Lille & Brussels

Last weekend I took a wonderful little trip up to Brussels via an afternoon in Lille. Now that I’m nearly halfway through my second semester of university over here, I’ve started panicking that I’m not making the most of living in France, so have started trying to see more of what’s around me while I’ve got the chance!

Lille is one of my favourite places I’ve visited in France, if not the best so far. I went there for a day on the Eurostar about 10 years ago and was looking forward to checking it out again. If you’re short on time like me, I recommend heading for Vieille Lille (the old town) via the Grand Place and taking your time getting lost in the cute little streets in the area – there’s a vibrant market, as well as interesting shops and unique cafes and restaurants. The cathedral is definitely worth a nose around too, and if I’d been there longer, I’d head to the Musee des Beaux Arts too.

The next day, it was round two of tourist fun in Belgium, the country that put me up for a couple of years back in the day! I took the tram into Brussels and jogged my memory by visiting the main square, the Mannekin-Pis, the museum, and naturally, one of the hundreds of incredible vendors selling Belgian waffles. Waffles are compulsory and I'm quite sad I didn't think to take a picture before scoffing mine down as they're an incentive to go in themselves, so I'm linking you instead to The Waffle Blog to make up for it. Don't click if you're on a diet! I think Brussels is a brilliant capital city as it’s just the right size without being too small or too daunting. It’s a city of fusions – buildings and park areas, French and Flemish, culture and fun. Definitely one to visit if you’re looking for a European weekend away!

Rough Guide: "More Women Travel" | Miranda Davies and Natalia Jansz

Like a lot of people, I seem to have an ever-growing list of dream holiday/travelling destinations. At the minute though, my student budget is hardly accommodating! Next on my must-visit list include Croatia, Barcelona and Hong Kong.

As I'm living abroad this year too, Mum gave me a Rough Guide book called “More Women Travel”, a comprehensive collection of women’s accounts of their travels to different places across the globe. I love hearing about other people’s experiences of different countries, where they’d recommend and things to see so this was right up my street as a bit of a change from my usual reading!

Obviously some accounts are better written and more vivid and detailed than others, but on the whole I liked the balance between cultural insights and hilarious or sometimes shocking anecdotes. It’s a little out of date now, but ladies, if you want to travel and find out more first-hand about different destinations, this is great - I particularly enjoyed the accounts of Thailand and Canada. It’s got me itching to go travelling next year!

I’d love to hear your opinions on travel writing! Which destinations are top of your list?

Plitvice Lakes, Croatia www.justthetravel.com

Hong Kong www.discoverhongkong.com

Barcelona www.travelwithscott.com

Paris and some home comforts...

So I’m now back at home in Bucks for the French uni half term – it’s so lovely to be back enjoying home comforts like bubble baths and OVENS (yes really, apparently it’s normal to not have ovens in France at home, so bizarre). Looking forward to spending time with the family and catching up with some pals!

The last month has just flown by and I can’t believe we’re nearly into November! Poitiers has been its usual sleepy self but I’ve been loving the Erasmus year so far. It’s getting much easier to understand French (though speaking it is still another matter), and we’ve spent many hilarious nights at either the student bars in town or friends’ houses. There’s not as much of a ‘clubbing’ scene in Poitiers – most of them are a little bit out of the centre and the French don’t get to the club until about 2 or 3am, which is hardly conducive with our 8am lectures! We’ve only been out to clubs a couple of times, and have made it our business to try out some more after the holidays. Instead everyone goes to the main student bars in town which are open fairly late, or house parties.

Last week a few of us made a very last-minute decision to buy Jay-Z tickets and head to Paris on Thursday after lectures – it was the most manic plan ever but we had the BEST time! Two of the boys drove us all up in their cars, and we had literally organised nothing so we were calling hostels on our way up and found a great one, very central, for 30 euros each for the night. After checking in there was time for a quick change before heading to the metro station to get to the Bercy stadium, via a quick detour to the Eiffel Tower. Jay-Z was of course INSANE and we were all loving life as you can imagine! He had just the right mix of Magna Carta and older stuff, and the crowd was absolutely buzzing.

After the concert we went in search of junk food and a bar, and eventually wandered back to the hostel at about half 3. The next day we got up relatively early to cram in as much sightseeing as possible – the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre, Moulin Rouge, the Eiffel Tower and the Jardin des Tuileries. I’ve wanted to go to the Louvre for ages but by the time we got there it was mid-afternoon and I’ll definitely be making another trip there next semester so it’s something else to look forward to!

This week, I’m glad to be chilling at home – I’ve got a couple of days’ work experience lined up and some uni work to get on with too. I was meant to include lots of Paris pictures in this post but forgot to upload them before I flew home, so I’ll be doing a photo post when I’m back in France! For now I'll leave you with this one I've nabbed courtesy of Milly...

 I haven’t forgotten my book reviews either and I’ve got a couple up my sleeve so watch this space!

A law student abroad

It’s Sunday night and as a way of putting off my work for droit constitutionnel, I decided it’s about time I wrote another update about my year abroad. I’ve been in Poitiers for about seven weeks now – it seems to have gone by quickly and we’ve all settled into French life now, though of course there are still days where I miss home and need to call my mum! But most of the time it’s just a lot of fun, meeting new people every day and doing things you would have the opportunity to back home.

I was initially going to write a little bit about different aspects of French life that are really different, but I ended up writing so much about the university that I’ll have to put off the other ones until next time. A thousand words later and you’d all be bored to death! So here we go…

Uni is the most obvious thing to start with. On the first day we filled in a mountain of paperwork (France living up to its stereotypes from the get-go) and picked up the generic timetables, then it’s down to you to pick your modules and make sure nothing clashes. A few days later when proper lectures started we went to what we thought was European Organisations. Obviously nobody had told us that the timetables change a bit and you need to check every few days. So we ended up sitting through 90 minutes of indescribably dull public finance until a fire alarm went off and we made our escape. Saved by the bell!

At Bristol we’re so used to the routine of literally seven or eight hours of teaching a week, that coming here and having about 25 hours a week was a shock to the system! Lectures start at 8 most days; never again will I complain about one 9am lecture a week back home… On Tuesdays we have lectures 8am – 6pm with a break for lunch, more hours in one day than I’d have in a week at Bristol! No excuse for not picking up the language quickly then.

The other main thing is that the lecturers speak so fast and once you get behind you’re pretty much stuck there (as if it’s not already hard enough in another language). Some are alright and the lecturers repeat every sentence, but others just speak as if in conversation and you don’t stand a chance! Our tactic is to sit behind French students on laptops and copy them when we fall behind on the dictation – and it really is a matter of dictation. Another Bristol Erasmus student pointed out that we were including phrases like quoi qu’il en soit in our lecture notes (which translates roughly to ‘be that as it may’). Don’t think I’ve ever started a sentence with ‘Be that as it may’ in English, but here it is apparently the conjunction of choice, if there can possibly be such a thing

What I find very weird is that all our exams except one will be oral rather than written; this seems an odd way of doing things but hoping it will all work out when it comes to exam time! To get the diplôme from the uni we have to do one TD (tutorial) and even these are totally different – each week we have a test, but instead of understanding case law etc, you have the questions (like ‘what is the Magna Carta’) in advance and basically Wikipedia and memorise them. Not a case reading in sight...

So many things to experience and get used to and that’s only with the uni; I wanted to write about clubs, friends, food etc but that will have to wait till next time – probably more interesting than me rambling on about law lectures! A bientôt xx