En voyage!

You've always been curious on how is it to live in the French Department 93? Well, here is your chance, directly from the lives of four young Europeans living together during their 11 months of European Voluntary Service!

We are on the way to our "On Arrival" training course. It has been one month and a half and the time has come for the world to know the exciting life of Department 93 (well, don't worry, there are some boring details as well!).

But first, for those of you that have no idea of what or where Department 93 is, in the map it looks something like this:

We actually live in Montfermeil (there on the right) and work in Les Pavillons-sous-Bois and in Clichy-sous-Bois.

Quality of life has been going up since we all landed in Paris on the 3rd of October, we got to experience a shity hostel with our friends, the cockroaches, and the strong smell of weed from the neighbors. Luckily we moved up, really up, awesome upgrade to our clean and huge 4 bedroom, with big kitchen, living room and garden, house, and everything was great, but Pierre couldn't wash his clothes or anyone else by the way, for a couple weeks. Internet was also a challenge, open network with low range, which was impossible to use when Alexandra was using Skype. Everything it's perfect now, we smell nice and the internet runs fast.

Our home in Montfermeil

One thing we all agree from the beginning: French stereotypes of rude people, not opened to foreigners, have shown to be exactly that - stereotypes -, at least in department 93. Everyone is so nice and kind, our house was furnitured with the help and good will of our new friends, and we got extra free French culture and language classes from the best teacher and our good friend Sebástien. Neighbors, bus drivers, people in the market, almost everyone greets us with a smile wherever we go - Francisca and Radvile are best friends with the fish men from the local market. Well, there are still a lot of people that look at us like aliens because we don't speak the language, but not in a bad way - oh and the fact that most people in France don't speak English, that one feels quite true.

Living out of Paris allows us to have a more comfortable stress free life, the prices are also quite affordable (transports are the most expensive thing, going to Paris on a week day costs us 2 hours and 10 euros), but still, the City of Light is ours any time. :)

If you want to know more about our EVS's read our personal posts that, if we are not too lazy, will soon come up :)

Alexandra, Francisca, Radvile and Pierre
(17/11/2014)