Je parti Paris; je vol à Chine.

I've been back home for just over one week now and although I have actually posted twice since then, I've only just realised that I should probably post about my last few days in Paris before coming home!

On the Tuesday of my last week, I had to wait in all day, because I elected to send two suitcases home by way of www.sendmybag.com ... I'd recommend this company, if you're ever in a similar situation. It wasn't expensive, and my bags beat me home, so it was very convenient. Luckily, it was also a boiling hot day, and it wasn't really a hardship to stretch out on the balcony with a cocktail and an ice cream or two. 

I had thought that I would take the few days after that and cram them full of things, but I actually found that I had done 98% of what I wanted to do already, and so I was free to chill a bit, which I needed more than I realised. This year has been exhausting!

I ran some errands - got my confirmation of departure form signed at Assas, closed my bank account and the like - but Wednesday consisted mainly of a long period sat in the sunshine in the Jardin du Luxembourg - again, no great hardship on my part!

Thursday - Parisa and I began cleaning our apartment from top to bottom in preparation from.moving out, and I went to Notre Dame one last time, mainly to light a candle for a recent family loss, but while I was there I finally stumbled across Kilometre Zero, which I had looked for and failed to find on every. single. prior visit, so that was an unexpected bonus.

Oh, and I finally got to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night - cutting it mighty fine, I grant you, but at least I did it!

Then came Saturday morning. I headed for the airport bright and early, immensely thankful that the French Air Traffic Controllers strike was called off early, and feeling a little bit sorry for myself...

I mean this is ten months of my life we're talking about here! It went so fast, and although it was a real mountain at times, I made it to the top and I loved it. So yes, I was a little bit sorry to be leaving, although it was lovely to be back in Blighty with my family, and just in time for my younger brother's 17th birthday.

That's it! My year in Paris is up - but my year abroad isn't quite over yet! Before I will count myself as officially "ex-erasmus", I'm jetting off to Chengdu, in the Szechuan Province of China to spend a month there, working at a law firm during the week and exploring in my free time!

Now, the furthest east I have ever been before is probably Poland, so this should be a real experience...

I leave tomorrow (ahhhhhh!) so this will be my last post for July, but I'll resume posting in August to finish my year abroad blog off properly.

Vicky xx

Au Revoir et Erasmus: Les faits et la fiction

Okay, so I'm now officially an Erasmus veteran and here to provide you with the lowdown.

These are things I wish I had known, and other tips for surviving your year abroad, mostly based on Paris, seeing as that's where I lived. 

Source: Google Images / commons.wikimedia.org

Some Basic Parisian Truths...

...Monoprix is more expensive than Franprix. If you buy lots of vegetables, find a decent market.

...Pretty much everything closes down on Sundays and Mondays. And the rest of the time, they just open when they feel like it. 

Paris on a Sunday. I know, you wouldn't recognise it would you?
Source: Google Images / bbc.co.uk

...If you're using the metro, particularly, in my experience, if you are going through Châtelet or Place d'Italie, you will wish that you had some hand sanitizer handy.

...If you are approached in the street by a small army of people from Eastern Europe thrusting a petition in your face, don't stop to sign it. Often, it's a scam to make you easier to pickpocket. Ditto, on the steps leading up to Sacré Cœur, with men who try to put thread on you and 'sell' you a 'friendship bracelet'.

...When in restaurants, don't order water off the menu. Ask for a carafe d'eau, and you'll get tap water, which costs 100% less.

...Don't go walking around with your eyes shut. Look up, look down, look all around... (anyone else remember that kid's show, where the woman had a spotty aeroplane and a dog?) Paris is Instagram's darling.

Probably not the best camera for tourism.
Source: Google Images / http://www.antiquecameras.net/

.
...If you're sat on a fold-down seat on the metro, and your carriage fills up: stand, or suffer the eye daggers.

...Once you've had a croissant fresh from the patisserie on a regular basis, Sainsbury's croissants will never taste quite the same again.

...French people appear to love UHT milk. It's everywhere. If you're a good brit, you'd never dream of putting such stuff in your tea, so you'll pay extra for the fresh stuff. 

...A lot of French clubs are what I would describe as 'armpitty' and the guys can get gropey (and not just in clubs. I can count at least two occasions where someone's tried his luck with me, once outside a metro station, and once by Porte Guillaume in Dijon - it's not nice, but you're usually ok if you keep your wits about you).

...Watch where you walk. Parisians are not fond of clearing up after their dogs. 

...Efficiency is not a word in the French language. Bureaucracy is. 

France. Where Red Tape abounds.
Source: Google Images / diginomica.com

And the Practical Stuff: 

Open your bank account as soon as you possibly can. You need a bank account to apply for CAF, to get a Carte Imagine R, to pay your rent etc. I went with Banque Populaire, and they were fine, quite helpful in setting everything up etc. etc. Most people I know went with BNP Paribas, and they sounded okay as well

TIP: It's worth knowing that if you have a UK account with Barclays, it won't cost you to withdraw money from a BNP Paribas atm with that card.

