Is two and a half months of living in a French town enough to go from get-by-in-a-cafe French to confidently-manage-most-situations French (see the linguistic ramble, part one)? Probably, if you do it right. I didn’t.
First of all, two and a half months can go really fast. One week finding a place to stay, weekends in San Sebastian and Bilbao, a few days’ visit from a friend, a couple of weeks working on finding private English students – halfway through. A couple more visits to San Sebastian, lesson planning and teaching, a quick visit to Barcelona and Helsinki, a road trip in the mountains – one week left.
Second, as it turns out, if you want to learn by immersion, you kind of have to get out of the house and actually talk to people. I had no job and took no French classes, and just walking up to someone and saying hi is a lot to ask from a Finn. My home had fast wifi, a comfy bed and a well-equipped kitchen. Planning English lessons was time-consuming. The cafés were expensive and the coffee honestly not that good. Popping down to the boulangerie for a fresh baguette every morning gets old quickly when you’re not really a morning person. All this piled up into a considerable threshold for leaving the house, which my motivation wasn’t strong enough to climb over – at least not every day.
My French did improve, though, no question about that. Shopping in market halls, watching TV and looking up the unfamiliar words, using French cooking recipes, jogging along the Nive river listening to French podcasts – together these things improved my vocabulary, confidence and listening skills quite a bit.
Even more rewarding was talking to my lovely flatmate/landlady Virginie. Living in her apartment was really a brilliant stroke of luck. Partly because moving in where someone else already lives means that there are things like bedsheets, pepper mills and Scotch tape available, but mostly because we would chat a little bit every day. She has the capacity to slow down and speak simply enough for me to just understand, which is a rare talent. Merci, chère Virginie, pour m’inviter dans ta maison et ta vie!
Another stroke of luck were the weekly African dance classes at the local community college. I had spent all year without my dearest hobby, and walking into the studio for the first time, seeing the drums piled up against the wall, hearing two balafons playing – it felt like coming home! Amazing how rhythms and movements from West Africa can create such a common ground for a bunch of French people and a Finn.
Here, I made friends with delightful Basque sisters Maia and Teija, who even were nice enough to take me to a rugby game. In this part of France, football is not that popular, but rubgy is huge. The game was a lot of fun to follow, although Maia had to spend most of it explaining to me what was going on. In French, bien sûr.
It was also very rewarding to put my CELTA skills to the test with two private students: a young military man who was going to be stationed in Germany, and an elderly music and art lover who lived out in the country. The teaching experience I gained was good consolation for not achieving Grand Master Ninja level in French. Plus, it gave me a little pocket money. Most of which I spent on food.
So, before I knew it, it was time to leave. On my last night, Virginie asked what the best thing had been during my stay in France. I couldn’t really answer then and there. The answer only came to me on the airplane headed for Finland: After nine months on the road, a couple of nights here and a couple of weeks there, in shabby hostels and spartan bungalows, my soul had found peace in Virginie’s beautiful, cosy apartment. Travelling is necessary, but so is having a place that feels like home.
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- “Do not waste your life making a living.”
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- Back in Helsinki, one big suitcase almost completely full of food and drink.
But before making a new home for myself in Helsinki and going back to being a responsible citizen, there would still be more adventure: two and a half weeks in Benin. In other words, more rambles to come!
On a ramble 