The current leading topic of conversation amongst everyone is the fact that it is now April and the end of Erasmus is looming ever closer, leading us to repeatedly ask ourselves and all around us “how on earth has this happened??”, to which no one really has the answer. All I know is that time has certainly flown, Concorde-style.
I would be lying if I said Erasmus was an easy ride the whole time. I’m pretty sure that everyone, at some point or another, has had that moment where you just want to pack your bags, book a flight home and never come back. Not least for the fact that doing that would signal the failure of our degree, everyone has simply had to stick it out and wait for things to pick up. And, unsurprisingly, it does get better and you come to realise that being on Erasmus really is, on the whole, an amazing time. Looking back on my time here now, I’m aware that I’ve got my rose-tinted glasses on; remembering the great things and glazing over any memory of the low points. Even so, the good times outweigh the bad several times over. We’re all getting to the stage now where we realise we haven’t really got all that much to complain about; the most stress I had this weekend was that it was too windy at the beach and I got completely covered in sand. Not quite the essay-deadline-library stress that awaits me next year. It’s safe to say that our perspective of what things like “stress” and “responsibility” are has been severely skewed.
A lot of people will tell you that going on an Erasmus will be the best year of your life, which can set you up with some pretty high expectations that may or may not be met. For me, I’ve absolutely loved it, but I can’t speak for everyone on that front. I can also say that it has certainly been the most important year of my life so far; without sounding like I’m on the X Factor and how I’ve been on such a “journey”, I’ve certainly come a long way in the time I’ve been here. I can now handle French administration (learn to expect the unexpected, and that everything takes a great deal longer than it should do), French men (I will describe them as “direct” and leave it at that) and French Sundays (learning to deal with the boredom that they bring due to the whole country shutting down for the day is an achievement in itself).
It seems like a lifetime ago since I first arrived and the stress of the day I left is engraved into my memory; the near breakdown the day before, where the last minute packing and preparation all became too much and I simply stopped doing anything, sat down and claimed I was no longer going Everyone knows they’re going to do a year abroad from the moment they decide to study French at university – for me, this was during the first year of A-Levels. In other words, this moment had had a good few years of build-up. Suddenly, the morning of the Big Move To France Day was upon me and nothing can quite prepare you for it; saying goodbye to everyone, setting off to the airport wondering what majorly important item I’d forgotten, the realisation on the aeroplane that this was a one way journey, and then landing in my new home for the next 10 months where I knew I had to pretty much like it or lump it. Just to add to the drama, I hadn’t written down the address of where I was going to be living: STRESS. The image of my Dad dragging my two broken-from-being-too-full suitcases along the road, while I was desperately trying to find my new address and work out how on earth I was going to survive in my new life, will live with me for a very long time.
Somehow, it’s now 7 months on, and I have to consider booking another one way journey, this time in the France-England direction. Not something I really want to think about in much detail, if I’m honest...