While we're on the subject of money, SAVE UP LOTS OF MONEY IN ADVANCE.  Paris is expensive - more expensive than London. Even with the Student Loan and the Erasmus Grant, the money I saved up just wasn't enough, not even close, and the result was that several times this year I have found myself living on the absolute barest of budgets, which does tend to take the fun out of things a bit, because if there's something no one likes to worry about, it's money.

Source: Google Images / 4vector.com

Carte ImagineR (the student version of a Navigo card). Most people will need one. That's a fact. The students who came to Assas from Oxford were all living at Cité Universitaire, and several of them told me that they would never have got by without it, because they needed to get the metro everywhere. That said, some people can cope by buying thousands of carnets - books of ten tickets. That was what I did, because I lived a lot closer to the centre of Paris, only needed to use the metro once or twice a week and walked everywhere else, which meant that the Navigo would have ended up costing me more. I think that's because you pay a fixed monthly sum - if it was more like the Oyster card, which works on a top-up basis, I probably would have shelled out for one. But each to their own. (http://www.imagine-r.com/)

Mobile phone - it makes so much sense to get one. You could survive on your english phone, but you'll either be tied to the wifi, meaning whatsapp and viber don't actually work for 80% of the time, or you'll end up paying an eye watering phone bill. Also, if your erasmus friends have all got french phones, but you're working on your english phone, you're costing them a fortune too. I took a spare, and it did make life easier. 

As far as network is concerned, I used this company - http://www.lefrenchmobile.com/ - because it's designed for people who are in France relatively short term, and because their PAYG credit doesn't expire, which it does on most other French networks. Also, their customer service is in English, which I know kind of defeats the object, but it does make life easier when you've been in France a matter of hours and you're having technical difficulties (trust me). My friends all did this instead, largely because its cheap - http://mobile.free.fr/

TIP: Learn from my mistake, and make sure your handset is unlocked before you try to put your french sim in it. D'oh!

Source: Goodle Images / simpleicon.com

Language. Do not, under any circumstances, beat yourself up when it's just not coming to you. The first thing I'd say on this topic, is that it varies for everybody, but took me a good three months before I really settled in and the language barrier stopped freaking me out so much. 

The second thing I would say on this is, be realistic. Unless you're super close to that stage already, it's unlikely that you're going to leave your year abroad completely fluent in your chosen language. That would be lovely,and I wish I had left my year abroad able to jabber away in French like a native - but you will inevitably end up speaking English much more than you should. It's an easy trap to fall into - In France, for instance, people often take the opportunity to practice their English with you, when it should be the other way around, and all of my new friends are English. You'd have to be an absolute saint to somehow manage 100% immersion and spend all of your time speaking french with your french friends. I don't mean to rain on your parade - you will improve by leaps and bounds, but it takes work.

Source: Google Images / frencheducation.com

If, like me, you are an iPhone, or other battery-glugging smartphone over, and you are reliant on said smartphone for your camera, and you take millions of photos on said camera, then I highly, highly highly recommend you buy a remote charger thing (if thing is not descriptive enough for you, you can see what I'm talking about here). When I went to Dijon back in May, I was taking the odd snap out of the window from the train, and texting the odd person, and my batter was down to 67% an hour before I even got to Dijon. You don't want to be that person who finishes their year abroad with no photos and no record of it because your phone was always dead, you really don't. 

French attempts at English Tea Bags lead to 'tea' that reminds me vaguely of dirty dish water. It's gross. If you love your tea, stop into Asda, or wherever, and stock up on your Tetley. You won't regret it. Ditto Marmite, and anything you know you'll miss. Sometimes when you get homesick, something British will do wonders. Marks and Spencer's also comes in handy on this front. There are 3 in Paris alone. 

Source: Google Images / theguardian.com

Last, but not least...

• FOLLOW @thirdyearabroad ON TWITTER. And if you haven't already found their website, http://www.thirdyearabroad.com/ bookmark it.... now... right now? Done? If you follow their twitter, at the very least, you'll realise that you're not alone when things are going wrong. You'll get more from it than that though - survival tips, erasmus and language news, travel ideas from people who live in other cities, and so much more. You don't need me to tell you - go check it out!

If you're going on a year abroad, particularly to Paris, I hope you find this helpful, and bon courage!

Vicky xx

Une liste: la partie finale!

Fin. Finished. End. Caput. No more. 

My time in Paris is at an end! Ten months down the line, my year abroad is drawing to a close (but is not ended just yet, for reasons I shall mention at the end of this post...). I packed up my bags and left my lovely apartment for the last time on Saturday just gone, and now I am temporarily (again, see end of this post) back in Blighty and getting all reminiscent. I tried to do a 'Paris in numbers' post, but it would have been boring, because I couldn't put an actual number on most of the things I came up with, and it would have gone something like this: "Many, many crêpes, Many more croissants, Even more carnets for the Metro..."

