Here I am, three weeks in to la vie en France! So far so good, as I’ve been saying to anyone who has asked. I started teaching last week but the first two weeks I was here were still busy! So here is a little update on what I’ve gotten up to in that time.

I haven’t really talked much about the journey, mostly because it was very straightforward, if a little long. I started off with a very unceremonious departure from Dunblane, just me and my dad. Previously when I’ve been making a big move, I’ve always had an airport entourage to wave me off. Because my flight was at midday this time, it was a reduced to me and my chauffeur. The fact that I’ve made a bit of a habit of leaving the country and that France is a lot more accessible than either Honduras or China also contributed to the lack of fanfare, which I was totally ok with.

I wasn’t able to get a direct flight from Edinburgh to Basel so I flew via Bordeaux. This was my first time flying since leaving China 20 months ago. Travelling in covid times can be stressful but I can’t say that I found it much more stressful than a normal trip through the airport. I think having gotten used to living through a global pandemic made it a bit easier to get through the extra steps that are involved in travelling now. I had to present proof of vaccination before boarding both of my flights, although not when I landed. On one flight I had a whole row to myself but only by chance, on most rows there were people in all the seats. When I finally arrived in Basel, my destination airport, I thought it would take me a while to get to Mulhouse but it was actually very quick! Even though the airport is known as Basel, it also serves Mulhouse and Freiburg in addition to the Swiss city but is actually in France. A bus from right outside the exit of the airport took me to the nearest town, Saint Louis, and from there I got a short train to Mulhouse where my lovely landlord and his wife picked me up.

I was lucky enough to have arranged my accommodation before I arrived. I had been looking for a colocation which is a shared flat. Because so much of my job will be in English, I wanted to live with French people, or at least people I could speak French with. I wasn’t planning on committing to anywhere before I arrived because I didn’t want to get scammed but I did reach out to some apartments I found in order to arrange a visit for my first week. In doing so I had a video call with one appartment and got a really good feeling from the landlord, Cédric. The flat looked great, freshly renovated, and best of all Cédric told me that if I wanted the room I wouldn’t have to pay anything until I arrived. I thought about it and decided to take it. There were no red flags and in the end, I was right!

The flat looked exactly like it had when I saw it on the video call. It is so light and spacious with a lovely open plan kitchen, living room and dining room. My room is great as well with lots of space. So far it is just me and one other flatmate, a French girl called Emma who is finishing up a masters in communications. There are two more flatmates to come, a French-Canadian guy later this week and a German girl next week. Emma and I are getting on well but I’m looking forward to meeting the others too!

Even though I was exhausted after the day of travelling, I had a busy first day! I met up with Jen, the head of the English department, in Place de la Réunion which is the main square in the centre of the city. We had a coffee and talked about what I would face in the coming year. When we were finished we headed down to the university campus and Jen gave me a tour around the FLSH building, where the English department is. I met some of the administrative staff and saw the classrooms I’ll be teaching in. We also dropped by one of the other teacher’s houses on the way home to say hello and have a glass of wine.

I didn’t have any work obligations during my first week so most of it was spent setting myself up. I opened a bank account, got myself a French mobile number, bought some things for my room, picked up my university card and just generally settled in. It took me a while to organise a tram pass for myself so I walked around a lot. This was great because I got to see more of the city, especially the area around Place de la Réunion which has the main shopping street nearby.

In my second week I still didn’t start teaching but I did have a few welcome meetings with the students. As I’ve said I will only be teaching the licence students but I also met a lot of the English masters students over the week. One of the other English teachers invited me over to her house for lunch which was really nice. I’ve also linked up with a few girls from Heriot Watt who are here on their Erasmus year, it’s been nice hanging out with others who know Edinburgh!

