It's been three days and two nights since I arrived in Pau, a gloriously picturesque little city at the foot of the Pyrennees. The chateau beside the river, the pretty little Juliet balconies decorating white-washed, majestic town houses and the buzzing cafes lining windy streets amount to an idyllic portrayal of Southern French life. I'm still in disbelief that this is the setting of a year of my life... And after finding a gorgeous appartment that bought to mind snapshots from 'Amelie', along with an extremely pleasant French collocatrice named Cecile, I have to say that I'm extremely content. That's not to say the last few days haven't been ever so slightly stressful, to say the least. The Leeds French department came up trumps in the disorganisation stakes, informing us that it would be dead easy to find a place on arrival (by us I mean a fellow Leedser, Polly, who I have been flat-hunting with), but the first thing that the accomodation office asked was why I hadn't contacted them in June. This led to some rushed 'annoncement' searches, but I was especially in luck, the first person that I contacted being Cecile. Polly, however, had a lot more difficulty and has only just found a place, which is only contracted for a month anyway.... but we'll just put it down to character building and life experience. My rusty knowledge of French adds to the latter, having being used less and less since May, when uni finished. My initial fears of not having enough exposure to the language, as I was warned, have since vanished thanks to the monumentally small amount of English that the residents of Pau speak, which is fantastic, but often difficult and tiring. I'm sure not many people would go out of their way to describe Rosie Blunt as unconfident, but I froze up when I uttered my first few words to a friendly waitress. Since then, I've been talking on the phone, having light-hearted gossips with Cecile and discussing complicated deals for mobile phones with salesmen. I have no doubt that my confidence, if not my French, has improved obscenely within just three days.
However, I still have the weekend left in a lovely, chateau-style appartment overlooking vineyards and mountains before my parents leave me all alone in the big, bad monde on Monday. It is still most certainly the honeymoon period, and there will be even bigger challenges to face as the year progresses. But, at the moment, I am raring to get stuck into ma nouvelle vie francaise.
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