following year I have 21h! Gulp!
- Staying as close to home as possible. Most of my French friends go home every weekend, with the exception of people who come to Grenoble from all over France to do a licence called 'Droit-langues' i.e. Law-languages. Grenoble is more a place to live during the week, then at weekends they go back home, their mums do their washing, cook their week's food then they come back for Monday-Friday.

I have to admit, I've painted French university as a bit of a bore but it couldn't be further from the truth. There are certainly some crazy parties* and although I do feel I might have missed out big time on UK Freshers, I think France may well make up for the deficit at some point.

* In terms of crazy parties.. the trams here stop at 1am every night and restart at 5am. So if you want to go out? You head out at about midnight then catch the early morning tram back home. You then take a shower, get ready and head out to university. Sorted!

For now though, tonight I'm going out with inteGRE, the international students' association and tomorrow night there is a big student party at one of the pubs in town. Hopefully my insurance on my car will also get sorted this week too, so by the end of the week I shall have full independence! I even have a bike here, which is older than me and every time I go to unlock it, the front wheel falls off.. safe to ride? I think not, but as long as I keep the wheel on the ground it seems fine, haha. Finally, this week draws to a close all the tiring paperwork (I hope!) in France, WAHOO!!!! On Thursday I have inscription pedagogique and yesterday I applied for CAF, meaning that I should get lots of help for paying my rent.. result! Finally, my phone contract just needs to arrive and then we're sorted for the start of the semester on Monday.

It's been a long time coming (all of 2 weeks) but I definitely feel like I'm settling down in France. I now have documents coming out of my ears proving I'm resident here and with my carte étudiante I can basically do anything. En plus, it took me all of 20 minutes to fill out the application to CAF and get it sent off - imagine the look on the secretary's face as I produced a photocopy of my EHIC card, a photocopy of proof of address and the proper certificate of me being at Stendhal all in the space of a minute.. BOOM.

That's all for now, here comes the start of term...!

Bisous xxx

Not a bad view really?!

Et ça, c'est fait !

And so c'est officiel, je suis une étudiante à Université Stendhal Grenoble III. And thank God for that!!

Inscription, surprisingly, was a very pain free process - I ended up saving money - top tip: get yourself an EHIC card before coming to France, that for now, will count as your social security. You will need a mutelle on top (I think!!) but it'll save you a normally compulsory 220€!! I also avoided doing the 'obligatory' English test and spent just an hour in the hour and a half Spanish test. All in all, inscription was done within 4 hours so success!

Having inscrired (that's Franglais for you..) in university I am slowly working my way through my list of adminstration which is making sloooow progress but progress nonetheless. I am slowly starting to (maybe) figure my way round this complicated French system, wahoo! My flat is looking perfect, my electricity is not going to cut itself off anytime soon, I have a purpose to my life here, university is looking fairly straightforward (I still need to do inscription part II....) and my only problem at the moment is the slight lack of internet which is driving me to distraction but hey, you can't have everything!

Tonight I am meeting up with some people from inteGRE which is the foreign students' association which includes ERASMUS students and all so might be a good evening, I'll certainly be able to compare notes with everyone else and how they're getting on with the French system so far! Once I have my internet I might do some more interesting blogs but for now this will have to do!

Bisous xxx

Moving in day!

So today was the big day - the day I finally saw my appart for the first time and the day I officially began living by myself!

For most language assistants/ERASMUS students, accommodation seems to be the main problem. I, for one, was keen to avoid this problem and therefore all my appart hunting via the internet - which is handy if you then intend on viewing the property.. I, however, didn't. It was well and truly online house hunting! Of course, there were worries about it being not finished etc etc but DADAHHHHH, here is my beautiful new flat!!!!:

In my opinion, my gamble has definitely paid off! Arguably, there are always going to be better flats available if you have the time to search yourself. For me, a 'spacious' 20m2 slap bang in between Grenoble centre ville and campus universitaire will do for the timebeing! I even have brand new furniture as the builders only just moved out yesterday - that's right, my flat is 1 day old today! Not to mention, I haven't spent the week tearing my hair out over flat searching (just over a multitude of other things instead..!)

In terms of adminstration, flats in France are as complicated as everything else, which is great news for us foreigners..!! There's the guarantor who must live in France, the electricity, the house insurance and my current problem - the internet! For the guarantor, some landlords ask that you have someone who lives in France who will pay your rent if you default on it. Unless you have family here, you can't really walk up to any random stranger and ask them to be your guarantor so hello problem number 1. For my residence, I have had to pay 5 months in advance - something my French friends tell me is illegal in France but hey it keeps my landlord happy and I'm going to have to pay 5 months rent in, well, 5 months! House insurance is also obligatory - ask at your bank when you arrive, sometimes they'll provide that for not much extra a month! After all the nitty gritty which is generally (!!!!) the same as the UK, you have a contract and congratulations you can move in!

I then thought it would be easy - move my stuff in and live there. Oh how I was wrong! Upon arrival today I have been told I now need to call Gas and Electricité Grenoble with a number that is on my fuse box for them to keep my electricity on. If I don't call them, my electricity will be cut. Oh joys. After that there is wifi to sort. Again an easy problem to solve if you have a French mobile number.. buuut no French mobile number = no wifi.. no wifi = no way of ordering my French sim off the internet.. to make things even more complicated no French number = no way of ordering stuff off the internet = no French sim... ahhhhh.

Tonight is my first night in my own flat, sans internet, eeeeek! I then have final inscription on Monday and the first international student evening out on Tuesday.. followed by hockey on Wednesday! So exciting! Hopefully by next week I'll be totally sorted by wifi and university then it's onto social security and housing benefit..!

Life here is definitely starting to fall together, just a few more pieces of paper to fill in before it's all done! :D

Bisous xxx