Jacqueline Shilson-Josling - NSW to France

Fri 16 May 2008

Jacqueline Shilson-Josling, from Cheltenham Girls High School in NSW is currently on our semester program to France. Here is her latest news.

I arrived in France on a chilly Saturday morning in January, and as I sat in the car with my new host sister and host Dad, feeling like death warmed up from the jet lag, I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel tower, and that was it... Love at first sight!

My host family lives in a city called Amiens, about an hour and a half North of Paris. It's really great because our house is only 5 minutes walk from school; and the centre of the city, where all the shopping is.

When I arrived in France, I was actually surprised how similar we Australians are to French people. But there were a few differences about French life that I had to get used to:

• The Food. SO GOOD. (I'll get to that later, but can I just say, if you dont want to become the size of a small African nation like I am right now, I advise you not to set foot in any shop labelled "boulangerie"... my downfall has been the chocolate eclairs)
• The Keyboards. It took me a while to get used to them, because when you want to type numbers, you have to press shift, and also the letters are all in the wrong places, like in Australia the keyboard says "qwerty" at the top, but in France it says "zerty".
• All The Gross Stuff On The Footpaths. That is, merde de chien, chewing gum, cigarette butts, etc., etc. I've worked out what you have to do to avoid said refuse - you sort of scan ahead about 20 meters or so, so you know if you're safe or not.
• France's National Love of Nutella. I put this down to their lack of Vegemite. Also they seem to love all things kinder brand. ie. nutella, kinder surprise, bueno, choco bon, kinder chocolate, kinder country, and these little kinder cakes that you are meant to eat for breakfast.

My first week here was a bit of a blur really, as I realised I don't cope that well with jet lag, but that passed pretty quickly. I seem to remember eating fois gras (literally "fat liver", where they force feed a goose so its really fat and its liver is all unhealthy, and then it's really tasty when its cooked), and only realising what it was after we'd finished dinner, and then feeling guilty that it tasted so good.

School in France is so different to my old school in Sydney. Coming from a public girls school where I did extension English, art and drama, and now going to a catholic, co-ed no uniform school where the subjects include maths, physics, chemistry and ancient Greek (among others), it's a big change. The school days are really long, i.e. on average 8-5 for me, but that balances out by the fact that we get really long lunch breaks and heaps of school holidays and long weekends. Everyone in my class is really nice to me, even though I know I must get annoying sometimes, with my blank stares of incomprehension at what they're trying to say to me. My least favourite day at school is Tuesday, because thats the longest day of the week (8-6) and it' also sport day. I stupidly chose rugby as my sport, which I'm SO bad at. But then Wednesday is a really good day because we finish at 4 and have 3 hours for lunch. My host sister and I get to go home for lunch, so it's cool to have such a big break in the middle of the day.

After my first few weeks of school were my first school holidays and we drove down to Nice for just over a week. Pretty much the name says it all with that place. SO beautiful. Also during that week we visited Italy (really pretty), Monaco (i.e. home town of Grace Kelly/rich folk avoiding taxes) and St Jean cap Ferrat (where all these uber rich have their summer houses, like Bill Gates and Leonardo De Caprio). My host family are always wanting to take me places which is really great and I'm so grateful. I'm becoming THE biggest museum nerd. I've been to more museums in the past 3 months in France that in my entire life in Sydney.

After the Nice holiday it was back to school. It's really amazing how quickly you can settle into a routine. One really fun thing about last term was Easter, which is a way bigger deal here than it is in Australia. In Australia (at least in my household) on Easter Sunday its pretty much a normal day, except you gorge yourself on Lindt chocolate bunnies. Whereas in France, it's more of a family affair. We had the grandparents and both my older host brothers to stay for the long weekend (so 8 people in total) and HUGE amounts of food. It was quite an experience.

Then that school term was over too and it was time for yet another school holiday! We went to Nice again, but this time we stopped at Grenoble for a couple of days on the drive down to see my host brother who lives there. On one of those days we went for a picnic in the mountains around Grenoble, and it was so great because it was snowing, so it was ultra picturesque and we had a snowball fight!

With all the long weekends its been really good because we got to go to London! It was so weird (but cool) understanding what everyone was saying for once! We went to basically every possible place of interest, so that was really great. We also went to this family reunion thing in the Loire valley, and on the way back we visited my first castle!! Seriously it was halfway between Hogwarts and the Disney castle. It was really great because it had this staircase that Leonardo da Vinci designed, with two seperate staircases intertwined, so if you have two people going up either staircase you can see each other but never touch!

Then Anzac Day! It's been really strange, because usually I'm not a very patriotic person, but when I arrived in France, it was like a wave of patriotism suddenly washed over me, so it was pretty important that I did something for Anzac Day. My host Dad was really understanding and took the day off work to take me to a dawn service. It was at this little town about 10 minutes drive from Amiens, called Villers-Bretonneux, where all these Australians fought in WWI to protect the town from German invasion, and this year as the 90th anniversary and the first official dawn service. Five thousand Australians turned up! It was so memorable. If you ever get a chance to go to the memorial there, do, because it's a really important part of our history that not many people know about but everyone should! It was pretty emotional I've gotta say, but then I made some Anzac bikkies, so that helped..

Those are some of the highlights of my time in France so far. My host family have been SO great, they're just so nice to me and I've made really good friends too.

Now, I just want to mention homesickness. I won't deny that it isn't a real factor when you undertake such a massive thing as a student exchange. When I first got to France, everything was so new and amazing that I didn't really have time for homesickness. But then once the novelty wore off, I had to be careful sometimes not to get into a rut of homesickness/nostalgia. Of course, I had moments, but as long as I had someone to talk to, even if they didn't understand because I was talking in English, that always made things better. As long as I keep myself busy and get enough sleep and have a good supply of Vegemite for those tough times, I'm pretty much always absolutely fine. Honestly, I thought it would be way worse than it has been.

As for my French, this has been a really good way to learn. I've definitely picked up a lot here. At times it can be frustrating and annoying not understanding what people are saying, and sometimes it just gets too much and I have to watch some episodes of Friends in English. But even with all the frustrations, I know learning a language like this is invaluable. Having spent this long immersed in the langauge and culture, I feel like I've got a really solid grounding.

This exchange has really been the best thing for me. I feel like I've become more independant and responsible and sure of myself, and it makes me think "If i can spend 5 months in another country halfway across the world without my family where I dont know the langauge, what can't i do?".

I can't believe I've only got a bit over 5 weeks left! It's gone so fast, and it feels like 5 minutes ago that I was going to the Student Exchange Australia information night! I say to anyone thinking about doing an exchange, DO IT! I know at least for me it's been one of (if not THE) best experiences of my life.

Love Jacqui xoxo