I have realized that I have been mainly talking about my travels around Europe and not necessarily my life in France, so I decided this next post will be dedicated to my interesting and sometimes very bizarre life in France. I decided that I would touch upon five different parts of life in France: the school system, the people, the weather, the food and the culture.
The school system here in France is very different than back home. First, they have both public and private universities. Public universities are universities that anyone can go to and are free. The private universities are viewed as a better education while students have to pay up to eight thousand Euros to attend. I am currently going to a private university, which I didn’t realize until I got here. It is a very small university with only three thousand students, which makes it very easy to meet people. To be completely honest, going to this university has made me so grateful for Carleton. For example, if you have problems at the university they basically tell you it's your problem and to deal with it. There has been a lot of administration issues where students haven’t been able get the right courses or students were put in the wrong level of French and would like to change to the right level and these students were told that they would have to deal with it. This is something that I would never see back at Carleton. It just really shocked me that a university would let their students struggle so much and not help them out the way Carleton does.
On the plus side though, school here is a lot less work than back home. We only ever have one group project or test and a final examination. It is nice because you don’t have much extra work to do outside of school so you can go travel and see friends whenever you want during the week. It is also a little bit scary because you really don’t know how well you are doing in each of your classes since you haven’t really had much of a continuous assessment. They also don’t require you to buy textbooks, they even discourage it, which has saved me a lot of money this semester!
What I have found very strange about our university is that I have no classes with actual French students. I only have classes with international students, which is quite nice because I get to meet people from all nationalities but also strange since I don’t get to meet many French students. Through this experience, I have learned that very few people know much about Canada. Whenever I am asked where in Canada I’m from and I say Ottawa, most people don’t know where it is. I knew not many people knew about Canada but I didn’t realize how little people did until I came on exchange.
On a more positive note, I have met some amazing people here that I’m sure I will stay friends with for a very long time. Being here with so many international students makes you appreciate your own country and you learn to joke around. For example, I developed the nickname 'Jonathan Manitoba' since my American friends didn’t think my name sounded very Canadian. We have also been joking around about how Americans are literally 'hamburgers' and how we Canadians put maple syrup on everything. It has been really great because I have never met so many people from different countries and it's interesting to compare cultures from around the world.
I have met some really nice French people and a few that were far from nice. Overall, I have found the French to be very friendly, helpful and very happy when you try to speak French to them. I have also dealt with some not so nice people, mainly when you question anything they say. For example, when in Nantes, my friend from Belgium ordered a panini from a restaurant in the train station. When she got the sandwich it was completely burnt so she told them in french (she has very good french) that it was too burnt and asked them to do it over. The woman working there waited until other customers came over, served them first and after about 10 minutes she finally made another panini for my friend but purposely undercooked it. I was shocked that she would act so childish. Back home in Canada, if something like that happened they would have generally made a new one right away.
The weather in Rennes is so random it is difficult to ever know how to dress. The sun usually doesn’t rise until close to 9:00 a.m. and it gets pitch black out at 6:00 p.m. During the day it will look nice and sunny for a bit then out of the blue it will rain. It rains all the time here, usually once a day or every two days. There are also days where the sun doesn’t come out all day and it just looks very gloomy outside.
I am supposed to arrive back in Canada right at the end of December and I am already cringing at the thought of the cold and snow. Currently in France the weather is very mild, going between 13 degrees to about 5 degrees at night, which is not very cold for November weather. I usually go out wearing a light coat and sometimes it’s even too hot to wear it. It has been great because you never have to worry about it getting too cold. It is not going to get much colder than this so it makes me very nervous to go back home knowing I’m going back to the dead of winter!
Everyone here has to eat fresh food all the time. I’ve seen two fast food restaurants in Rennes: McDonalds’ and Quick, and both have a much higher quality of food than back in Canada. For example, the McDonald's has much fresher looking products and a much fancier atmosphere with lounge chairs and fancy tables. The food was also of a lot better quality and really doesn’t look or taste like fast food. Otherwise, the French people usually go to the grocery store and buy food 2 or 3 times a week since food goes bad very quickly. For example, when you buy a baguette, it will usually last you the night and will get hard as rock the next morning, so you basically have to eat your baguette as soon as you buy it. There are also microwave meals in France (but of much better quality than back home) which are not very commonly eaten. I actually really enjoy how fresh food is because you feel better while eating it and you can go out to restaurants and get a really nice meal (which is not processed!) and it's cheap.
The only problem I have with the food is that the French undercook meat all the time. Hamburgers will be very pink and if you ever order a steak and ask for it well done, it will usually come out medium rare. If you are a fan of rare meat than this is the country for you!
I am been taking a French culture course at my university here in France and it has been very interesting to learn about the French but also the Bretons of France. I live in Brittany, France which actually had two of its own dialects called Breton and Gallo. Breton was spoken more in the west of Brittany and Gallo was spoken more in the east of Brittany, where I live. In the early 20th century, the government would not allow students to speak Breton or Gallo in school and made students speak French. It really declined the amount of speakers of Breton and Gallo and now barely anyone speaks it. Because people of Brittany spoke their own language for so long, there was a really negative view of Bretons and everyone assumed they were stupid. The people of Brittany are very close and have a different sense of community than other parts of France I’ve visited which I thought was very interesting.
In France, you also need to have a basic level of french because very few people here speak english. As a result, I usually speak french to people everywhere I go just because they are much more comfortable with me struggling a little bit instead of the other way around. It’s a great way to practice my french. Most of my international friends at my school speak very little french so I have also become one of the translators for my friends when we go out or if they have questions. They can usually tell that you’re not French, but for the most part they will repeat themselves to make sure you understand exactly what they are saying.
What I have also found funny is my use of "Quebec French" here which has confused a lot of the French I have talked to. For example, a 'dépanneur' is not a 'convenience store' like it is in Québec but instead a 'repairman'. Also, un 'courriel' is an email in 'Québec French' but apparently is a very old way of saying to send a letter in 'France French'. I used 'courriel' with my French roommate he looked really confused. In France, they just call an email, 'un e-mail', which is pretty straightforward. I have also noticed that there are more english words used by the French which makes it very easy to figure out what it is. For example, everyone calls hamburgers, hamburgers but when you order them you have to say it in a french accent or they will not know what you are talking about.
Overall I have been really enjoying my time in France and I have met some great people and experienced so much so far. I can’t believe that I have been here for over two months! The time has gone by so fast. My goal for the next two months is to really get to know more French students and to improve my french even more so by the time I go home, my french proficiency will be much better.
After spending two months here in France, I would really recommend to all other students thinking about doing an exchange to do one since it has been one of the best experiences of my life and I can not be happier being here. I hope you learned more about life in France!