When you make the decision
that you want to live with other people (rather than in a studio flat) on your
year abroad, you put your hand into a lucky-dip of unknown personalities. You
may create future friendships that are to last, or you could find yourself slap
bang in the middle of disaster. When you decide, as I did, to live in an
Erasmus flat where the people change every few months, you are multiplying that
risk by 10 and adding a pinch of communication trouble into the melting pot
too.
When I first moved into my 4 bedroom, ‘this’ll do’ apartment in Bordeaux,
the first person I met was a lovely Austrian girl studying French in the city.
We immediately hit it off, chatting about lots of things we had in common and
about how beautiful Bordeaux was. Perfect, at least I’ll have one friend. Not
so, she soon informed me that she was in her last week, and she didn’t fail to
add that the other guy, a Slovakian, was an interesting personality.
She was right, the Slovakian guy was an interesting personality. Although
rather charming, especially if you’re into the Russian/eastern European accent,
I soon discovered that he was affording his travels through blogging. ‘How
interesting, I like to blog too. What do you blog about?’ He has 100 webpages
apparently, and one of the most prominent money-makers focuses on a lovely
group of 5 English boys called One Direction. Ah. The second eyebrow was raised
when I asked his age and he responded that it is a, ‘secret that even my
ex-girlfriend doesn’t know’. Of course I headed straight to Facebook, (I’m
slowly discovering that an obsession with Facebook stalking is a decidedly
English attribute) and after much searching of birthday posts and graduation
years, the most I could deduce is that he’s older than 33. He still won’t tell
me.
The next to enter my flat of eclectic eccentricities was a French girl who
couldn’t understand a word of French that either Mr Slovak or I said. Although
I am well aware that my French is not perfect, it is at least comprehensible.
Whether I was confused, insulted or mildly irritated, her bedtime of 8pm on the
second evening told me everything I needed to know about the longevity of our
friendship (or lack thereof). Even Slovak said he didn’t fancy her, and that’s
saying something.
Despite the mystery of an Erasmus flat, I truly believe that my year abroad
is designed for experiences like this and I love it. When else will I get the
opportunity to learn about different cultures so intensely and be able to shout
Britain’s praises to others? ‘The Olympics was just such a huge success, you
see’. Also, my room
has a lock. That helps.
You can find the original article on Inter:Mission Bristol here.
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