The beginning of the end of my year abroad

I am aware that I haven’t posted on this for a while and so thought that now my time is coming to an end in Grenoble, I should do another post so I can read back and remember my whole time here at some point in the future!

The past few weeks have been hectic with trying to fit everything in that I haven’t yet had a chance to do. Arron came for a weekend and after a minor hiccup involving us being stuck in Lyon for a night, we had a lovely weekend in Grenoble and a day in Geneva – even experiencing our first earthquake in Grenoble! A few days after he left, Hannah and I went on our last big trip of the year to Barcelona. We found that it would be cheaper to fly than take the train so went off to Lyon and flew with a Spanish low cost airline that squash as many people into one space as possible! The weekend was full of exploring, visiting, eating tapas and paella and of course drinking sangria! It was just what we needed before coming back to start the long slog before exams.

I had 3 exams last week in the space of 24 hours. The exams are spoken and although they are much shorter than written exams (only 20 minutes long), they are very difficult and very stressful as there is not much time to think about the correct answer, or how to say it in French! After finally getting through them all and of course celebrating with pizza and wine, I have had a nice few days off and enjoying my last free day today before the studying begins again tomorrow! My last exam is on the 7^th at 9am – after that I am free! However, not really got much time to celebrate, as the day after, I fly back to the UK. I am very unsure how to feel about my return – on one hand I am very excited to be back and see all my wonderful family and friends again and get back to some normality. On the other hand, I will be sad to leave here and all the great friends and memories that I have made over the year.

Birthday celebrations

I can’t quite believe that my time in Grenoble is coming to an end. I am still waiting to find out when my exams are, but until I know that, I am working on an end date that I have picked out of thin air and hoping that it will all work out. If not, then I will attempt to change my flight!

The other week I had a lovely week of birthday celebrations – I turned 21 without many people around me who I wished I could have celebrated with. However, I was lucky enough to spend it with some fantastic people who made my 21^st amazing and one which I will never forget. Unfortunately I had a class to go to on my birthday, but once that was over there was cider outside with nibbles, followed by cocktails and a fantastic meal with some great people. The next day, I had my present from Hannah which was an afternoon at a spa – definitely needed and an altogether amazing day! To finish the week off we went for a day skiing at les Deux Alpes and although the weather conditions weren’t great, and the waterproofing on my gloves finally gave up, I had a great time. It was a bit of a mad rush when we got back to get ready to go out to the rugby. Unfortunately the game wasn’t quite as good as the first one we went to see and we saw Metro Racing beat Grenoble 24-13.

Since then, classes have begun to finish and revision has started for the exams. The weather continues to get nicer and it is a shame to have to sit inside to revise, however I know that although I can get distracted whilst sitting inside, there would be absolutely no hope for anything productive to happen were I to sit outside. And so I will have to make the most of the sun on my walks to and from the library!

 

Last holiday and celebrations

I am now in my final few months here in Grenoble. Time has definitely flown by and it has been possible for me to reflect on some of the time that I have had here. It has definitely been one of the best experiences that I have ever done. I have loved being able to travel so easily and so cheaply and experience a new culture, meet a lot of new people and make memories that I will never forget.

Last week I had a week off university so decided to have some time back in the UK. I spent the week travelling about between London, Aberdeen and home. It was really lovely to see so many people and know that, although everything hasn’t stopped and so won’t be exactly the same when I get back, so many people made the effort to spend some time with me and fill me in on what has been happening.

Unfortunately my week off was quickly forgotten on Monday morning with an 8am written exam in constitutional law. After doing some studying on everything that I had learnt so far in this semester I went into the exam hoping that it would go OK. However, that wasn’t the case! The question was based on a lot of things that were covered in the first semester – not ideal! Anyway, somehow I managed to write an essay and so I am hoping for the best that I will manage a pass.

The weather has been amazing and so for the rest of the week we have spent a lot of time sitting outside, eating ice cream and doing what we do best – drinking wine!

I am just sitting having my lunch before I go to meet Oliver from the train station – going to have a twin weekend full of celebrations!

Visitors

I apologise for not updating this sooner – as some of you are aware, there have been more problems regarding administration, but I am not going to rant about that again! I think it is safe to assume that everyone reading this blog now knows how I feel about French administration!

