The pros & the cons of France so far

The year abroad for everyone is bound to have ups & downs & its certainly been exactly the same experience for me. There are some days when I'm so happy to be here, willing to integrate with everyone & practice my French & then there are other days where all I want to do is sit in my room and catch-up on British tv, not speak French & criticise everything thats wrong with this country!

So what have I enjoyed so far: Well the school that I'm teaching in has been very friendly & most of the teachers always ask me how I'm doing & some even want to learn English from me & insist on talking to me in English in the staff room. Most of the teachers here are so polite & bonjours and ça va's are always exchanged in the staff room. The English teachers especially seem geniunely happy to have me here and don't see me as a burden, for example I've been asked to help a teacher with her English, asked to help the students with Model UN & have been invited for drinks/dinners by various teachers.

The foreign language assistants too in the area have been so friendly & I hope to have made some friends for life out of this experience. We are a group all in the same boat & especially when you are down, it is nice to spend time with them.The city too is beautiful & although it wasn't my first choice, I'm pleased I'm in Reims now as opposed to some dumpy area in the middle of no where! I also love the food, the pattiseries, the fresh bread! Having said that lots of it is soooooo expensive that I haven't really been as adventerous as I want to be!

But what have I disliked about being in France- The bureaucracy here is too too much. I must have signed more forms in 4 weeks than I have in my whole life. France doesn't need to raise its retirement age, it needs to cut all the bureaucracy & red tape - that would save millions of euros in my opinion! The strikes have been a massive inconvenience. For those of you who don't know, the French government is planning to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. I don't have a strong opinion on the issue but it seems to be the sensible thing to do in order to save money & help France's economy, however the majority of French people are so angry about this issue and have taken to the streets. There has even been violence in many parts of the country even involving school children. When I went to witness the strikes last week, there were people from all walks of life there including pupils from my school & teachers! Whilst I love seeing people engaging & partipating in political activities, the strikes have become an inconvenience for travellers & they are not going to change a thing because the law will be passed! But the strikes are a part of French culture so I better get used to it!

French people can be unfriendly although for the best part they are lovely, warm people. However, I have had one or two experiences in shops with French people who have been rude to me and classified me as a foreigner. But I'm not going to let one or two people give their country a bad name & ruin my year abroad!

Crossing the road here is a nightmare too!

For those of you who know me, I like a good moan about England & always say how I want to live abroad, I have to admit there are some things in England I take for granted & I'm going to appreciate them a lot more when I return home: these include easy access to fresh milk, good mobile phone contracts, cheaper calls abroad, a good old Indian curry & cheaper things!

However on the whole, having lived abroad for nearly a month now, I'm glad to have the opportunity to spend some time away from the UK & would like to live abroad in the future and who knows maybe in France!