By far one of the hardest things about starting this blog (besides thinking of what to actually write for the damn thing) is coming up with a suitably punny title to convey my shatteringly acerbic wit to those who don't know me. So far the best I've thought of is 'Singin' in the Touraine' (because the weather here has been doing its best to rival that of England in deepest summer) but sadly my capacity for singing leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm a stickler for accuracy in humour. Not to mention that I've never actually seen the original film. I'll think about it.
So yeah. At time of writing you find me midway through my year abroad, having survived/endured/actually more or less enjoyed three months in St Petersburg, elevating my spoken Russian above that crucial divide between very bad and merely bad. I wish I was joking. As with most things in life, though, it was certainly a formative experience and a heck of a learning curve in many respects. I'll be going back there in a few months, so I guess I haven't been entirely put off. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating the negatives a bit too much. There were some pretty good times out there, and I'm sure the problems I faced out there were far from unique when it comes to years abroad. Or indeed to any visit to Russia.
But enough about that. I'm all about the here and now, which at this moment happens to be late February in Tours, France. I've been here since early January and will be until April and can safely say (without any designs on comic hyperbole) that it's been much more like what I expected a year abroad to be. Maybe it's because I speak French a hell of a lot better than I do Russian, albeit with an accent that has been known to make other English people laugh. In that regard, I've been working on my r's for some time now and can only be improving. I'm on a course at the Institut de Touraine, which has been great so far, linguistically, grammatically, culturally and socially. Unlike the place I was at in St Petersburg there are a fair number of other English speakers around which makes downtime a lot more fun. My host person is very friendly and has helped my day to day conversation no end (something which is tricky enough for me in English, let alone in a language where I burble about half the time trying not to get the Russian neurons in my brain involved).
So, here's hoping my experience here will provide enough fodder to keep this blog alive for a while. A bientôt.
So, here's hoping my experience here will provide enough fodder to keep this blog alive for a while. A bientôt.