Which is boring. 

Instead, I've finally been through and updated my 'Paris things to do/bucket list', crossing off everything I managed to get done in my final few weeks in the French capital. 

Voilà.

1. Visit the Versailles Palace

2. Go to Notre Dame Cathedral

3. Visit Les Catacombs

4. Indulge in la cuisine, including croissants, macaroons, snails, frogs legs, seafood, and everything else French and/or Parisian. (On the seafood side of things, La Bar a Huitres is the place that I went for my birthday, and it really was delicious. There's several of them in Paris - I went to the one in Montparnasse. They've got a menu that ranges from massive seafood platters costing a few hundreds of euros, to a nice fixed menu for 44 euros, which was much better for my poor student budget)

5. Go to see the Pantheon

6. Spend time in La Jardin du Luxembourg

The next three I didn't do, and I always knew I wouldn't actually be able to do them this year - the first and second because I'm elsewhere at the time they happen; the third because I spent it at home. But I'm keeping them on my list because they're three things which really ought to be done in Paris, and though I won't be doing them this year, I'll be making sure to do them at some point!

7. View the Bastille Day Parade

8. Finale of the Tour de France

9. Spend NYE in Paris

10. Go to the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa! I have well and truly done the Louvre. I think I went there at least six times, covering pretty much every wing they've got in that place, and it's massive. To people going to the Louvre - see the Mona Lisa if you want, although she's pretty underwhelming, but make sure to do Napoleon's apartments too, in the Richelieu wing.

11. Go to Disneyland Paris. Disclaimer: I've actually been here before, so I count it as done. I wasn't going to include it on my list at all, but my "little" (he's 16) brother insisted that I include it, which was blatantly a not very subtle hint that I should take him.

12. Go to Sacré Coeur.

13. Stroll down the Champs-Élysées, and end up in the Place de la Concord

14. Rue Mouffetard - home of my favourite place to get a crêpe, Au P'tit Grec.

15. Go to the Palais Garnier

16. Visit Monet's garden at Giverny - I tried to do this, but on the metro heading to the train station realised that I would leave myself properly, PROPERLY skint if I went, which didn't seem wise.

17. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower AND go see the Eiffel Tower at night

18. Visit at least 3 other European Countries. I did manage to visit Berlin in Germany, and I was intending to go to Brussels, but I just couldn't afford it, so sadly, this didn't going to happen.

19. Go to the Christmas Market in Strasbourg

20. Spend the day at Parc Asterix :) - another one for which I ran out of time and money!

21. Go to Bercy Shopping Village - because, really, what's Paris without some retail therapy?

22. Les Invalides

23. Moulin Rouge - It costs a fortune to actually see a show, but I've seen the outside and that will do for now!

24. Spend a few days on the South Coast and maybe in Monaco - this was another one that ended up being unrealistic.

25. La Marais and Place des Vosges

26. La Conciergerie

27. Visit St- Sulpice

28. Go to the roof at Galleries Lafayette - incidentally, I really loved the interior of this store. It's gorgeous!

29. Go the Musée de l'Orangerie

30. Go over to the Arc de Triomphe

31. Visit some other French Towns. I've been to Strasbourg (see no. 19 on the list) and also to Dijon.

32. Go for a walk along the Canal St Martin

33. Bois du Boulogne

34. See some jazz of some kind while I'm here!

35. Visit Le Château de Fontainebleau

36. Go to Musee d'Orsay

37. See an exhibition at the Grand Palais - Parisa and I went to see the Cartier exhibition back in January.

38. Go to Musee Marmottan.

39. Go to the French Open

40. Take a photo of Kilometre Zero, which is right outside Notre Dame (Km Zero is the point to which distances are measured to in Paris)

41. Find the most famous graves at Père Lachaise cemetery. (In case you're wondering, Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde are just two of several famous names buried there)

42. Parc des Buttes Chaumont

43. Visit La Sainte-Chapelle

44. Browse the shelves at the bookshop, Shakespeare and Co

30 out of 44 things done. Not bad, even if I do say so myself. I'll be adding everything I didn't do to my mainstream bucket list, which I keep in the back of my journal. I'll cross everything off of it at some point, be it next year or in the next ten!

The next part of my year abroad is completely un-Erasmus related and it is all down to a company called Projects Abroad - http://www.projects-abroad.co.uk/ - who offer lots of volunteering projects in countries all over the world. I remembered them all the way back from the Gap Year fair at my Sixth Form College, and now I'm finally off on my Project, having got here rather in a rather convoluted fashion.

I'm going to be working for a month in a law firm in Chengdu, China, which is super exciting, and I'm jetting off again in about a week - so watch this space!

Vicky xx