I have returned back to Canada and have been in Ottawa for about a week now and it is very bittersweet. I had an amazing time in France for the last four months and I was very sad to leave, but it does feel very nice to be home. I decided that I am first going to talk about the last travels in had within Europe and then talk a little bit about how it feels to be home.
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At the beginning of November, we had our week off from classes so I, my roommate and two Americans planned a 10-day trip to London, England and Edinburgh, Scotland.
It was an amazing trip and it was really interesting to actually be in an English speaking country and understand exactly what everyone said. For the first six days we stayed in London, followed by Edinburgh.
In London, we stayed in a really nice hostel called the All-Star Hostel and it was a house that had been converted into a hostel. It was really nice, very clean and was only a 20-minute metro ride to the centre of London. London is a city that’s very easy to get around by Metro and a lot of the main destinations are within walking distance. We got to ride the London Eye and see Big Ben, the Tower of London, London Bridge and Buckingham Palace. My favourite destinations were Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London. Buckingham Palace was really cool because we got to see the changing of Guards. The palace itself has a very pretty exterior and all the posts of the fence surrounding the palace had the names of some of the commonwealth countries so I got to see posts for Canada and Newfoundland. My family is also from Newfoundland so seeing a tribute to Newfoundland was really cool. I also really liked the Tower of London because I have always enjoyed the history of England and I got to see the area I had learned so much about. I am so glad I got to visit London, but it was very very expensive. One British Pound is equal to 1.6 Canadian dollars and everything costs about the same. For example, lunch costs around 10 to 15 pounds which is between 16 to 24 dollars, which is pretty expensive.
After six days, we took a night bus from London over to Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh was actually one of my favorite places I’ve ever visited. The city has so much history everywhere you go and it is all kept in such good condition. In Edinburgh, we stayed in a hostel called CastleRock Hostel which was located right in front of the Edinburgh Castle. It had a great location and it was walking distance from all the tourist destinations in Edinburgh.
We took a free walking tour around the city and got to learn and see all the historical buildings within the city. We also did a haunted tour through their main graveyard which was really creepy but very interesting. Probably the coolest thing we saw in Edinburgh was seeing the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter books and the school that Hogwarts was based upon. For the last day we were in Scotland, we did a highlands and Loch Ness tour which was disappointing. We did only a one-day tour which was not enough time. Our tour ended up being us driving around for an hour or so, stopping to look around for only 15 minutes, followed by another hour and a half driving. We did that all day which was tiring and kind of boring. Though we did get to see some great mountains and the beautiful scenery of Scotland, I would recommend that if you would like to do a highlands tour you should aim for the two or five-day tour so it will be less rushed.
After our 10-day trip, I took a break from travelling because our trip was very costly and being a student, I had limited funding. The one thing I noticed about being in Europe is that travelling is not as cheap as you might think. There are cheap ways to travel around Europe, but they are very inconvenient especially if you live in a small town. It can be very cheap but you have to really book ahead of time because the closer you book it, the more expensive it is.
For the last month and a bit in Rennes, I mainly did things with friends and did school work since our only projects of the semester were all due at the end of November and all of December was the exam period. I finished my exams on December 14 and would not be leaving France until the 21st, so I decided to go to Paris with my roommate for three days before leaving. Saying goodbye to my friends in France was very difficult because I had gotten so close to them and also I had grown used to my life in France. It was strange to think that my life in Rennes was over. I know that some of the people I met I will never see again but I really hope that I get to see the ones I became close with. The morning we left Rennes, I had two friends come to say goodbye at the train station and leaving on that train was really depressing because I saw my life in Rennes disappearing. I thought of the amazing experiences I had these last four months and all the great people I met and how I have grown and it made me feel better knowing that I had a fantastic experience!
