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Soo everyone failed to mention the ladybird nest to me.. spent my morning catching dozens of these little dudes #ladybirds #spots #nest #nature

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#pancaketuesday #crêpes #pancakes #french #france #lyon #pancakeparty 🇫🇷

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Do you regret your year abroad?

I sat down ready to write a bit more about what to do in Lyon and generally about Lyon as a city, rather than Lyon as the host of my year abroad. I was determined that after Christmas I would come back with a better attitude, ready to embrace the French (language and people), the city, the experience… How has that been going for me? Well.

  I think it took me so long to start writing about this because I knew I would have to address the horrendous situation we ended up in with our French coloc, and talking (or writing) about it would inevitably dig up all the anger and bad feeling again. But I think it’s been long enough that I can do it, and probably SHOULD do it.

  Before Christmas we (my English housemate and I) found out that our French coloc had been asking us for money for bills that were actually included in the rent. When confronted she flat-out denied it, but she never produced any bills so we stopped giving her money. (That felt like a mini-victory in itself; I don’t know if it’s a British thing or if it’s just me, but it was so tempting just to hand over the money for the sake of a better atmosphere in the apartment.)

  In January she finally spoke to us about it (the night before a history of law exam that actually got cancelled the morning it was due to take place) and basically admitted what she had done, without any apology or shame. She said it was because her former housemates (who were idiots, I’ve met them) didn’t contribute when we received the surplus from the included bills at the end of the previous year and she didn’t want it to happen to her again when we’d returned to the UK. Her concerns may have been perfectly valid but she had gone about it the wrong way entirely. It came to a head the following weekend when we came home late, drunk & noisy, and such a horrible argument ensued that I finally took everyone’s advice to “be the bigger person” and sent her an email (so that nothing would get lost in translation) to sort it out. A few days later she offered a compromise on the bills situation. Now it’s completely sorted, for my part anyway, and it’s been a huge weight off my shoulders. It was definitely the low point of the year abroad but I guess the only way to go from there is up.

  And so with that attitude, semester 2 began! I’ve realised now that I probably won’t go home speaking fluent French, or even to a particularly high standard, and I can’t deny that was my main aim of a year abroad. But there’s still a lot that I’ll take away from it. My Mexican friend Flora came to Lyon 2 to take her whole degree but hasn’t settled in Lyon any better than I have (despite being half French & fluent) and is missing home so much that she’s decided to go  back early. When she told me this (heartbreaking!) news, she asked me if I regretted coming to Lyon. And I could honestly answer that I don’t.

  I haven’t made too many French friends & I miss the ones back home terribly. I never found a future French husband & actually ended up together with someone back in Manchester. I don’t speak French fluently & I don’t even like France that much. At worst, it drives me mad, and at best it amuses me. But I don’t regret it at all.

  My written French & ability to read it have come on tenfold. I’ve realised I still care enough about learning the language to put off applying for jobs after university and plan another gap year, somewhere smaller, to give it another go. I met Flora who I know is a friend for life and we’re jetting off to Milan next weekend as a final hurrah before she leaves. 8 more months and I go back to Manchester, to the apartment I’ve just found with my best friend there, to finally have a nice house AND a nice housemate (at the same time!), to the boy who’s put up with long distance and flights back and forth to France and the constant fear that I might just elope with a French boy, to wild nights out where everyone is smashed and stumbling home with kebabs and chips on the £2 night bus. It’s given me so much perspective: being a law student in England means you’re barely in your second year before you have to think about applying for training contracts, choosing at 19 what you want to do for the rest of your life and where you want to do it, always thinking first to building a CV and second to what actually interests you. I’ve taken a step back, thought about these big decisions carefully and realised at 20 I’m still not ready to make them. A gap year after I graduate means I have a year now to think about these things and will be 21 when I finally start applying for where I want to work. With law, once you’re in, you’re in. Gap years are no longer an option. I watched my sister leave her boyfriend behind when she was 21 to spend a summer in Vancouver, and my brother leave his 1st in management to spend 2 years in Venezuela. My sister is now married to that boyfriend and my brother is an assistant manager in London.

  These are things I want to experience. I want to be a lawyer some day too. But it’s okay to have more than one dream. You can always come back.

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It is literally nighttime and I'm going to class #frenchuni #lyon3 #lyon #sleepy

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A British moment in Lyon

So last week I got on the metro on my way to university and it was surprisingly empty so I bagged a seat right away. Such was my haste that I say down on the end of the lady beside me's coat and didn't notice until she tried to prise it free. I immediately said pardon and had barely said it before regretting it as usually any form of politeness such as holding doors, letting people past, even saying excusez-moi are ignored in France but she surprised me by replying, "Non c'était moi, je suis désolée!" It wasn't much but it kind of made my day :)

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Is it spring already?! #lyon #france #weather #spring

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First tram home #6am #bedtime #lyon #france

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French toilet graffiti sucks #france #lyon #lyon3 #political #thirdyearabroad

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Pourquoi...

