I’ve spent the last few weeks attempting to get through as much preparation as I can as I am now in Stirling to say goodbye to all my Uni friends and when I go home I will only have a week left before moving to France!
So for those of you who have stumbled across this blog in the hope that it might help with your own preparation here is what I have been up to/have yet to do!
Important Documents:
France is crazy about paperwork and documents so in preparation I have about a million, well 5-10, copies of all of my Important Documents, I have also saved all of these to my laptop and emailed them to myself, just in case I manage to loose all of them! These are the ones I have copied/saved/emailed to myself:
- passport
- EHIC Card
- Drivers Licence
- Student Card
- English Birth Certificate
- Translated Birth Certificate
- My Arrete de Nomination
- Multiple Passport Photos
I would strongly advise doing this and include any other documents that you think might be useful as well 🙂
French SIM Cards:
I decided ages ago that I would just use my phone in France rather than buy one out there so I could save some money. This meant that I had to Unlock it, I have a HTC with O2 so this was quite an easy process. All I had to do was go onto the O2 website (Here: http://www.o2.co.uk/help/phones-and-devices/unlocking-your-iphone-and-using-it-on-another-network) and fill out a form. They then send you an email with a code that you type into your phone when you put a non 02 SIM card in and Voila.
I wanted to get a SIM card before I left the UK so that I would be a little bit more contactable and have one less thing to worry about when i arrive in France. This limited my choice of companies as I wanted to be able to order it with only my UK bank card (I don’t have a French one yet). I ended up going with Joe Mobile who are a smaller company of SNF, one of France’s largest network suppliers.For 20 Euros a month I get unlimited texts and calls within France, 3 GB of data and unlimited calls to UK land lines (and to like 40 other countries but I don’t really care about them haha). They don’t technically post to UK addresses but If you contact someone in the Joe mobile community (through the question forums) they will send you one. I got mine really quick and it seems to work fine!
I’m not sure if I will end up staying with Joe, but I’d rather have something for when I go out there and then I can have a look at what is cheapest/best signal etc.
Accommodation:
I have been so lucky in that my “conseille pedagogique” will be picking me up at the train station in Perigueux and I will be staying at hers for the first few nights till I find accommodation. What is even better is that she had already reserved some accommodation options and all I have to do is go look at them and choose which one I want – How lucky am I?!? This was literally so unexpected and I couldn’t be more grateful or relieved!
Insurance:
We are only told to get Insurance for the beginning and end of our year abroad but I decided to go for a Full Year as it covers my Laptop, Ipad, multiple trips home, travelling and a lot of other stuff. There are so many different companies that offer Year Abroad Insurance but I ended up going with Endsleigh as they seamed to offer the most for the cheapest. I managed to get 8 months coverage for £93, but decided to cover my laptop and Ipad as well so it was a total of £132 which is quite good. They also allow you to add to your insurance as you want, so I can extend it or add winter sports cover if I want which is great!
Everything Else:
Other less Important/more mundane things I have sorted are:
- French Youth Rail card – I just have to pick this up at any train station
- Emailed uni to tell them where I am going
- Told my Bank I am going Abroad and attempted to get a reference of them – what even is that anyways?!
- Booked flights and printed boarding passes
- Started collecting things that I can use for teaching – leaflets about my town, pictures and loads of stickers!
SO this is pretty much every thing I have done and I think it is all I can do at this stage. Sorry that it is a pile of useless information for you non-year-abroaders but I hope that it might be of some help for some people!!
C'EST LA VIE 