For my final three days in France, I explored Paris again and saw the Catacombs, Le Chateau de Versailles and the Champs Élysées Christmas Market. The Catacombs are an underground ossuary in Paris with many bones lined up in patterns. It was interesting to see but you are in underground caverns with millions of skulls and femur bones all lined up on top of each other, so it was very creepy. If I had my time back I think I would have not gone to the Catacombs because it was way too creepy. The Champs Élysées Christmas Market on the other hand was a large pretty Christmas market which was a lot more pleasant to see. They had a wide range of booths including a Canadian booth! My favourite part of that trip was visiting Versailles, it was so much more elaborate than I would have ever imagined. Versailles was the palace of the monarchy of France and the last monarchs to live there was Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI right before the French revolution. The actual grounds of the palace was not as nice as it is in the summer because all their flowers were dead and many of the statues outside were covered for the winter, but the buildings at Versailles were breathtaking. We first walked over to where Marie Antoinette used to live in the summer to escape from the craziness of the royal life, which had taken about 45 minutes. It help you picture how giant the grounds of Versailles are. When we actually entered the Chateau de Versailles later on, it was more amazing than I ever thought! I saw the king and queens bedchambers, dinner chambers and the famous hall of mirrors. We learned that citizens would pay to watch the king and queen eat dinner so many nights the king and queen had to put on a show as they were eating dinner! Seeing the hall of mirrors was also really cool because it was the room where the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending World War I. Overall, my final Paris experience was a great way to end my trip!
The next day I was leaving from Charles de Gaulle Airport at 1:30 p.m. but I made sure I got there as early as possible because I knew that I was not going to have another experience like the day I had first arrived! I was staying in a hotel close to Montparnasse, the main train station in Paris and I decided to take the AirFrance Shuttle bus. Since the bus would be travelling on the streets of Paris I took the 9 a.m. bus just to make sure that I had plenty of time to get to the airport. It was 14 Euros and it took a little over an hour to get there.
Once I arrived, I went and checked in my luggage and I was planning on meeting two of my friends who were also leaving on the same day as me. Now if you remember from my first post, the Charles de Gaulle airport is huge! I found out later that one of my friends was in Terminal 1 and I was in Terminal 2, so really there was no point of trying to see her because it is basically like being in two different airports. Luckily my other friend was leaving from the same terminal as me, 2E, so we met up and thought we would be able to hang out in the airport together for a little bit before we both left. Wrong! Apparently the airport had two giant terminals 1 and 2, followed by sub terminals 2A to 2G, followed by sub terminals within each, so even though my friend and I were in 2E together I was in 2E-M and he was in 2E-L which are separated by a train.
We said our goodbyes and not too much later I got on my plane back to the land of the cold! I wasn’t sad because I had my head wrapped around the idea of me leaving for a few days since I had already left the comfort of Rennes. I slept for most of my plane ride home and arrived on the day of the crazy snow storm in Ottawa. I was anything but pleased. Before arriving, I was kind of excited to see the snow since I had not seen a flake of snow in Europe but I was not excited to see that much snow! It was really great seeing my family since I had only seen them on Skype for the last four months and it was also great eating the foods I missed, aka Tim Horton’s! The first thing I ate when I arrived was some Tim Horton’s and it was just as good as I remembered.
The next week of being home was really hectic because I was only home in Ottawa for a day and a half and then my family and I flew to St. John’s, Newfoundland to spend Christmas with the rest of our family. During that day and a half I squished in as many friends as I could see who I knew I wouldn’t see when I got back from Newfoundland. The next week was really great because I saw a lot of family I don’t get to see throughout the normal school year and I always had family around. By the end of the week I was getting really antsy to get home because I was still on vacation and hadn’t got the chance to relax and get my head around actually being home in Ottawa. When I got back to Ottawa, I saw a few more friends and took a few days to relax at home and do nothing. Finally it felt like I was back home and it made me ready for another semester at Carleton!
I am quite excited to be back at Carleton, but I do miss my friends and my life in France. I am glad I didn’t stay the two semesters at ESC Rennes because many students are gone after four months, which means that it would be like I was starting from scratch at the school again. Also, we did not get to practice as much French as I would have liked, which was the main reason I went abroad.
Overall, I strongly recommend participating in a study abroad program because it really changes your life! I went as a teenager who had never lived away from home and I left a more mature person who wants to see the world! It’s a scary thought going abroad, but the experiences outweigh all the negatives. I have met lifelong friends from around the globe and I have got to see some of the most amazing places. I am so glad I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and participated in this exchange because it has been one of the best experiences of my life, which I will never forget. Being able to experience different cultures first hand and being able to learn about so many different cultures has really opened my eyes to the world. Now that I know that I can survive living abroad, I have considered international internships for the future and the possibility of doing my masters in Europe. Of course, you will deal with issues along the way but I know even with those problems I would have not changed a single thing about my experience. Thank you so much to everyone who read my blog and if any of you are considering going abroad I wish you the best of luck!!!!!