I'M IN FRANCE

Having talked to a lot of people about their years abroad before I left for France, the one thing I'd been told more than anything else was that I'd learn loads of new things while I was over here. I've only been here a couple of days so far, but I've already managed to pick up one useful nugget of wisdom; if you're planning on crossing the channel on a budget, invest in some armbands and swim. It'll be far less painful than flying by Easyjet.

I hadn't flown in almost three years before Thursday, but I remember flying being an awful lot easier than Easyjet made it. Having spent hours on end rearranging my stuff between my two suitcases to leave them both a matter of milligrams below the weight limit, I went to check in my bags only for the receptionist to smile sweetly and ask;

Do you have any objects with rechargeable batteries in these bags?

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in saying that I haven't bought any portable electronics without rechargeable batteries since about 1999. And even then, that was a Game Boy Color with an optional Charger Pak. Apparently rechargeable batteries pose a serious combustion risk at high altitude, which is clearly bollocks as if it were at all true I'd have crashed and burned from 40'000 feet long ago with all the other overexcited eight-year-olds on the same plane to Hong Kong with their brand new copies of Pokemon Red. 

Regardless, I had things with rechargeable batteries that needed transferring to my hand luggage. This wouldn't have been a problem if this hadn't included an old spare phone I'd packed and put in a box right at the bottom of my bag, which I'd since sealed shut with several metric fucktons of duct tape. Thankfully it wasn't too busy at the airport so I didn't cause too much of a pile-up, but there was one old lady behind me who audibly tutted while I was rummaging through my stuff. I would have been angry, but I'm sure I'll have the last laugh when Easyjet next clamp down on sharp objects and ban travelling with dentures.

That wasn't all the weird stuff, either. Even ignoring the loud confrontation at the airport car park which sounded decidedly like the fallout from an extra-marital affair, or the couple behind us on the plane who spent pretty much the entire two-hour journey latched onto one other's faces with occasional slurping noises for good measure. Nope, perhaps the stupidest thing about Easyjet was their onboard smoking policy. I understand and appreciate the blanket smoking ban, but if you're going to do that... why would you still build ashtrays into your toilet doors?

To top it all off, my Blackberry overheated and stopped working just before we got on the plane. This would have been annoying as it was, but given that I needed a phone to arrange my lift from the airport to the other side of Bordeaux, it had threatened to leave me completely stranded too. Having invested in a brand new Blackberry less than a week ago to replace my useless old one specifically to avoid this sort of situation, it was exasperating to say the least. I realise they aren't the most reliable phones in the world, but I don't think expecting it to still work two days after buying it is that unreasonable.

Eventually I managed to coax enough life out of it to send a quick text, so I'm not still stuck at the airport looking for someone else susceptible to Branston Pickle bribes to get a lift from. But anyway, all of that is completely irrelevant now, because I'm here and it's incredible. Even though I'm not living in the nicest part of town, it's only a ten-minute trip by tram to get to the centre of what is undoubtedly the most beautiful city I have ever seen.

Le Grand Theatre, as understated as the rest of the city

Since I've been here, I've actually been relatively productive. I've set up a bank account, filled in enough paperwork to make myself pretty much solely responsible for global deforestation and almost sorted out a phone contract. I'll be able to finally get a French phone number as soon as my bank card arrives, but until then I was pretty proud of my French blagging skills in choosing a new deal. In my search for a new contract, there were minimal communication difficulties despite me not having any idea how to translate 'rolling contract' or 'sim-only package' and briefly forgetting that the French word for telephone is 'téléphone.'

Speaking of phones, the first thing my mentor did upon arriving at the airport was to apologise for not calling me and telling me when he'd be there to pick me up. Apparently, he'd just got a new phone and his had completely broken too. I opened my mouth to comment on this coincidence before noticing the phone sat on his lap- which just so happened to be exactly the same model as mine. That's not a coincidence: that's an inevitable consequence of a universal truth.

Because even with all the things about France I've learnt since I've been here, the most important lesson I've learnt since I've arrived is something that's a constant the world over. And that's the fact that whatever you're doing, wherever you are... your Blackberry will never work properly. And at the moment, at the beginning of a year in a new country when everything else is scary and new, having something that works (or doesn't) just like it does at home is actually kind of weirdly comforting. So RIM, for making your phones so consistently, impressively, reliably, loveably shite... I thank you. From the very bottom of my little 'rosbif' heart.