Having been here three weeks, I’ve had a few weekends to get to know some of the nightlife of Mulhouse. With the state of the world, I can’t imagine anything worse than going to a club right now, as much as I would love a boogie, but I have visited a few bars. My first outing was actually to an Irish pub! Annabelle, the lectrice who was in my position for the last two years, was back for a visit so I joined her and some of her friends, including another English lectrice at the university, Àine, and a Scottish girl called Lynzie who is from Alva! I love serendipitous moments like that when you meet someone who grew up 20 minutes from you while both living in a totally different country. Shamrock was great, I didn’t see any Guinness behind the bar (not that I would be ordering any…) but on the first Tuesday of the month, which this happened to be, there is live Scottish or Irish music. I felt very at home!

I also went to a bar called Gambrinus in the city centre. Gambrinus is the name of a European cultural hero who is an icon of beer and joie de vivre so it is only fitting that the bar specialises in beer, with 26 different types on draught. Gambrinus (the bar) is also known for serving a traditional Alsatian dish called flammekueche, or tarte flambée. Its a thin layer of dough covered in crème fraîche or fromage blanc and traditionally topped with thinly sliced onions and bacon lardons. Some popular additional toppings include various types of cheese or mushrooms and it can also be made into a sweet dish.

I’ve been able to try a couple of Alsatian dishes at this point. When I went to my colleague’s house for lunch, she made pâté Lorrain, meat pâté in puff pastry with some chestnut and red onion, carrot and salad. It was all really nice and we had a little bit of Muscat and some German beer with it and apple tart for dessert, made with apples from their garden. When out for lunch at little cafe one day, I also tried fleischschnackas. These are made from cooked meat stuffing, eggs, onions and parsley, rolled up in fresh egg pasta. I had no idea what I was ordering but I was presently surprised! In a less traditional turn of events, or maybe more depending on your viewpoint, I also had toad in the hole for lunch at a friend’s this weekend! It did have a bit of an Alsatian twist though as we used some local poultry sausages.

I’ve already spoken about my first week of classes and introduced you to my job so that about covers everything else I’ve been up to since I arrived here! I really feel like I’ve hit the ground running which is a nice feeling. I’ve been trying not to put too much pressure on myself and approach everything with the mindset that I plan to be here for a while so there’s no rush! (Although the last time I thought like this, I ended up leaving China in a rush four months early… fingers crossed there’s no repeat of that.) I’m also pretty proud that this is my first super long blog post since I started writing again! I’m sorry or you’re welcome depending on whether you’ve enjoyed the first long post in a while!

What even is a ‘lectrice‘??? I am coming to the end of my first week in my new job as ‘lectrice d’anglais‘ at l’Université de Haute-Alsace (the University of Upper Alsace) and I though it was about time to tell you a little bit more about what I’ll actually be doing this year!

First things first, a lecteur or a lectrice is basically just a language teacher. I am a lectrice d’anglais so an English language teacher. Responsibilities can very depending on the individual position. For example, I only teach the English licence students, so the students that study English for their bachelor’s degree. I take the English oral classes and it is up to me to plan my lessons, choose the topics we discuss throughout the year and also decide how to assess my students. Other lecteurs or lectrices d’anglais might be asked to teach translation, English for business or scientific English and here there is a different lectrice d’anglais for the students that want to take English as an elective course while studying different degrees.

I’ve met almost all of my students at this point and there’s a lot! There are three years in a French bachelor’s degree or licence, known as L1, L2 and L3. I have six groups of L1 students and four each of L2 and L3 which is about 170 students in total. I see each class once a week for an hour. I really want to focus on getting them talking as much as possible. They already have a pretty high level, even the L1s, so it will be about encouraging them to explore different English sources, different accents and different ways of expressing themselves. I’ve decided that the assessments for this semester will be split between participation, a presentation and some in class activities, pretty much the same across all three year groups. My timetable is looking pretty good so far. Monday and Tuesday are my busiest days but I don’t have any classes on Wednesday and then only half days on Thursday and Friday.

