I am already on fire for Chambéry =)

Heyyyyyy Peeeps,

thinking about whether I should start my blog in English or German, I decided for the first one. Besides my Mum everybody understands it and she gets emails from me every now and then so it should be fine. Too many international and Gerkwalian friends I guess. =)

So today I started my ERASMUS semester in Chambéry, France. After I stayed over at my uncle´s last night, in Freiburg, I drove through beautiful Switzerland and France. 

Just for you Gwerkwali <3

The car was loaded and was that I mean not one inch free (see picture),

Everything was fine until I passed the sign that said "Chambéry". I took one wrong street and knew, from that moment on, that I would never find my way out without tomtom. Because I only had Google-maps printouts, it took 2 hours to find the address I was looking for.

Having found the address, desperate after trying to ask for the way in French twice, I saw a fellow student from the first year in the housing agency. I turns out she is my roomy for the next 5 months, which is kinda nice. Her name is Linda.

Our appartment is grand. We each have a room with about 20 sqm, including a sink a lot of storage room. We share a tiny kitchen a shower and a toilet.

My room before unpacking

Linda cleaning the kitchen

Sooo much better =)

At home is where you feel @ home

Meister Poper *sing*

We both like it a lot and got settled quickly, well more or less. After running up and down a casillion times (even though we do have an elevator) we just decided to drop all our stuff and go out for dinner with Linda´s parents. All good and nice until we came back and opened the door to our appartment again. What we saw was only smoke and we had no idea where it came from because everything, except for the fridge, was still unplugged. Totally coughing Linda and I ran downstairs to get help, when Linda´s Dad yelled downstairs that everything was "ok". It turned out that one of us put a moving cardboard box onto the stove (electric) and it somehow turned on. The result was a totally melted box (content was just spices and irrelevant stuff). Nothing else broke or got burned, but it was super close. All our clothes stink now, but I take that rather than burned clothes. 

Other than that everything seems incredibly new to me (no wonder) and I have the feeling that I speak a completely different language than these people over here. Tomorrow we have some sort of a grading test, where our French level is determined in order to put us in different intensive language courses. Uni does not start before the 19th of September; meaning I still have some time to understand what the woman in the tobacco store tried to explain to me when I asked her for the way. =)

Chambéry itself has a lot of very run down buildings but the most beautiful surrounding with all its mountains and lakes. 

Alright, super tired I say hello to all the other ERASMUS students in Sweden, Ireland, Finland, Spain, Italy, Germany, China and Bulgaria (plus all others). Seeing and talking to Linda´s parents reminded me of Holland, so also greetz back to my old home and my friends there (hope you are alright Tijs?) and last but not least my beloved once in Munich (and the rest of Germany) and Australia! I will keep you updated! Good night =)