Arrivals

We finally arrived in Dijon on a Monday evening and were met at the train station by Michael’s supervisor, Ronald. He’d been waiting for us to let him know when we were arriving and had been a bit confused when Michael told him we didn’t know! As he drove us to our hotel where we’d be spending our first night in Dijon, we used what little energy we had left to tell him in French all about our ordeal getting there and he finally nodded in understanding, although I don’t think he really did.

As I watched the buildings whizzing by, I found myself taking in as much as I could, as though we were just passing through. It was the strangest feeling, seeing a town for the first time and realising that we weren’t just going to stay for a few days. It dawned on me that we were finally there, that we had actually packed up our lives in Australia and moved to the other side of the world. And this blur of strangeness flying past us was our new hometown.

Ronald left us at the Hôtel Jacquemart in the middle of town and that night we explored a little with the help of a bad map. It was kind of an explore-by-feel. We walked down cobblestone streets and gazed at the stone buildings with wooden frames on the outsides. We came across a pretty square with a fountain in the middle and French signs in all the windows of the surrounding shops and cafes, making it strikingly obvious that we weren’t in good old suburban Sydney anymore. At one point, we wandered up a beautiful cobblestone street filled with little speciality shops. It was one of the most pretty places I’d ever seen and so beautifully silent in its desertedness. I remember saying to ourselves that this was the kind of place we wanted to live in.

The next day Ronald came and picked us up. We were refreshed and ready to start our new lives. First thing to do was open a bank account so we could get accommodation. Ronald had organised a student apartment on campus, and after helping us with the bank account and dropping off our luggage at the new apartment, he took us to the local Carrefour shopping centre.

Now, when I think of a shopping centre in Australia, I think of a couple of big department stores and lots of little independent shops all in the one centre. In France, they have what they call the hypermarché. This is a massive supermarket that sells everything from food and clothes to electrical goods and gardening tools. It’s amazing and absolutely great to get lost in! So this is where Ronald took us on our first day in Dijon to buy our food and essential household items. We were set!