Reminiscing on Erasmus

Recently I have been thinking of how different life was last year in Lyon at Christmas. We were just back from our last minute trip to Disneyland Paris where we spent the night in a Disney hotel with the theme of a circus. I had visited it before with my family, but going with friends was so much more fun! We had to get up at 5am to the catch an early train in order to check in and arrive at the park before 9am. It was the usual case of nearly missing the trams and then the train as one of us found it hard to get out of bed in time. On the train we were told off by the French as they wanted to continue to the morning naps on the TGV, whereas we were so excited about going to see Mickey Mouse and all his friends, especially since is was Christmas time we knew it was just going to be magical. The hotel room itself was unbelievable with biggest beds, multiple TVs and it all looked like we were in the middle of the circus! It was any child's dream and for that weekend we were all children. It was so much fun!

We had to come back down to reality after that as exams were soon approaching and the workload was massive. The next thing we had to look forward to was going home on the 17th December to see our families again. I had changed my flights and so none of my friends knew when exactly I was coming! I was so excited to see them!

The atmosphere in Lyon was brilliant with Place Carnot, the square outside our college been taken over with hundreds of different coloured huts selling, jewellery, candles, pottery and meats and Christmas cards. But my favourite was the smell of crepes, hot apple cider and hot wine whenever we were coming out into the cold. The were delicious and we always treated ourselves after a hard days study.

At the time I was so stress out and just wanted Christmas to come fast to exams would all be over, but now I would give anything to go back to France and have some crepes and hot apple cider and just spend time with the other Erasmus students who were my friends, family and backbone while I was there. When thinking of the stress of 4th year and the pressure that goes with it that I never expected would be this hard, I would take Lyon back any day and I truly miss it so much!