A new year starting means new erasmus coming. And this year I've done things a bit differently, instead of just meeting the newcomers I've joined the Erasmus association of Bordeaux "Inter'action Bordeaux" and I've helped them organized many events. Parties of course but also some really cool stuff like:
- A welcome erasmus week-end in a camping next to the Sanguinet lake (and for the first time of my life I slept on the beach! Not really comfy).
- The Feria of Bordeaux, and no worries, no animals were injured, it was more like a silly cow running around people :)
Aside from participating in this new adventure, I've also started taking Korean classes at the same place where I was taking russian classes last year. And I already learned how to write/read korean. It's actually not that hard at all and if you have a few hours to spare you could learn it too :)
I forgot that I also spent quite some time learning Romanian on Memrise this summer and I fell in love with Memrise again. I was actually the first of many romanian classes rankings for many weeks.
So here's to a new school year in Bordeaux. My initial plan was to do my first year in Bordeaux and do my second year in Rennes. I liked Bordeaux so much that I decided to stay here instead, for better or worse.
First, I found a new place. It's way better than my last place (which was really, really bad). And I couldn't have asked for a better location. I'm right in the middle of everything. Bordeaux is small enough that I basically have to walk less than 5 minutes to go to restaurants, shops, supermarkets, the laundry, my friends, etc... Life is easy :)
A few weeks ago an article has been written about my website 3pages in Telerama (a nationwide paper). It's small but that's something :)
Also I started classes last week. But I'll make another post about that!
I don't write enough in the "Life in Bordeaux" section of this blog. So, here I am, trying to write something.
What can I tell you about Bordeaux ?
I ***** love Bordeaux. I love its student life, I love how practical it is for me to see my friends, I really like my campus especially that building with all those free-access computers with double screens and everything already setup on them.
I don't really like the weather though, it's raining quite often, I'd say at least once a week, but when it shines, it shines.
The public transport is the worse part of the city. There is no subway and trams are always PACKED. And when I say packed I mean "you will miss 5 trams in a row because you can't get in" packed. And I have to commute, every day... but I'll survive, it's not Paris and its awful subway :) far from that.
The streets are dirty, my apartment is crappy, really, but it's okay, I'm moving in June, hopefully to a better place. Still have to find a new place though, and looking for a place in Bordeaux is HARSH. I shiver just thinking about it.
Girls are pretty :o) and there are many girls. Bad thing is that my part of the campus is full of guys (and sometimes its hard to tell).
I don't know what else I could say. I like it better than Lyon, way better than Hamilton in Ontario, way way better than Paris. It lacks the feeling of "full of opportunities" that Beijing has though. But the air is breathable at least =) so yeah. Later in my life, I will consider settling in Bordeaux. Why not?
Direct Matin Bordeaux, which is a free magazine in Bordeaux that is handed at tram stations everywhere in the city, just wrote an article about me and my last project : 3pages.fr
you can read it here
Today I was interviewed by Emeline Marceau from Direct Martin Bordeaux, a free newspaper that is directly competing against 20 minutes in France.
I already had my first interview with Vincent Glad from Slate (and now Canal+) 3 years ago. But this is different as it should be printed in a real newspaper with a picture of me. Well nothing is sure yet, crossing fingers.
It's time for a new list of random things I noticed about Bordeaux :
- Many 2€ kebab places. Also, kebab here are made with a Lebanese bread, like a crepe, and not with the half of an Arabic bread like in Lyon.
- It's raining, A LOT. It's raining at least once a week, but usually way more than once a week.
- It's not that cold. I just came back from a week in Lyon and oh my god was it cold there, you can feel winter coming, but in Bordeaux ? Chill, you don't need that jacket.
- There are no Bordelais. Most people I run into come from other places in France. I actually only met one Bordelaise and it was during my first week here.
- The city is really not that big. In 30 minutes you feel like you've seen most of it.
- We have Velov' in Lyon, Velib' in Paris, here it's Vcub. Those free bikes you can rent pretty much anywhere.
So, I've been living here for a month and here is my list of what it is to live in Bordeaux.
- People say "chocolatine" instead of "pain au chocolat" and "poche" instead of "sac". It's kind of weird, especially when I have to say it, I'm always scared that they can tell I'm not from here, which is a stupid thing to be scared of, I had the same kind of feeling when I was living in Canada or China and didn't have the same accent as the locals, but it's weirder having that feeling in my own country.
- Streets are dirty, really dirty, you will always have to avoid dog poops when you go somewhere. Sidewalks are very small so you also always have to walk directly on the road.
- The city is pretty small. It's easy to get around. But when something is a bit far, it's annoying to get there since there is no subway.
- The public transportation system is horrendous, every morning I have to get squished by a thousand students taking the same tramway, most of the time I miss several trams because there are too many people inside, my personal record is seeing five tram passing without being able to enter them. Pretty annoying.
- Not so much accent here, but people say "gavé" a lot, it means "very". For example "c'était gavé bien hier soir".
I successfully found a new place after less than two weeks of exhausting research.
It's a pain looking for a place in Bordeaux, a real pain, and fortunately I'm french (I've seen lots of places that wouldn't take foreigners). But I found a place! After squatting at 
