Student Blogs/Sarah in France
Nice to meet you and thank you for checking in on my blog! For those of you who don't know me, I am going into my third-year of international business (BIB) at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.
All students in the BIB program are required to spend a year studying abroad in order to gain both fluency in another language and international experience. Therefore, I am going to be spending my third-year abroad in the small French town of Chambéry.
Chambéry is located in the Rhone-Alpes region of France and it fairly close to both Lyon and Geneva. I wanted to live in Chambéry because I feel like that is where I will find a real taste of French culture. I grew up in a town about the same size as Chambéry and I am really excited to compare what my life is like in a French small town vs. what my life was like in a Canadian small town.
It is important to note that I will be living in residence when I arrive in Chambéry and I will be sharing a kitchen with 20 other university students. As someone whose favourite past-time is cooking, this idea is very scary. However, I chose this style of residence because I felt like it will force me to become better at communal living and break out of my comfort zone and really get to know the people in my building.
I will not be starting school until September 3rd, but I am leaving Canada in a little under two weeks so I can do some travelling. The adventure begins on August 15th when I will be flying out of Toronto with my two older brothers. We will be touring around Scotland and England for a week-and-a-half, after which I will be en route to Spain for La Tomatina with a fellow BIBer. Finally, I'll go to Switzerland to visit an old friend.
In all honesty, the fact that I am leaving so soon feels pretty surreal. I have been dreaming of this opportunity for a long time and now that it is here it just doesn't seem real. I really want to make the most of this amazing opportunity so I have made some goals for myself:
1. Come back to Canada fluent in French
2. Break out of my comfort zone and embrace communal living
3. Travel as much as I can
4. Have a local baker know my name. (Then I will know that I truly embraced the French culture!)
Right now I am just doing all the last minute preparations before I have to leave. All visas and documents are ready, all that is left to do is packing. Yesterday I did a "trial pack" and discovered that it isn't going to be as hard as I thought it would be to pack up my life in a suitcase. After reading countless packing lists and blogs recommending that North Americans should try to bring their nicer clothes to Europe I came to the realization that I am really just going to have to bite the bullet and buy a lot once I arrive in Chambéry.
A word of advice for anyone who is preparing to go abroad: Get your visa application in as early as possible! I sent mine in a few months before the rest of my friends and I am so happy I did. Within one week I had sent in my application and received my French visa in the mail.
For now it is just getting everything done that needs to be done and fitting in all my goodbyes!