My name is Hugo and I’ve just come back from a 4 week exchange in Dijon in France this May. I wasn’t too nervous about going over because my student, Charles, had already come over to stay with me in November, and we got on well. It was a bit overwhelming at the start, being thrown into a whole new language and culture, but after a week or two I’d adapted and it was getting a lot easier to understand people and what was going on. Charles’s family were really nice and made me feel really welcome and like I was a part of the family. They included me in family trips and visits.
One long weekend, we went out to Charles’s grandad's house in the countryside on a farm, where they showed me how to shoot, because they were all into hunting and the military. I also got to go on some scout trips, as Charles was a patrol leader in his local scout group. We camped out in the woods and cooked food over a campfire, which was really fun. As well as that, for the last few days of my stay we went to Paris and stayed in a friend's apartment. They showed me around Paris, and I got to see things like the Louvre, the Champs Elysées, and the Musée de l’armée,
which is a museum of the Army, and is where Napoleon and some of the other top French generals are buried.
School wasn’t too bad, but it was fairly boring because at least at the start I couldn’t understand the teachers at all, so I didn’t have anything to do. As well, the lycée was way bigger than my school in Ireland, it had over 2 or 3 thousand people I think. However, I got along with Charles’s friends, and by the end I was able to chat and have a bit of craic with them. Another thing I really liked about France was the food. I got to try a lot of different French foods such as foie gras (liver) and pâtés. However my favourite was definitely the sausages. I even brought some back home with me.
Overall, I really enjoyed my exchange, and my French definitely improved. By the end I was able to have conversations in French, and I felt really comfortable speaking the language. I would recommend anyone to go on an exchange, I enjoyed mine so much and I have lots of memories that I will not forget anytime soon.
