Poppy Owen - VIC to France

Thu 07 Jan 2010

Poppy Owen, from Surrey Hills VIC, is currently on exchange in France for a semester. She wrote to us just before Christmas to share all the exciting adventures she’s been up to:

“Bonjour Student Exchange Australia,

The past 4 months in France have been amazing and have passed by in the blink of an eye. I have just over a month left in this amazing country before I hop on my long return flight to Australia. The 4 months I have spent here were better than I could have hoped for. I kept waiting for the ‘culture shock’ to kick in, but it just never came. My integration into the French culture was a lot easier than I expected and there hasn’t been one day yet that I’ve really wanted to go home. Sure, I miss my family and friends, but it’s not every day that one gets the chance to experience what I’m experiencing right now, so I’m trying to make the most of it.

My host family is so supportive and I consider them my second family now. My host mum and dad are the best and I am so glad I am their host child. I have an 11 year old host brother, who is a little bundle of energy, and a 13 year old host sister who I get along really well with. I feel like part of the family here and know it’s going to be very tough when I have to leave.

The journey here was long but well worth it. I regret packing so much in my suitcase, not only was it extremely heavy but I don’t know how I’m going to fit my new wardrobe into a 20kg max suitcase (shopping here is AMAZING!). Arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport and getting on the train to Avignon was a relief. The train ride was great. I spent most of the 3 hours looking out the window at the beautiful green scenery. The day was warm and sunny and it was the perfect start to my exchange. I spent the first 2 days of my exchange with my local co-ordinator as my host family was in Paris, so it was good to get to know my co-ordinator.

I live in a medium sized town called Carpentras (half an hour’s drive from Avignon), in the ‘Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur’ region. It’s a beautiful town with many cosy little cafes and patisseries. My school is located very close to the centre of the town and that comes in handy when I have spares. There is one cinema and so far I think I’ve been there about 6 or 7 times.

My first day of school was a bit strange. It wasn’t really a day of school but more of a day for collecting books and preparing for the school year. I walked in with my host mum and there were French kids everywhere. My host mum managed to find a girl in the same class as me and she showed me to the classroom, unfortunately we were late. Not the best impression for the first day of school, but when the teacher realised I had no idea what she was saying, it wasn’t such a big deal.

I have found that there are many differences between school in Australia and school in France. Firstly, my first class starts at 7:55am, unlike my usual 9:00am start in Aus. I eat lunch at the canteen, which consists of a 3 course meal with fruit and a selection of cheeses (very different to the usual ham and cheese sandwich). Lunch lasts for 2 hours, so that breaks up the long school day. My day finishes at 6pm, and by then its dark outside. Wednesdays everyone finishes at 12pm but most people have school on Saturdays...yeah I know. My class has 4 hours of ‘physique-chemie’ on a Saturday morning; luckily I don’t have to do any sciences, so I get out of that...phew!

During the school holidays my host parents took me to see the rest of the ‘Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur’ region. My host siblings went to Paris and went to an adventure park, so I got to spend some quality time with my host parents. We visited Marseille, Cannes, Saint Tropez, Cassis and Bandol. I was also lucky enough to visit ‘les Calanques’ by boat, so that was really cool. It was really strange because after that particular week of travelling I realized I could understand so much more than before. It’s freeeezing here at the moment and only going to get colder, it was -5 degrees yesterday...very different to the 39 degrees weather in Melbourne. But with cold weather comes snow! Very close to Carpentras is Mount Ventoux. It’s been snowing there lately so my host family took me tobogganing two weeks ago, was heaps of fun.

I will wrap this up as I’ve written more than I expected, although so much has happened that I could make this go on so much longer. I am a very lucky exchange student as I get to spend the Christmas holidays in Paris, that’s 2 weeks in one of the most famous cities in the world. It really doesn’t get much better than that. I have made so many amazing friends here and really feel like I’m one of the French kids now, just with a strange accent. It’s awesome being the Australian girl and even after 4 months of school, I’m still meeting 3 or 4 new people every day. In this region it’s 3 kisses on the cheek, so you can imagine how many ‘bisous’ I receive every day...oh how I love France. Oh ALSO I bought a small jar of Vegemite here, my host dad calls it ‘poison’ haha. I bought it to school one day and oh how I laughed at everyone’s reactions, the French just don’t appreciate the greatness of Vegemite.

So all in all I’m having a wonderful time in France. I’m off to Paris in 3 days and can’t wait for a snowy Christmas.

Je vous souhaite une joyeux Noël et une bonne Année !

I have included some photos for you as well :) Sorry it’s so long.”

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