Georgia Larkin - ACT to France

Mon 27 Oct 2008

"My ten months in France began like a whirlwind as we started off with a jetlagged two day tour of Paris with the French student exchange organisation. This was shortly followed by four hours of anxious fingernail biting as I sat on the train, wondering what my host family would be like and how my hair was going to cope with the ‘mild and rainy’ climate in Brittany, on the west coast of France.

I spotted brightly coloured ‘welcome Georgia’ signs as me and my enormous suitcase gracefully fell off the train at Lorient station. There I was met by my host mother Isabelle; two host sisters; Kim, 9, and Océane, 11, and Brendan, my 17 year old host brother. During the half hour drive to my family’s hometown Riantec I realised that although I’d done three years of French at high school, I couldn’t actually speak a word. I initially panicked, but then somehow found it funny and became determined to make the most of this opportunity.

Riantec is a coastal/country town with a population of 5,000. The temperature is between 15 and 20 degrees all year round. It’s windy and rains a lot. I felt disappointed on arrival but then went for a walk up the main street, saw the beach at one end and the fields of artichokes and purple cabbages at the other, and loved it.

My school is a ten minute walk from the house and is called Collège de Kerdurand. My subjects are French, history, geography, maths, biology, physics, chemistry, English, European English, Spanish, PE, art and music. School starts at 8am and finishes at 5 or 6pm which is exhausting, but there are no classes on Wednesday afternoons and there are a lot more holidays and days off than in Australia which balances it out.

The people were extremely welcoming and eager to show the ‘Australian girl’ around the region. I found myself going to visit this or that with extended family every weekend and catching the boat with friends every Wednesday to do some shopping in Lorient. In the February school holidays my family took me to the Alps. I visited Switzerland, saw snow for the first time and even learnt to ski, wearing a very unflattering lilac starfish suit. A trip to the south of France was also organised by the French student exchange organisation during the April school holidays. We visited Nice, Monaco and Cannes and we even had a day in Italy!

Two months of school quickly passed, the cabbage fields turned into fields of corn and wheat and it was time for the summer holidays. By this point I was understanding and speaking French fluently, but was still having some troubles with reading aloud and writing. I never had major difficulties with learning the language, it just seemed to come more and more naturally as time went on. I didn’t allow myself to get stressed when I wasn’t understood on the first try. I would definitely say that I have become a much more patient person during my time in France.

Summer days were spent by the beach, hanging with friends or shopping the streets of Lorient. In the evenings we would have big family barbeques and play hide and seek in the cornfields. The nights were not too chilly and the sun didn’t set until around 10pm. I feel accepted and at ease with my family and friends and can’t even imagine how hard it is going to be to leave them in less than 3 months time.

Throughout my exchange I have learnt more about myself and the world around me than I ever could have in a classroom and I have no regrets whatsoever in regards to my decision to go on exchange. I would recommend time abroad to absolutely everybody, as you gain precious memories, friendships and knowledge to last a lifetime. The only thing I can say is don’t enjoy yourself so much that you forget to take photos!"

Georgia Larkin

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