Rachel Bainbridge
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Every day I seem to be learning something new
April 24, 2015
Perhaps the biggest fear of my year abroad was considering that I would actually have to speak Spanish. What if I don’t understand them? Or what if they don’t understand me? What if I don’t know enough vocab? I need to calm down, were my thoughts on my first day. After conversing a few words …
My daily life runs completely ‘auf Deutsch’
In terms of the development of my language I was starting to get a little worried at work because a lot of people were trying to practice their English with me, and also I was introduced at first as not being able to speak German much at all. I think there was a little bit …
What have I let myself in for?
April 23, 2015
Packing up your bags and moving abroad for a year to a foreign country is an extremely exhilarating prospect which I had been looking forward to since the beginning of my university life. Yet when my flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina was being called to board, I seriously questioned myself why I had been so …
I experienced a ‘tricolore’ cocktail of emotions
Upon arrival in France I experienced a ‘tricolore’ cocktail of emotions. First was excitement; this was it, the start of my long-anticipated year abroad, the goal which got me through all those tedious hours of revising for second year exams. Then I felt daunted and overwhelmed by the realisation that the exotic dream of spending …
I’m the first in my family to live abroad
Although I have lived in England for 13 years, I come from a Ukrainian family, and as we don’t have a similar programme in Ukraine, I’m the first in my family to go live abroad. During the summer, everyone kept asking me if I was worried about living abroad, away from my family for such …
Greetings from the Basque Country
¡Saludos del País Vasco! Or should that be “Agurrak Euskal Herritik”? Either way, I mean to say “Greetings from the Basque Country”, as I am spending roughly nine months in San Sebastián, a beautiful city in the northern Basque region of Spain. I´ve been here since the end of August and so far it’s all …
A long way from Nottingham
So I’m now a month into my year abroad, where I’m working as an English language assistant in France and thought it was about time I wrote about some of my first impressions. My first reaction when I got the letter from the Académie de Nice Rectorat in July, saying that I had been placed …
It is starting to feel like home
I have no idea what I was really expecting from Brazil. I am spending four and a half months teaching English at an NGO in Belo Horizonte but I’d spent so much time stressing about the flight and having to clear border control and collect and re-check my bags in under 2 hours at Sao …
Nissa la Bella
I arrived in Nissa la Bella (Niçois for Nice the Beautiful) around a month and a half ago and I have to say: settling in to this dreamy city has not been too taxing. Nice – France’s fifth most populous city – sits on the Cote d’Azur and experiences a warm, sunny climate almost year-round. …
I’m looking forward to seeing what else France has to offer me
I’m happy to say I’m now starting to feel very settled into my new home in France. Although I arrived super excited to explore I would be lying if I didn’t say I was also fairly apprehensive. Being thrown out of your comfort zone and into a completely different country, culture and daily way of …
English
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