It has been a busy few weeks one way or another! Mainly filled with the excitement of having visitors! Last weekend two of our friends who are currently studying in Lyon came to visit! It was lovely to have them to stay and show them the town! We even managed to sit outside and have a glass of wine! Sorry to everyone sitting back home in Britain in the rain and the sleet, but it has generally been lovely weather here until today! The thermometer in town was reading 16 degrees the other day and my trusty weather app informed me that it was 18 degrees on Monday! This weekend just past I had my sister and brother come to visit! They stayed in a hotel in town and amused themselves whilst I was in and out of uni on Friday and then I had time to show them around a bit more Saturday and Sunday! Ben had bought a French phrase book and loved being able to speak some French! It was good to be able to relax a bit with them here and sit outside in the sun and then watch the rugby with them (I don’t have a tv in my room and my internet is very temperamental and so I can’t really watch the rugby unless I go out!).

Unfortunately on Sunday I was struck down with the cold and so I spent much of Monday dosed up on paracetamol trying to get through my classes until I could come back to my room to get into bed! Yesterday was slightly better and today slightly better still although I still could do with an early night! Hopefully it progresses to improve as on Friday I am flying to London to spend the weekend with my boyfriend before we both head back up to Scotland – me to go home for a few days, and him to go back to university.

 

Sun shining and yet more problems

It’s true what they say that people are happier when the sun is shining! At the weekend we had some lovely weather, and all of our issues seemed to pale into insignificance whilst I had my window open, my music on and doing my cleaning! Last weekend my parents came and it was so amazing to see them and to spend some time showing them round the town and having a catch up! When they went, it was back to normality and back to the everyday tasks!

Last week I had my first Portuguese class! It is probably one of the harder things that I’ve done – learning a completely new language from a language that I’m not fluent in! Sitting in that class as the only Erasmus student was slightly daunting but my classmates made me feel welcome and were at hand to help me when I had no clue what was going on – especially when our teacher used French abbreviations! I had absolutely no idea what he meant with some of them! So I think it will be a big learning curve – trying to learn a new language, whilst at the same time trying to master the one that I came out here to improve!

We had confirmation last week that we could drop our criminal law class – this all had to be checked and approved by our home university. It was an interesting course - all about the theory of criminal law – but the teacher spoke at about 100mph! Even the French students couldn’t follow her all the time! If they couldn’t, there was absolutely no hope for us Erasmus students in the class!

The saying ‘when one door closes, another one opens’ is quite apt here, but more in the sense of problems! When one problem is resolved, another one appears. This is definitely true in my case at the moment. I learnt yesterday that my Portuguese class, which I found out last week wasn’t going to be noted (no exams or final mark given), won’t be worth any credits. I need these credits….so in an attempt to sort things out, I have been frantically emailing my teacher trying to sort things out – it’s a work in progress!

Exam results and yet more administration

It’s been a couple of weeks now since I last wrote. Not much has happened – although I am pleased to say that I got my exam results and thankfully have managed to pass them all! The long days in the library before Christmas must have paid off!

Apart from that, I went skiing for the afternoon last week and literally went up and down the green slopes all afternoon – I had a great afternoon though, getting my confidence up! Maybe next time I will be adventurous and get onto a blue! I would rather build up this way and find a good level for me so that I can ski without the fear of losing control, falling and hurting myself. I know this could happen on any slope, but I feel the more control I have, the more likely I am to stay on my feet!

We now think that we have taken a subject too many this semester and so are in the process of trying to find out if it is necessary to study this course just to get the one extra credit that we need or not – it would be nice if someone here just gave the same definitive answers to everyone instead of literally giving us all completely different and conflicting information.

Today my parents are on the way out to visit me! I can’t wait to see them and to have them visiting for the weekend!

Starting classes and administration problems

I don’t have much to report from this week – I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing! I started my classes this week but only had four. They all seemed to go ok. It is better to be starting them with some idea of what it is going to be like than starting them last semester with nothing!

Apart from that, I have spent the week attempting to sort out administration…again! As a result of only getting 29 credits last semester instead of 30 due to an administration error, I have to get 31 credits this semester. As all of the classes that I am doing are 6 credits each, it means me doing 5 credits more than I actually have to! But I didn’t fancy doing 5 law courses, I thought 4 would be enough so I turned to my coordinator to find out what my other choices are! After not getting very far there, I went across to the language centre and found that I could either study Chinese or Portuguese from beginner’s level. So I have come to France, to study French law and improve my French language and am studying Portuguese……find the logic in that?!

This week I have 20 hours of class to get through – not something I’m looking forward to! After next week, things seem to quieten down a little bit again which I am looking forward to!