I am working at the Université de Haute-Alsace or the University of Upper-Alsace. There are campuses in Mulhouse and also the nearby town of Colmar. In Mulhouse there are two campuses, the Illberg campus where I work and also La Fonderie. They have strong links with universities in Strasbourg, Basel and Freiburg with some students travelling into Switzerland and Germany for courses. There are about 10,000 students over the two locations and multiple campuses. I am part of the FLSH department, the Faculté des Langues, Lettres et Sciences Humaines. Within the English section, there is the English licence, two types of masters, one for teaching English and one for research, and the doctorate programme.

I’m looking forward to getting to know my classes more as well as the other teachers in the department. I already have lots of ideas for things to talk about in class. We did some introductory activities this week and next week are going to talk about the Olympics. I also asked all my classes this week about their favourite English language films, TV shows, music and books so that I can try and fit some of them in later in the year!

I have been in Mulhouse for a week and a half now, taking my time to get to know the city. I haven’t started teaching yet, classes start on Monday, but I’ve still been busy with setting myself up. I’ve gathered some of the first impressions that Mulhouse has made on me as well as some general ones about moving to France.

Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg airport was a breeze.

Big shoutout to the Irish passport for this one. After a long day of travelling, first from Edinburgh to Bordeaux and then on to Basel, it was super nice to waltz through the airport on arrival. In fact, my passport wasn’t checked at all when I arrived in Basel – the beauty of the Schengen area – and neither was my covid documentation which was all looked at before boarding.

Transport in general has been very easy to navigate.

After getting out of the airport, it was just a quick bus to Saint Louis, the nearest town, and then the train to Mulhouse. It took under an hour and cost less than €10. From the train station, my landlord and his wife came to pick me up. Within Mulhouse, the transport system is called Soléa and you can get pretty cheap monthly passes that cover tram and bus travel. I live a one minute walk away from a tram stop and it’s just a couple of stops in one direction to get to the university and a couple of stops in the other direction to get to the centre of town.

Mulhouse reminds me of Edinburgh.

Mulhouse is a city of around 110,000 people, with 275,000 in the wider urban unit that includes the surrounding villages, some of which operate more as suburbs. It is quite a bit smaller than Edinburgh’s population of 524,000 but there’s some similarities I’m seeing. Both are cities that feel more like towns, especially around the city centre. They are very walkable, at least from what I’ve experienced in Mulhouse so far. Mulhouse has a lot of the small, cobbled streets that you expect from European cities, similar to the streets you would find in Edinburgh’s old town.

The city’s past has a big influnce on the Mulhouse of today.

There is a long history of industry in Mulhouse, to the extent that it has been nicknamed the “French Manchester”. In the 19th century, Mulhouse was the centre of France’s textile industry and the remnants of this are still visible across the city’s skyline. Another industry that developed around the same time was engineering automobiles and today Mulhouse is home to a number of well know museums including Cité de l’Automobile and Cité du Train. Now that a lot of this industry has left the city, Mulhouse has spent a lot of time, money and effort on revamping itself. There is a lot of greenery and there has been a rejuvenation of the town centre.

There seems to be lots to do!

Everyone that I’ve spoken to so far has been kind enough to give me many recommendations for things to do around Mulhouse. One thing I knew I wanted to find, even before I arrived, was a water polo team! I even got an email from my old coach the night before I left (hi David!) wishing me luck and letting me know that Mulhouse looks to have a pretty good water polo set up. I’ve been to a couple of training sessions now and I can confirm that! There are lots of other sports around as well, in particular I’ve heard that there is a very competitive women’s volleyball team. There is also the Université Populaire where I’m looking to take a Chinese course, lots of art museums and exhibitions, theatres and so on. Basel in Switzerland and Freiburg in Germany are both easily accessible as well as the French city of Strasbourg, all of which are worth a visit. To the west of Mulhouse is the Vosges mountain range which has stunning views and the ‘fermes auberges’, farmhouses where you can get a traditional bite to eat and something to drink during your hike.

