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.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Probably not the best camera for tourism. Source: Google Images / http://www.antiquecameras.net/ |
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...If you're sat on a fold-down seat on the metro, and your carriage fills up: stand, or suffer the eye daggers.
...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.
...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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
Vicky xx
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