Alès, Frankreich; Barcelona; Und noch mehr?

Hi everybody,

The first week passed and I start to get used to the life in the hot south of France. Everything started Wednesday last week. I had my first day of university. First the introduction, where I was surprised how surveyed the students are here in France. Nobody can miss a lecture, nobody should leave the student home without telling a professor and the bank account I wanted to open, was only possible in relation with the university. It seems the university does not only interfere in the students planning of the day and the week, no, the professors appear at the parties and don´t seem to drink less than the students themselves. I am luckily far from this organization. My nice home at the boarder of Alès is far from being surveyed by anybody. Its calm and comfortable, so the first impression wasn´t wrong. On the other hand everybody takes very good care of me. It is just remarkable different the student life here and in Germany. The student village is far away from the city center, so that the students hardly ever come down. I think I know much more of the city than most of the other students. This fact is really crazy, because a part from going into the “sale de boom”, the discotheque in the student village, drinking as much alcohol as possible, and appearing in the worst condition in the morning, nothing is going on here. The thing what is missing here, is the different and critical view on society and the political engagement of the students, which is what’s the student life is all about in germany, besides the parties off course, which are by far better than here.

Anyways, after my first introduction day I was told that I had my next lecture one week after. While all the other students were working on something I didn´t have to do. Unfortunately, later I figured that it is not going to continue like this and from tomorrow on, I will start my lectures regularly. Even though I only have lectures on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. All day long. But a long weekend to recover.

So I had a lot of time last week to discover the beautiful surrounding of Alès. The mountains Cevennes start right next to the city and are very impressive. Olive trees, pins and date trees are covering the mountains and everything smells like in the holidays. The valleys are filled with rivers and grottos, some dry due to the dryness of the summer others refreshing and beautiful how they follow the shape of the surrounding rocks. Apparently at the end of September heavy storms, which are named Mistral, change the rivers into big streams, which pass the boarders and change the landscape each year.

For the moment it is very calm here. Since I arrived no clouds are covering the sky. The grilles are singing at night and we pass a lot of time outside.

Here are some pictures of the last week:

Hope to see you soon

If you want to contact me here is my address and the number:

Mathis Eglinger

19, rue de la gardette

30100 Alès

Cell-phone : 0033 698514556 (Billigvorwahl, wenn telekomvertrag: 010057 + normale Telefonnummer. 5,40 cent/min)

Phone Home : 0033 466787468 (If you call there you have to say :  Bonjours, je m´appelle (your name), est ce que je peux parler avec Mathis?) (Billigvorwahl, wenn telekomvertrag: 010057 + normale Telefonnummer. 0,70 cent/min)

Billigvorwahlen ändern sich oft. Am besten auf: http://www.telefontarifrechner.de/auslandstarife/billigvorwahl.html nachschauen.

Mathis

This entry was posted on Donnerstag, September 10th, 2009 at 17:22 and is filed under Allgemein. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.