It is every bit as bureaucratic as you think… if not more.

A lot of my first week here was taken up by pretty boring life admin tasks like opening a bank account, setting up a French number and signing my work contract among other things. Some of these were easier than I thought they would be but even when they were easy, they often weren’t quick. What I’ve also found funny are the many jokes made at the expense of the French bureaucracy, both by expats that have had to navigate it and by the French who have grown up with it.

COVID-19 has had a big impact on education here.

The education sector seems to have been messed about a lot over the past 18 months. Schools and universities were initially told to go home and take up online learning but then told to come back for the start of the new academic year before things went back online again. It made it very hard for teachers to plan for anything and was frustrating for some students who gave up their students accommodation but were then told they had to come back to in person classes. Thankfully classes will be in person when they start on Monday and hopefully they stay that way.

I have a good feeling about my colleagues.

All the other teachers in the English deparment seem really supportive and friendly. I already had this feeling from a meeting I went to back in June but it has been confirmed after being taken around Mulhouse in my first day by the head of the department who had also only just arrived and in meeting a lot of other teachers at various meetings this week. Everyone seems to socialise outside of work and in normal times there are a lot of work functions which I always think is a good sign of an enjoyable work environment.

The fact I am in Alsace is very important.

I’ve not just moved to France, more specifically I have moved to Alsace. There is definitely a strong regional identity here. Alsatian is still spoken by the older generation although it hasn’t been passed down to the younger generation as much. I see a lot of parallels between Alsatian and Gaelic, not just this lack of intergenerational teaching but also that there has been a bit of a resurgence of interest in recent years. A lot of the street signs are in both French and Alsatian as well. Alsatian food can be found in many restaurants here. So far the only thing I’ve tried has been tarte flambée (or flammekueche in Alsatian), thin dough with creme fraiche, thinly sliced onions and bacon lardons on top with lots of other toppings optional.

So that’s what I’ve made of my first ten days or so in Mulhouse. It’s still very early stages but so far, so good! I’m looking forward to getting started with the teaching on Monday and continuing to get to know Mulhouse and the wider area.

I’m starting this blog while sitting in Edinburgh airport, waiting for my flight to Bordeaux where I will catch another flight to Basel. Then its a bus and train to Mulhouse and finally a lift from my landlord to my appartment! It’s a long day of travelling to come at the end of a summer of somewhat lengthy and somewhat rapid preparations for the big move.

In the immediate aftermath of accepting the position of lectrice in Mulhouse, there wasn’t really much to be done. It was only the end of March so not only were there still five months until I was needed in France, I had much more pressing matters to deal with – final year exams. After making intial contact with the head of the English department at the Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) in Mulhouse, I pushed all other thoughts to the back of my mind, at least for the moment.

Once exams and pretty much everything else uni related were out of the way, there was still quite a lot of waiting around to do. I had decided almost immediately after applying that a visa was a hassle that I wanted nothing to do with. It was time to embrace my Irish roots in the most post-Brexit way possible – applying for an Irish passport. Even though the actual application was all done online and was super easy, there were a lot of delays due to covid. I wasn’t able to send of my supporting documents until June even though I applied in April. With an expected turnaround time of 6-8 weeks, it was pretty tight to even get it back in time for my expected departure at the end of August or start of September. I didn’t want to book flights or sort any accomodation until I had the passport in hand.

While I waited, I enjoyed my last few months in Edinburgh and also a couple of months at home. I was put in touch with the previous lectrice, Annabelle, who also got the job through Edinburgh University and was able to video chat her and ask lots of questions. I wasn’t really worried about the job itself, feeling like it was a challenge I could take in my stride but I was still keen to get more information about the set up so I knew what to expect. I also wanted to know what Mulhouse is like! Around the same time, I joined the end of year meeting with the English department at UHA which was very encouraging. It was great to meet everyone, even through a zoom call, and everyone was really welcoming. I got a bit more information on what the position requires but mostly it was nice to get a feeling for the people I’ll be working with next year, and a good feeling at that!

