On my first day I managed to buy a student tram card, buy a SIM card, and attend a meeting with my work experience co-ordinator. Pretty productive! And really not bad considering the fact that I was finding my way around by taking photos on my phone of Google maps, and then writing down the directions in my little purple filofax (<3 Google Maps so much). I might add though that this first day hadn't been without its hiccups. I am beginning to discover that the French are technologically and organisationally quite backwards by comparison to the UK. The tram card that I bought is very similar to an Oyster card in London, allowing you to travel on all of the trams and buses. To obtain said card, I had to queue for over an hour and a half. No, you can't buy it online. Yes, you really can only purchase it from one office in the whole of Montpellier with six cashiers, of which only four were open. My meeting with my work experience co-ordinator went reasonably well - he told me what my placement would entail, but he had no idea which twenty hours of the week I would be able to work. We could sort that out next week. I mean, its not like he'd been aware that I would be arriving in Montpellier in September for approximately six months or anything...
This brings me to apartment hunting. I had read many blogs written by year abroad students that insisted that it would be so much more profitable to live with French people than to go into halls. So, I dutifully followed their words of wisdom, and armed with nothing but grim determination, went on the hunt for a "colocation" (aka flat-share). For the most part I relied on appartager.com - a website where those with rooms to let and those looking for rooms can create profiles and adverts. Each profile consists of age, gender, occupation etc, and those wanting a room can narrow their searches based on those criteria. Members are then able to message eachother and exchange contact details.
The first flat that I managed to organise a viewing for seemed fairly good on the face of things. According to the profile, the guy was a twenty-five year old student named Pierre, living in a three bedroomed flat, of which one bedroom was available. That was a lie. Pierre was a sixty year old man with a two bedroomed flat, of which one bedroom was his. Creepy doesn't even begin to cover it. The whole place smelt weird. He did some bizarre palm reading on me, and then refused to let go of my hand/arm after that. Luckily, I had set up a 'get out of jail free card' and ten minutes after I had arrived at the apartment I got a phone call from England. Swiftly following that I was able to make an excuse that I really had to leave immediately;
"Je suis désolée mais il y a une problème avec l’hôtel et il est nécessaire que je rentre à l’hôtel immédiatement!"Despite his pleas for me to stay for dinner I fought him off with the weak claim that I had already eaten, and got out of there sharpish. Following that ordeal we repeated the precautions we'd taken when I'd gone off to meet Creepy-Pete each time I saw an new flat - I prank called my parents when I was just about to go in, they'd launch the offensive at Dover ready for 'D-Day Deux' should things not be quite as they seemed, and then they'd phone ten minutes later to check I was OK.
By Thursday I still didn't have anywhere to live, the ERASMUS office at the university had offered me a place in halls with lots of other UK year abroad students, and yet I remained downright stubborn/stupid and persevered. By Friday afternoon it had paid off. I had sent countless messages on appartager, to which only a handful had actually replied, and was really losing hope when I found myself messaging Marco - a 25 year old shop assistant living with his partner. By this, I mean I was looking at living with two gay guys and their cat! I went round to visit and he was just as his profile had said. The room was perfectly adequate, they were lovely, and at €350 a month including all bills, it really was a steal! Problem finally solved. On Sunday, Marco's partner Francis came to collect me and my oversized suitcase from the hotel, and on Monday I arrived, key in hand, with the rest of my belongings.
One stressful week; bucket loads of tears; two parents who nearly flew to Montpellier to drag me home; many considerations that I should accept defeat and turn-tail back to Dorset; several microwave meals; countless emails; tens of photos of Google Maps; some well deserved Saturday night drinks with some RoHo girls who I didn't realise were here; a disturbing ordeal; and at least three sleepless nights later... I was finally somewhere I could call home.
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| Saturday night, out celebrating having somewhere to live! |
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