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 …
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 …
I love the German way of life
I started my adventure in Germany in September. I had been studying German ever since I was eleven however I had only properly visited twice, so my first-hand experience of Germany was extremely lacking. I had never lived here, had a pen pal or took part in an exchange – so it was all very …
I can’t wait to see what the rest of this year brings
Anxious, excited and armed with every document possible ready to tackle the infamous French bureaucracy, I arrived in Orleans very late at night to an unfriendly taxi driver and a closed hotel. I immediately thought that everything was going to go wrong from there. But how wrong was I. I am having a brilliant time …
Week one in Köln: a roller-coaster of emotions
November 5, 2013
The ability to squeeze every emotion possible into one week is a pretty tough but I’m sure my first week in Köln has had me the most stressed but also the happiest within the space of a few hours! I was pretty sure that I would get accommodation fairly quickly when I got out here …
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