I'm quite frankly relieved that I didn't apply for Paris. Why, you ask? Welp, Pôle Universitaire Léonard D'Vinci only offers one single exchange semester and living in Paris costs two arms and a leg. Besides, Valenciennes is quite near Paris... and Belgium for that matter.
They say Valenciennes is quite cheap when it comes to real state and rent but it just seems to me it costs just as much as Mexico City. Nothing I haven't seen before. I'm beginning to feel like Valenciennes might not be that far off from Querétaro, where the Fates have unwittingly thrown me into. Both cities pride themselves on their Baroque architecture, their olden, conservative (even boring) population and, of course, they're not that far away from Urbanite Heaven... I mean, their respective metropolis. Oh! And their soccer stadiums.
The only difference is that Valenciennes is a cold place (yae!) and Querétaro is an unbearable desert.
I quite frankly dunno what to expect about Valenciennes when it comes to campus life. They don't advertise that much on that regard. In my current campus, there's a very busy campus life. There are many student groups to choose from, many extracurricular activities to engage in, many parties to go to (although I mostly always keep clear of any massive concentration of feisty drunkards), a really tall business building loaded with offices and glamour, and a huge campus where you can frolic about all day long. My favorite part of it all is the unbelievable quantity of foreigners going out and about in the campus. It's impossible not to bump into some guy and not offer apologies in various languages until he gets it. There's at least two or three exchange students in every class.
The international vibe of the campus certainly makes up for the lack of interesting things in the city. Seriously, why would anyone close a coffee shop at 13h? Or, say, why would buses stop at mere 21h? It makes no sense! Well, at least not to me. I'm accustomed to taking a Metrobus just before midnight to go back home from a theater on the other side of one of the largest cities in the world. I'm accustomed to making an hour or two in the commute, yet I hear people in Valenciennes complain because the tramway may make 15 mins from school to their apartment. Seriously, I could walk that distance in half an hour (I walk really fast) and shrug it off like it was nothing.
Needless to say, I'm bracing off for some more provincial shit. But this time I plan to save enough money to travel to Paris, Bruges, Berlin and maybe even London to get away from the inevitable monotony that always looms over provincial weekends.
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On a more uptempo note, I'm planning to have super blast when I land at Orly Airport. I'll see if I can make reservations on a decent (if cheap) hotel, perform the compulsory climb to the tour Eiffel, and hop on a night bus tour around the city. Then I'll rise early the next morning for a day long trip to Versailles. On the third day of my arrival, I'll get my eyebrow pierced just before I catch a train to Valenciennes and start my academic adventure.
Nope, I won't set foot on the Louvre. I'll save that for the winter holidays where I plan to go back to Paris on a cultural tourism binge. Who knows? Maybe by then I'll even have a handsome boyfriend to show me around in one of the most romantic cities ever on the most beautiful seasons ever to happen on this spinning rock spiraling through this galaxy!
I'll still plan a solo voyage. After all, the best thing about this trip isn't so much France or the videogame school but the fact that I'll be SO on my own! I wanna taste some grownup freedom! Freedom to screw up and man up to the fact that I'm the only one responsible for my actions. Freedom to go on an impromptu date knowing no one is waiting for me back home.
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tl;drFirst post, long ass rant, no pictures today.