I also cast a net out on Facebook mostly, looking for other people that might be heading to that part of France that I could connect with. Annabelle had recommended some FB groups for teaching assistants which have proved very helpful. Through that group, which covers all of France, I found a Whatsapp group for the area around Strasbourg, which includes Mulhouse. I even met up with one of the girls who is from Glasgow and doing British Council in Strasbourg!

My Irish passport finally arrived in the middle of August and it was all systems go! I booked my flight to Mulhouse, flying via Bordeaux, and also an AirBnB for the first week I arrived so that I had somewhere to stay while finding more permanent accommodation. When I started reaching out to flat shares last week, I had some very speedy responses and actually resulted inme finding a really nice room in a shared appartment! I also had my second vaccine dose pretty much the first day I could. In Scotland, you had to wait at least 8 weeks between your two doses, regardless of the make, which was cutting it fine for being two weeks in the clear before arriving in France. There was a little bit of tension around making sure that my proof of vaccination arrived in time but it all worked out in the end. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

This whole summer was a bit of a weird time. The excitement slowly started to build after exams were over and preparations for France were in full swing. At the same time, the excitement was accompanied and tampered by the stress that came with it. Trying to travel in the covid era is a whole different thing. I can’t count the number of times that I double checked and triple checked the entry requirements, that I had valid proof of vaccination and a million other things. With everything hinging on my Irish passport arriving on time, there were times when the stress overtook the excitement. There was nothing to do but wait and there’s nothing I hate more than things being out of my control.

I started writing this blog three days ago while sitting in Costa in Edinburgh airport and now I’m sat at my kitchen table in my new appartment in Mulhouse. As you can probably tell, everything worked out perfectly in the end, seeing as I’m here. It was a long but fairly easy day of travle and it’s been a busy few days since I arrived but more to come on that later.

Now that the blog is back up and running, I should fill you in on what has happened since you last heard from me. My last proper post was mid-lockdown. I did think about finishing off some of the blogs that were half written from when I was in China, like My Free Time which was ready to go, but in the end lockdown itself was enough to deal with. I was at home during the inital lockdown from March 2020 until the summer, trying to keep up with my Chinese and French studies and preparing for my final year at university.

I returned to Edinburgh in August 2020, ready to battle my way through one more year of studying. I won’t lie, it was not an easy year. When classes started again in September, everything except my speaking classes were online. That was two hours a week for Chinese and one for French, so three hours of in person teaching in total. And I was one of the lucky ones. Most people had just one hour of in person teaching a week, if that.

Waking up and sitting down one metre away for a day of classes was a big adjustment. Even after coming out of six months or so of lockdown and restrictions, some of which I had spent doing at least some level of studying, the intensity of the final year of a degree at the University of Edinburgh was difficult to handle at times. Along with this, I was treasurer of the Swimming and Water Polo Club as well as captain of the womens second team and was working in a small French bakery (very appropriate!). I can get stressed very easily so I took a few extra steps to try and prevent that this year.

The first of these was not to work from my bed. I have been guilty of this before but considering that most of my work was happening in my bedroom, usually a place for relaxation, I still wanted to have at least one place that was purely for rest. Another was that I made sure to get dressed for all of my classes even though they could have easily been done in pyjamas and a hoodie. It made me feel ready for the day and I was more productive. I also tried to make sure I left the house at least once a day, whether that was to go to the shops, to meet a friend for a coffee and a lap of the Meadows or for a swim during times when the pools were open.

Throughout the final year of university, the focus is not just on the now but also on the future. It becomes about multitasking the classes and responsibilities you have right now with figuring out what the hell you’re going to do next and how you’re going to do it. For me, this was… challenging. To be honest, challenging doesn’t even cover it. I had multiple breakdowns while trying to figure out what was next for me and even a little bit of an identity crisis.