8am lectures. WHYYY? C'est trop tôt!!

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Bellecour, Lyon 2

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Lightening the mood on the D line amidst all the bomb scares! #lyon #metro #france #french #thirdyearabroad

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Some observations on French food

Given that I currently live in the "gastronomic capital of France", I figured it was time to say a little something about French food! I’m not going to start critiquing it in any detail, because I’m the first to admit I don’t have a particularly adventurous palate and am therefore in no position to give authority on the matter! But I can share with you some little finds of mine in Lyon if you’re ever in town and looking for somewhere to eat.

First off, the French are really proud of their food. This is great; as a Brit I get challenged all the time about British cuisine (or lack thereof) and never really find I have much to say in way of defence of it. However, slightly sick of being told by the French that their food is soooo much better than ours, I challenged them to explain to me how exactly. I just wanted them to back up these bold statements with some fact.

The first person I asked answered me this: our bread. This struck me as weird because she told me this as we sat in a restaurant that served us ciabatta; definitely not French bread. But I’ll allow them bread because they do eat an awful lot of it. My French coloc is on a constant diet and near enough lives off salad, however when I do see her binge she usually sits with a loaf of bread, a pot of nutella and a knife. I’m LOVE nutella, but think that if you’re going to allow yourself all those calories once in a while you ought to use it on something fun, like pizza.

The next time I asked this question, I was told: cheese. Don’t get me wrong, French cheese is good and I would probably partake in ritual worship of brie if I could do, I love it that much, but if this is the best their argument gets about why French food is so much greater than British, then I have two words for them: free movement. We might not have created them, but we eat the exact same cheese over in Britain. And on that topic, I have two more words for the French: cheddar cheese. I have yet to encounter a cheese over here that melts properly (for an explanation of "melts properly", just go melt some cheddar!).

Ok, that said, on to places that I have enjoyed eating in Lyon.

Brasserie Le Victor Hugo (Place Carnet) – the first week that I arrived in Lyon with my dad, I hadn’t cottoned on that Rue Mercière & Vieux Lyon are the places to go for decent food, so we trekked back and forth between Perrache and Bellecour before finally settling down here. It didn’t look particularly fancy, and I don’t really know how they operate in Winter because most of the seating was outside, but it was relaxed, good service, good food and very reasonably priced. We went back two nights later we were so impressed.

Burger & Wine (Quai Antoine Riboud) – is happily (for me, anyway!) located close to my apartment, and I knew the second I saw it, from the name alone, that I was going to love it. Usually buzzing with a suited business type crowd, they offer an awesome selection of burgers and, of course, wine, hot waiters, amazing fries and during the Fête des Lumières they served hot dogs and mulled wine. Happy! :)

Pique Nique (Rue Dubois) – this is the find that I am 100% most proud of. I took a walk up Rue Mercière and beyond one day just to scout out nice restaurants and came across this. It looked cute and seemed to offer a good selection of ravioli, so we came back the following week. It was perfect, small & cosy, privately owned, with good service and amazing food. I have yet to try the ravioli but I have only good things to say about their burgers and duck! Definitely somewhere to go on a date (I did!), my only warning to you is that their desserts aren’t up to much. But skip dessert and take a walk down the street for ice-cream instead!

Le Palais Saint Jean (Rue Saint Jean) – my first experience of a bouchon; c’est-à-dire traditional lyonnais cuisine! I was very dubious and then very pleasantly surprised. From a 3 course set menu I got French onion soup (that should only ever be made in France, it was the best I have ever tasted!), quenelle (fish soufflé, strange but good) and crème brûlée to finish, just because it’s my favourite (but they served it cold, which is never as good!). I ate myself full and barely slept that night because my stomach seemed to be on protest, but it turned out my English roommate had the same reaction as I did, and I reckon it was down to the richness of the food rather than the quality!

A really good ice-cream place in Vieux Lyon that I can't remember the name of but promise to find out and share with you later! – deserves a mention because their ice-cream is just so good, I have eaten it in the freezing cold because someone came to visit me and I didn’t want freakishly cold October weather to stop them from this great experience! Café & Caramel Salé go perfectly together; a delicious mix of sweet, salted & bitter.

I was going to chat a bit about coffee shops and cafés too but I’m aware, as ever, at how long I’ve gone on for, so I guess I can save that for another day. However! One last thing. I have a tradition with another friend in Lyon, who was my housemate last year in Manchester, of going for end of term curries; we lived on the curry mile in Manchester last year and it turned out have been completely spoiled for curry, because after some very serious research into finding where in Lyon does good curry (we looked in the petit paumé) we rocked up at one of the recommended restaurants and were all sorts of disappointed. I won’t name and shame, just take my word for it, if you want a decent curry then Lyon is not the place to go looking for it!

