Mum and Katie explore Rennes

So, I have returned from my first wanderings in Rennes! I have literally experienced the full spectrum of human emotion in the last few days, and so this post could get quite long and detailed...so I will make sure I include lots of pictures to keep you amused. Here's the first one: one of my favourites of the main square in Rennes.

Place Sainte-Anne

So after a day full of apprehension, anticipation and aviation, we (that's me and my primary support machine, my Mum) arrived at our hotel late on Saturday night, and then Sunday morning was taken up with visiting the church I'm planning to go to next year. I had - probably unhelpfully - placed a lot of expectation on this, but fortunately we found it easily, and everyone was really friendly. We managed to speak to almost everyone, which was amazing, and we were never left not talking to anyone...people were so great at coming up and introducing themselves! Because it's the middle of summer, a lot of families and most of the students were away from Rennes, but the few students I did meet were so lovely and welcoming, and lots of the couples turned out to either have family in England or often one of the pair was actually English, which was reassuring for me as they really understood what I was going through, and especially reassuring for Mum, as it meant there were some people she could speak English to! My French seemed to keep up which was a relief; I sometimes found myself searching for a word or struggling with a verb conjugation, and occasionally I had to ask people to repeat things, but other than that it seemed OK! No completely blank faces greeted me, so that's a positive.

We had been invited to a picnic with one of the families after church, which was so kind of them, but in the end I decided it might be best to just go back to the hotel for a bit of a break...even though church had really reassured me, it was all quite overwhelming and tiring being in a church service entirely in French, and - as often happens when I'm nervous - I was feeling really sick and just generally exhausted. So we went back and had a regroup and a rest, and then once I had recovered a bit we went for an explore of the city. We managed to negotiate the metro (it's not hard it turns out...there's only one line, but still, it makes you feel like a local) and then had a general wander round. The city itself was really nice...full of picturesque little streets, wide boulevards and old buildings, and it even has a quay like Exeter (not quite as nice though)! And a great mix of authentically French boutiques and shops like Lush and Body Shop. Also lots of shops my Mum recognised from her youth...some parts were basically like 1980s England. In the best way.

One of the old streets

La République

The river

The Opera House

We chose one of the many (seriously, there are hundreds) crêperies to have our tea, which was delicious...I feel I may be having a lot of crêpes in the coming months.

Me at our favourite crêperie in Place Sainte-Anne

Monday started with trying - and failing - to find a café to have breakfast, and so we ended up getting some food in a supermarket down the road.  We managed to find ordinary milk and...wait for it...TETLEY ENGLISH BREAKFAST TEA BAGS. I will survive my year abroad it seems, as we have found it is possible to make a decent cup of tea in France!! All it took was a bit of searching and English know-how...my Mum is literally a tea expert, so she perfected a French tea-making method for me.

After our breakfast, I must admit I had a bit of a wobbler. I just had one of those moments where I stressed that 7 months was a very long time, and it was all too different, and I couldn't deal with it. But Mum really helped me put it all in perspective...7 months will go very quickly once the first few weeks have gone, and we looked back at Freshers last year (see my blog post about it here) and how hard that was, but how happy I was once I had done it. For all the great 'God really carried me through this' stories, there had to be a 'oh my gosh I can't do this' beginning.

After that we got the metro down to the uni and had a little look round, and I have to say, the campus was so much nicer than I was expecting!! It had a lovely nice campusy-feel, and was really green, so that was a pleasant surprise!

The main building

I recognised this from the website!

We could almost be in Exeter...

My flat is literally 2 mins away (you can see the campus from my bedroom window) which is amazing, and the flat itself was great...really clean, everything's included, and my room was such a good size! Plus the landlady was really friendly, and she told me both my flatmates will be French, which is SUCH a bonus. Massive answer to prayer there! The rest of the day was really just taken up with looking round the area round my apartment, which had a great atmosphere as its slightly outside the main city centre, but still only 10 mins on the metro, and a big supermarket and shops nearby. It sounds ridiculous, but I was very excited to find home comforts like my regular moisturiser and shampoo, Pringles and Ben and Jerry's in the supermarket! It's the little things.

Ma chambre

La cuisine

So that's a summary of our weekend! Overall it was a really positive experience, and although I had my moments, for the most part it made the YA less of a completely unknown entity, and really encouraged me that I can actually do this. It's still scary, and much more real now, but I have 6 weeks to gear myself up before I start, and at least now I have some sort of feel for the city which will be my home for 7 months! I shall probably do a few more posts as I prepare to fly out, but until then, à bientôt.