Hi guys!
It has been a while but I have been extremely busy with all the stuff that's been happening here.
When I first arrived here the first week was really lonely. I was the only Finn and the only chemistry student from the exchange people. What are the odds for this? Anyhow when the intensive course for French started things started to get a bit better. I think we are now grouping really well with all the Erasmus people here and I think it's really nice :) we have been clubbing a couple of times and yesterday we went to see a big firework show. There are only 40 of us and I was really surprised with that. I think every year in my city there are more than a hundred exchange students. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I didn't expect stuff to be this difficult compeared to Finland! For example for the Internet they only accepted cheque for payment. I have never even SEEN one in my life! I think even my mother has never used one so it tells how long ago they vanished from Finland. So for the Internet: getting a student card for French bank account 2 weeks, opening a French bank account estimate of 2 weeks, getting a cheque book and finally giving 2 weeks for someone to put the Intenet stuff together for your room. Luckily I got the cheque from a friend so that I didn't have to wait.. But in my opinion this is really badly organized here.
Second thing is the courses. No one knows anything about any other course than he/she teaches. I have ran days around the campus asking people about which courses I can take and when will they start etc. In Finland we log in one site, find the course, click "join" and that's that. Here I have all the timetables printed and my next mission is to find my courses from there, compear them to each other and see if I can actually take the courses I chose. In here you have to attend the lectures so the system is again different than in Finland and I can't have overlapping courses. I don't need to wine but really.. is this the best system France can come up with?
After choosing the courses I have to find a secretary who sees my papers and gives me an amen on my choises. I think I should have done this last Friday but I don't still have all the papers needed for this. Sigh.
In Finland all exchange students have a "Kummi" person who helps them around and helps them finding courses and such (I'm going to do that when I go back to Finland!). Here in France, it's more like "you need to do this and this and this. Good luck". I think it's to differ the people who don't want to study from the ones who really want it. Lucky for me being the only student for chemistry has its perks: I'm everyones priority when it comes to helping. All teachers have been really helpfull about my course stuff and so on.
It was really a shock when I came to my home in here. It's a room with a sink, closet, bed and two chairs. The showers and kitchen are in the corridor. I'm wearing slippers in the shower just in care (paranoid). The first time I went to the kitchen a guy threw flour on me. Only buying a fridge was an adventure let alone trying to get your Internet connection working. I had to buy everything from blankets, pillows, forks and knives to carpets. For more than a week it was kinda hard to try to eat for I didn't have a fridge.
Now everything is ok though! I just need my student card and then I can buy my Imagine R card for the trains so that I can travel as much as I want. My place isn't exactly in Paris but 40min away from the 1st zone on the 5th zone. I think this is really good. I have also got to know a lot of nice people during this two weeks.
Tomorrow my classes start for real and I really have to start improving my French every day. Our French teacher told us to keep a diary in French so that we check new word every day and see how much we improve. I think I should start that also.
Also with my friends here we are planning a trip to Versailles and Disnay Land :P I so can't wait!
So if you are planning to coming to France: don't expect it to work. It's not so serious. Be prepared that everything is going to take some time and you just have to wait.
Take care. Bisous
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