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!
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