‘Sup With Pete

Me and Dave atop La Bastille - Grenoble in behind.

The hospital i’m in Hôpital du Nord is the big building on the right hand side of the pic. In the upper left quadrant of the picture you can make out my residence, it’s a tall, V-shaped white apartment building.

Place Victor Hugo in Grenoble city centre

Friday, November 9, 2007

Bonjour/Hello,

I’ve just spent my first few days in Grenoble, France. It’s a city in the French Alps, about 2 hours south of Geneva with a population of about 150,000 people. All I can say is that it’s been interesting so far and most of all … French.

Since my arrival here Monday thing have been a bit up in the air with regards to my course and well everything. But after much deliberation, it seems I may be able to get on with my degree here by this coming Tuesday. It’s okay though because it has given me time to adjust, relax, meet people and work on my French.

It all started with Sandrine. She is the lovely secretary that deals with the medical students from all over Europe that have come to Grenoble. She speaks better English than I do French, but sits there patiently when I try to tell her things in my mixed-up-awful-grammar French. The problem was that my first day, was her first day. This is because she has just replaced the old secretary who is on maternity leave. We’ve managed to sort through everything together, and she’s helped me get on track. There’s just this whole problem of everything being so French.

In France you see, everybody seems to love forms and paperwork, sort of do this, go here, bring a photocopy of this, etc. Sometimes you go to so many places you end up back where you started. This happened when I tried to get my lecture schedule. Sandrine sent me to one building, the secretary there made me wait till someone came back, that lady gave me a number to phone, and that women told me to go to Sandrine. They also don’t put everything in one place for you. I have physical to be allowed to go into hospitals, so I have to get the mantoux test for TB at the student health services on campus, then I have to go to the other student health service (15 min on the other side of town by Tram) to see the GP who signs my form.

My residence is a different story. I live in the Residence de la Tronche, it’s a tall white concrete residence that fits into the whole 1960’s concrete megalithic futuristic theme that includes all buildings at the university. I’m on the second floor of about 9 (I’m not sure exactly) and I have an awesome view of mountains, but sadly I’m not near the top, so I don’t get the view of the city as well. It’s about 130euros per month which is extremely cheap, but you get what you pay for. The kitchen for 30 is simply 2 hobs (stove elements) and a sink. There is no toilet paper, or seats – provide your own - and everything is slightly shabby. Even the lights are all on timers (except your room) so that no electricity is wasted. This is a palace though, compared to some of the halls in Grenoble where the toilets are simply holes in the ground (Turkish toilets). But, it’s amazing how quickly you adjust. I’ve got a bed, desk, chairs and tons of storage space. The people are friendly and fun, it’s close to the hospital, my campus and the tram and it’s cheap, so why not!

I am part of Grenoble Universities. I go to U. Joseph Fourier which is about 1 of 6 universities here. They all pretty much run together in the north of Grenoble and is composed of 60,000 students. Making 1/5 people in Grenoble a student. My university is Medicine/Pharmacy/Sciences. The universities are all connected by the tram system and you can get unlimited travel as a student for about 20 euros a month. Also good value. The campus itself is composed of many 1960s styled concrete buildings, as if they were trying to be futuristic, but failed horribly. It is made beautiful however by the 25,000 trees (no joke, a statistic) that dot the campus. The university is so widely spread out that you feel like you’re in a forest-city. No building is within about 20 metres of each other too, making the campus long and sparse. Much different to the compactness of Bristol University.

So what have I been up to? Well, I arrived to the continent from Bristol on Saturday, November 4th. I flew to Geneva as it was the closest to fly to from Bristol and spent the night with the Turvey’s. My brother Dave who is traveling Europe also arrived the same day. We spent the day walking around Geneva, then visited with the Turvey’s that night. They kindly drove us to the train station on Sunday, where we caught the train to Grenoble, about 2 hours south.

We arrived and found a cheap hotel for the night because I couldn’t get into my residence until Monday. Dave and I bought tram passes and toured Grenoble. Found the enormous campus, the hospital, my residence. Then went into grenoble. We did the main tourist attraction in Grenoble with was to take one of the four glass telecabine baubles to the top of La Bastille – an old fort atop a mountain that overlooks the city of Grenoble, originally used for defense since the 1500s. It was a misty day, but it was still beautiful. You were able to see the enormous size of the city and oddly, for a city in the Alps, how truly flat the city of Grenoble is. After reading more statistics Grenoble is in fact the flattest city in France with a difference of only 213m in altitude. We toured la bastille, and then returned to our cheap hotel for some rest and French tv. For dinner, we went to a small French restaurant and had raclette (spelling?) and wine. Raclette is an amazing French meal where you have giant melting piece of Gouda cheese that you scrape onto potatoes, meat, bread, salad and get as much cheese and helpings as you like. We rolled on back to our hotel and watched the movie ‘Kill Bill’ in French before drifting off to sleep. Dave stayed the following day and helped me move in then left Tuesday morning.

Tuesday until today. I’ve just been getting things sorted for living here. Meeting people. Physicals, meeting various directors and secretary’s, buying essential items like shampoo razors, etc that you always seem to forget, food and especially my own toilet paper! My tram pass amazingly was done in one place and took a total of 5 min, I was astonished that I wasn’t send somewhere else.

Last night an Australian guy I met from a few floors about invited me out with some of his friends. We had a few beers at EVE (university bar/student centre) and then went into town to a pirate themed bar. It was pretty cool, it felt like you were in an old wooden boat and there was rum hanging from nets in huge jugs all around the bar of different flavours. They played some French music but loads of English tunes we all know and love.

Grenoble is often so covered in mist and clouds you don’t feel like you’re in the mountains. However on a clear day, you suddenly see the enormous snow-capped mountains that surround the city and you’re reminded of how awesome the Alps really are.

As for the language, everyone’s been quite patient and understanding with me, and if I have a problem they’ll reassure me with a bit of English. So, so far so good, but we’ll see.

-Pete

The Glass baubles on the telecabine to the top of la bastille

Grenoble is built on the Drac and Isère rivers - this is the Isère

This is me, Steph and James - we’re all in 3rd year together, and this is us in our scrubs for the Fresher’s (Frosh) pub crawl. All the clinical years wear scrubs.