So tomorrow it will be 4 weeks since I moved to France and I thought I'd use this blog to reflect on my first month of experiences; due to the fact I spent most of this week asleep or working I think it would make for a more interesting read.
In this past month I have faced so many challenges and have been pushed beyond the realms of my comfort zone. At first even small things such as buying metro tickets or stamps seemed so daunting but soon they became part of day to day life and got easier each time as I grew in confidence, which is a good job really because if I'd been defeated by buying metro tickets then I'd still be stood with my suitcase in Gare du Nord.
One of the things that worried me most before moving was how I would cope living in such a huge city, I'm a massive fan of fields and farms at heart. But I have suprised myself by absolutely loving it, I love the liveliness of it all, how there's always something going on and the craziness of everyday life. I had also worried about feeling on my own, but once again I found myself loving being able to explore somewhere on my own and form my own opinions about a new place.
In terms of my French I hope it's improving! Each day at work the weird questions that people come and ask get easier to understand but no less strange! The standard 'here's your room key and all the information about the hostel' speech is ingrained in my head in 3 languages and I could pretty much deliver it standing on my head (if I could stand on my head or if standing on your head was socially acceptable in the workplace). The rocky relationship between myself and the work telephone is improving, I no longer fear for my life when picking it up and manage to deal with most phone calls without having to reach for a bottle of Franprix's finest 2 euro wine. I've found people rather tolerant of my attempts to speak French, I think being in Paris helps as you can always rest assured that there's a lot of people who speak a lot worse French than you.
The past month has gone so fast but at the same time I've done so much and feel like I've lived here forever. I'm beginning to feel really at home here and have decided that I definitely want to come back to work at some point in the future if the opportunity arises.
At times I have felt homesick and it's strange what brings it on, I miss things I didn't think I would. The other day I felt homesick because I really missed pie and gravy. I miss the way English roads look and I definitely miss the countryside and my dog. Oh and my family and friends of course. But that aside it's completely overridden by how much I am enjoying myself here and I already feel like come December I'm not going to want to leave.
I'll finish this blog with a list of things I've learnt in the past month:
1. To an English person; the French greeting will always feel a bit awkward, I guess we're just not cut out to kiss random strangers on first meeting.
2. The most interesting experiences of your life will happen on public transport; namely the metro.
3. It's worth moving to France for the selection of amazingly good and amazingly cheap wine.
4. The British are terrible tourists, the Americans are worse.
5. When feeling homesick, the sparkling Eiffel Tower tends to put things into perspective
6. I have tried Blue Beef, Moules and eaten a lot of fish. I'm a convert to French Cuisine.
7. Having the same CD on at work for a month causes strange French songs to appear in your dreams.
8. I really miss gravy.
9. Being a tourist is good fun, until you want to do something normal and tourists get in your way.
10. I flippin love Paris.
O Becky. You're all grown up :-D
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