My year in Rennes

By Claire Montgomery

When I heard I had got my first choice placement in Rennes as my year abroad I was ecstatic.  I was embarking on the best year of my life.  The night before I was due to leave for Rennes I was out with all my friends in Belfast.  As I danced along to “Lean on me” I still felt so excited.  But the finale song to follow was to have an entirely different effect.  The Cheers theme tune, “I wanna go where everyone knows my name”, came on and I just began to cry.  I was going somewhere, completely on my own, where no one knew my name.  Leaving the comfort of my family, my best friends and those who I really knew behind me.  It was a very scary thought.  And that thought lasted the whole journey to France.  I cried as I left my parents in the morning at the airport and continued to do so right through the day until I landed in Dinard that evening.  But the strange thing was, the moment I landed, all the sad, frightened feelings disappeared, and all I could feel now was the excitement resurfacing.  I was in France doing something fun and new and I suddenly felt very brave.  As I looked at the beautiful sites on my way to Rennes I realised all would be well…  More than well.  I genuinely was about to have the best year of my life to date.

My first impression of Rennes was “Wow - this place is pretty.”  It is both historical and picturesque.  It’s a lively city too.  There is always something happening, from music festivals to themed nights to parades of some kind or another.  Moreover it is one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen.  Their transport system is flawless, with a fantastic bus network which always runs to the minute and metro link which runs every three minutes connecting one end of the town to the other.

When I arrived in my accommodation, “Beaulieu”, (which you might notice translates as beautiful place!) I can’t say I thought it was the Ritz but I was happy enough.  After all it only cost €96 per month.  £60 compared to £300 in Edinburgh!  The room just needed a touch of me added to it.  I made new curtains (which is surprisingly easy by the way), put throws on anything ugly in the room, and the final touch was possibly the brightest coloured bed covers you have ever have seen in your life.  It did the job nicely.  When I got there I had to buy a lot of practical things: pots, pans, plates, cutlery, glasses, cups, utensils etc.  The rest my parents dispatched over in a massive 90 kilo trunk.

Now that I had arrived my mission was to make friends.  The Erasmus welcome meeting was the ideal place to do this, as everyone there is very keen to do the same.  But until then it was anyone who came along.  I remember very clearly the first time I met the person who was immediately to become my best friend.  I had been in the kitchen in my block where I had been on the phone chatting with my brother about how I wished I could just meet one English-speaking friend so I could switch my brain off for a while.  All the French people had been very friendly but just one English-speaking friend was what I was craving at that time.  As I walked out of the kitchen feeling a bit frustrated I walked past a boy who looked distinctly Irish and as I walked along he said “Hey” and trotted on past.  Little did he expect me to run and jump on him at the joy of getting to speak English.  As I rambled on he pointed behind him to a girl who looked rather perturbed.  “That’s my girlfriend.  She’s the one who is staying here, not me.”  She seemed even more taken aback than her boyfriend when I ran and jumped on her.  I was so happy to have a girl Irish friend.  And there she was…  My new best friend for life, Jess, who lived two doors down from me on my corridor.  From there the Erasmus meeting was the springboard for meeting new people.  And to meet so many was amazing.  I made so many friends in Rennes, of so many nationalities, and I really can’t describe how much they all came to mean to me.  Friends for life.

The social scene in Rennes is good deal more expensive than in Edinburgh with few student nights and expensive drinks.  Most French students actually travel home for the weekend and often we would spend most of our weekends with other Erasmus.  This does not mean that it is not possible to socialise with French students at the weekend it is just more difficult.  O’Connell’s bar, an Irish pub, is where most Erasmus students spend their weekends (and week nights too) and if you are ever stuck for someone to talk to this is the ideal spot to make a friend, especially at the beginning of the year.  The reason for this being such a popular venue is the friendly staff and the great atmosphere with its live music and dancing.  By the end of the year the staff were among our group of close friends.  After a night here most students proceed to a bar called Cactus which stays open until 3am.  For the more hard-core partiers there is also Le Bentley which stays open until 6am.

A worthwhile activity to get involved in is some kind of sport or group activity.  I chose to take up ice-skating classes as there is an ice rink not far from the Beaulieu.  This was an ideal opportunity to make friends with French people it is practically entirely French people who attend these classes and in addition I learned something new from scratch which I now enjoy a great deal.  There are also numerous sports facilities opposite Beaulieu including football pitches, gyms and various organised sports classes including aerobics and yoga.

My favourite thing about Rennes was the food.  It was just delicious.  From the lovely restaurants, to the baguette stands, to the crêperies, to the pizzerias.  It was all to die for.  Casa Pepe on Rue St Georges did the most mouth-watering steaks.  We became such regular customers here the staff grew to know what we were going to order and gave us free digestifs at the end of our meals.  Crêperie St Anne on Place St Anne boasts the scrumptious galettes and just beside, is Speed Rabbit, a pizza place which makes gorgeously appetizing pizzas.  None of these are particularly expensive but even cheaper are the university restaurants known as the Resto U.  These are located beside university halls and also beside the law faculty itself.  Here you get three course meal for €2.60.  It doesn’t taste too bad at all and it would definitely be a bargain at twice the price.  Buying food in the super market is much the same as here; it depends on where you go and whether you buy the home brand.  Alcohol in the supermarket is however a great deal cheaper and you can get a bottle of wine for only a few euros.

So now on to the important part: University.  My first day in class was possibly one of the most intimidating days of my life.  French university classes are massive and there was me, one little Irish girl, in with around 400 French students.  How would I cope?  Well to be honest at the beginning words just passed me by.  I struggled and that’s normal.  But one day, a couple of weeks into semester, it all just clicked into place.  However, it is beneficial to sit beside a French student and perhaps ask to borrow their notes if their writing is legible to fill in any gaps you may have in your own notes and correct any mistakes.  By the end of the year you will probably follow 99% of the class, something that seems impossible at the beginning of the year.  Unlike classes here most of the classes in France take the form of a kind of dictation, reading each sentence twice or three times.  In addition they also last longer, usually between two and four hours.  This may seem a long time but it does get a large amount of your subject out of the way in one go.  On the other hand, if you miss one class you do tend to become a bit lost in the following class so it is best not to miss any class if at all avoidable.

Exams are also different.  They are usually oral and the questions are usually fact based rather than theory or arguing a point and backing it up with evidence, as is the case here.  What the lecturers are looking for is exactly what they recited in class.  The result of this form of exam is that it is necessary to know your course extremely well.  If you don’t know the answer then you are left with nothing to say in a very embarrassing silence.  But if you can give a detailed answer then you can achieve a very good mark.

The teachers are all generally very friendly and welcoming towards Erasmus students.  They appreciate the fact that the student has made the effort to go abroad and also that they are trying to improve their French.  If you have any problems in class, the best approach is to go up and speak to the lecturer, as they will usually make every attempt to help you.

To sum up, my year in Rennes was the best of my life, so much so that I have got a job in Nice this year teaching English.  Again I will be undertaking something scary and daunting, teaching in a city where I don’t know anyone. I feel my year in France has given me the confidence to do something like this.  It has made me a more mature well-rounded person and I would live the year over and over again if I could.  I would encourage anyone who is thinking of it to go abroad and enjoy the experience as much as I did.