The first idea I had won’t be unexpected to anyone (at least anyone that has been around a while). From the moment I first set foot back on UK soil in January 2020 I was desperate to return not only to China but specifically Dalian. After a while though, this desire waned. I began to think that trying to recreate the time the I had there, or the time that I lost, could only lead to disappointment. I had an amazing experience in China but the parts that were specific to Dalian were the people. With many of my friends having finished their studies since I left or not being able to continue their studies because of the pandemic, I’d be missing out on the parts that I wanted most.

After coming to this realisation, I kept my sights on China but adjusted the angle, if you will. The Chinese deparment at Edinburgh were periodically sending out information about various masters programmes and there was one that caught my eye. Johns Hopkins University has a campus in Nanjing, China and run various masters degrees in their School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The focus on global affairs and politics, specifically in East Asia, and the fact that many of the courses are taught in Chinese was a big attraction for me. This was the first time that I realised that International Relations might be an area of work and study that would interest me. It would be a great way to put my languages to use and combine my interest in politics and social issues. Lightbulb moment!

However, it took one of the aforementioned breakdowns to decide that while the Johns Hopkins course had been instrumental in deciding on IR as a future career path for me, the timing wasn’t right for me and the course itself wasn’t a good fit (mostly for my bank account, American unis are ******* expensive!). Something I maintain all the time is that there is no rush. Sometimes it feels like you have to come straight out of school into university and then straight out of university into a career that you will have for the rest of your life. This is absolutely untrue – as already evidenced by the fact that I took a gap year. It was time to remind myself of this and take a step back.

With a future in IR and a potential return to China in the back of my mind, I still had to decide what was next. This is when I turned my gaze towards France. I’m sure most people know by now that I missed out on the opportunity to go to France at all because of the pandemic. Maybe this would be the perfect opportunity to make up for lost time.

I really felt like my French suffered more than my Chinese from the interrupted year abroad. This might sound obvious seeing as I did at least get 5 months in China and no time at all in France but it’s a bit more complicated. My French was definitely at a higher level than my Chinese when I left for China and my reading and general comprehension still is but my confidence and ability in speaking Chinese just skyrocketed in a way that only comes from immersion. Unfortunately my French hasn’t had that opportunity since a week long French exchange when I was 16.

This desire to improve my spoken French was a driving force in the decision to move there. My aim with all my languages is to get them up to a high enough level that even if that level dips over time or with lack of use so that when I need it I can pull it out of my back pocket again and brush it up to where it was. I definitley achieved this with Spanish through living in Honduras and I’ve had opportunities to test this logic on a trip to Barcelona, a return visit to Honduras and with various friends. My Chinese isn’t quite there yet but with a return to China on the cards for the not so distant future, I’m not too concerned. Due to the nature of Chinese, I also see it being much more of a life long learning process and effort to keep it up (not that its not the same for all languages).

I turned my sights to how I could get myself to France, looking at internships, jobs, anything I could find. There is an English teaching assistant programme run through the British Council that a lot of language students do on their year abroad instead of attending university but what I hadn’t realised was that it was open to graduates as well! I applied but also kept looking as it would take several months to hear anything back.

In the meantime one of the lecturers from the Edinburgh University French department reached out to all the final years with an opportunity to work in France. The department has close links with a number of french universities and every year basically recruits a number of students from its ranks to go and work as lecteurs or lectrices (like a speaking tutor or language assistant). There are usually quite a few places but there were less this year because of covid-related uncertainties. This year there were 2 spots in Rouen and one each in Caen, Metz and Mulhouse. I sent in my (French!) CV and cover letter and was given an interview. It must have gone well because I was offered the position in Mulhouse (but you already knew that).

So that brings us a bit more up to date. I am currently procrastinating by writing this blog instead of packing (and even rewriting because the previous draft didn’t save…). I will of course give you more information on what Mulhouse is like and what being a lectrice even is as soon as I know myself! But for now I should get back to packing because I leave tomorrow!