Becoming a vraie Rochelaise!

Well, after a lovely week at home (well, I was with the boyfriend for the most part), I am suprisingly sad to be back in France! I spent a few days with my family in Tewkesbury then went to visit my boyfriend who is working in Catterick on the army base - such a surreal experience to be one of only a handful of females on the biggest army base in the country!!!

I must say, walking up the road after coming back to la belle France to see my nice warm house was a soul-warming feeling but I've had a bit of a rubbish day today! I think my body gets very worried by travelling lots and changes in environment and it feels like i've got a lot of 'going-back-to-school' chores to do... On the plus side, I recieved information about my CAF payments today, got confirmation of my Erasmus grant payments and got some exciting news about a house in Bath; but I still have a headache.
But even though being back here sucks in so far that I now have to get back to work, I feel like i'm slowly becoming more and more French, excusing the rubbish administration systems and becoming oblivious to the lack of proper manners! On the train and bus home from Bordeaux, I felt like i fitted in amongst the stone-faced passengers with their glares at anyone who dared play their ipod slightly too loud! I think, however, at the risk of sounding stereotypical about the French people of a certain age, that I am in fact too optimistic to ever turn into a grumpy old French woman who complains about where they lives despite its beauty and vibrancy! :)



So, in order to remedy this ill feeling, I went shopping!!! Now, most people would think this a fun, exciting thing to do, but oh no - not in La Rochelle. Known to locals as 'The Western Paris', you can see how it gets its nickname...

There are hardly ANY well known shops, and if there are, they are all incredibly expensive boutiques or designer shops, far and beyond the budget of my student loan and British Council salary! There are NO large chain clothes stores; the closest to this description is Pimkie, which is huge in France and probably closely resembles New Look in England. All other shops in the town are crepe stands and patisseries (which i'm not complaining about, I hasten to add!), over-priced boutiques for the older lady, jewellery shops andsmall cavernous bars.

Property over here is ridiculous. To rent a furnished room in a student centre-ville flat works out at over 500 euros per month, rivaling Parisian prices! Yes, the buildings ARE lovely, but houses even in the periphérie are extortionate. After being invited to a teacher's house for lunch last week, I saw a typical town house... yes, it was beautiful but everything in it was so minimalist and bare because the rent was so high! This is the reason I live 'far away' from the centre of La Rochelle - only about 5 kilometres, I have to get a bus, but the rent is stupidly cheap in the surrounding villages. Houses around here are very cheap but VERY run down, as they are properly rural and mostly falling apart unless you have the serious money needed to renovate them; for example, nosing around the local estate agents I saw:
"MAISON ANGOULINS BOURG, 5 PIECES. Pavillon de plain-pied en très bon état, comprenant : Entrée, salon/séjour avec cheminée et insert, cuisine aménagée et équipée, cinq chambres, salle d’eau, wc. Terrasse, garage, dépendances, jardin, puits."
All this, only 100m from the sea, in the centre of the village, for just over 200,000 euros.... utterly ridiculous.

I may complain and the locals may get on their high-horses about prices and housing and the weather, yet despite all this, I defy anyone not to instantly fall in love with this city, its surroundings and its beautiful charms... :)