Otherwise, happy munching :)

[lostinlyon]

In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

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La Place Des Terreaux, La Fête des Lumières 2012

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La Fête des Lumières, décembre 2012 Just found out our PSYCHOTIC French housemate has been scheming the shit out of us for 4 months, as in literally conned us out of a few hundred euro. I'll post about it whenever I have these exams out of the way and have calmed down slightly.. Watch for French conwomen in the meantime!

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What you can expect when university is cheap

Salut, tout le monde :)

I am swamped with revision and said I’d keep off this for a while, but as I blasted through around 30 pages of droit des affaires yesterday, I allowed myself a little downtime. Since revision and uni are at the forefront of my mind right now, I think a good topic for this blog would be about French university. Hopefully if anyone planning their third year abroad is thinking that studying would be a super fun way to spend it, they will read this and think again. And if anyone on their year abroad is working and reads this, then feel free to feel smug because you definitely aren’t missing out.

My friends at Jean Moulin Lyon 3

Ok. My home university is the University of Manchester, and while I already totally loved uni in Britain anyway, I now have a whole new appreciation for it. My degree is English Law with French Law, so my third year abroad was already planned before I got to Manchester – a year studying French law. All I had to do was pick between Lyon and Dijon. I picked Lyon because it was a bigger city and everyone recommended it, and also I was determined to get as far south as possible because I am a fiend for the sun. I’d been warned before I came here, you get what you pay for, so bear in mind that French universities only cost around 500€ a year, compared to what is now over £9000 in some British universities. However NOTHING could have prepared me for this. I have never witnessed such utter disorganisation before in all my life. Everytime I thought I got used to it something crazier just came along and blew my mind.

I should mention first, the price in no way reflects the standard of teaching. The lectures aren’t much different to at home and in fact, the French language classes I take are way better (guess we can trust the French with their own language!). The problem lies, like with much of France, in the administration.

I mentioned in my last entry that they convey information primarily by noticeboard (just, why!? You’ve typed the announcement, isn’t it easier to click on a mailing list & hit send than to print the notice and physically fix it on a noticeboard?) In Manchester students are never done complaining about how inundated we are with emails, but honestly guys; don’t complain. I never will again. After stressing to us the importance of checking les panneaux regulierement! They literally never. use. them. Or when they do, they put up a sign telling you when a class will take place, but not the room. So off we all trek to see Mazza V, the incredibly unfriendly lady who looked after us all, and everytime a student comes to her door she would bark the room number (amphi D!) at them without looking up. This was vastly better than the time I arrived to find my entire class on the floor outside her office, waiting for her to tell us where the class would be. When she finally appeared, she told us that malheursement she had not booked us a room and suggested that we circle the building looking for an empty one. In what other university would that ever happen?! Then Mazza V quit the week before our exams were due to start, and we found out in an email that someone posted on facebook. She said at the end she didn’t have all of our email addresses and suggested we circulate it around our friends (seriously guys, mailing lists?!) Due to her quitting at the very last minute, we found out on Thursday that we have exams on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, hence the crazy last minute cramming.

Waiting to find out the room

All this would maybe be forgivable, however when we were choosing between universities, we were told that Lyon is a very international university, receiving 1000s of exchange students every year, so they “know what they’re doing”. Does any of the above strike you as “knowing what they are doing”?!

On the social side of things, there isn’t the same university culture like in Britain. Students generally go to university closest to where they live, so you don’t have student villages cropping up like at home, and because they already have all their friends from school around them, they aren’t as interested in making new ones. At home - for me anyway - university is a way of life. Here, it’s something they do during the day then they leave it behind. I’m sad for them because I feel like they’re missing out on something amazing, and I’m sad for me because it is so hard to make friends. My first week in Manchester you said hello to someone and they practically threw their phone number at you in desperation to make new friends. People here are generally friendly and more than happy to send us notes and let us copy over their shoulder (foolproof technique to coping with French lectures) but they say goodbye at the end of the lecture and you don’t see them again.

So, would I recommend studying on your year abroad? I find the law interesting because I really enjoy law, however it is incredibly tedious and insanely theoretical compared to English law, but that is because French undergraduate degrees don’t prepare you to go out and be a lawyer (or you chosen metier) in the way that English ones do. My written French and reading ability have improved a lot (and much more than my spoken French) from lectures. I still don’t understand everything (and if it’s a mumbly lecturer, I understand nothing) but I can read and understand french without having to think in English, something I didn’t notice until I sat down to revise, and it made me very happy!

It’s hard to make friends, and I know that my friends who have chosen to work this year are having far more fun. And the chaos that accompanies even the most simple of tasks such as finding out the room of your lecture would try the patience of a saint. So even if you do manage to make loads of friends and learn loads of French, you’ll go insane by the end of at all anyway.