Week 19 - Cultural

Even though there are many different cultures in our Erasmus group there is one event that we all like to celebrate and that brings us together and that is our birthday.  Everybody likes to celebrate their birthday and have people celebrating with them and as Darren was turning the big 21 we decided that we would have a birthday party for him.  The theme was a jungle theme so we decorated our kitchen to look like the jungle and everyone got dressed up as something that you would find in the jungle.  We had people dressed as tigers, monkeys, a snake, a butterfly, lions and a parrot and I can honestly say it was a night to definitely remember. 

The jungle

After a crazy night on Thursday for Darren’s birthday we were all very excited for Saturday because we would be going to Bordeaux to visit our friend Dojo.  On Friday we got up early and set off on our adventure to Bordeaux.  We were so excited to see Dojo and to have a glimpse of her life outside of Erasmus.  We began to think about what we thought her apartment would be like, what Bordeaux would be like and if we would have a “culture shock” when we saw the way the French people lived compared to the Dutch and the Irish. 

Reunited with Dojo

When we got to Bordeaux we were amazed at its beauty and we began to think about the French stereotypes that we had coming over.  The first thing we thought about when we knew we were going to be visiting Bordeaux were vineyards.  Dojo had told us that Bordeaux is famous for its wine and that we would see a lot of vineyards in the countryside.  I really could not believe the amount of vineyards we seen when we were travelling through the French countryside.  It literally was a sea of green so this was one stereotype that the French people definitely lived up to. 

Dojo had told us that during our visit we would be spending time in her beach house just outside Bordeaux.  She told us that most people living in Bordeaux would own a beach house and when we told her that hardly any one back home in Ireland would own a beach house she was in complete shock.  She asked us what we did during the summer to which we replied “what summer?”

The beach in Bordeaux

 We also had the opportunity to meet Dojo’s family.  This was also quite a shock to us because we had to remember that the French greet each other by giving air kisses.  We didn’t know if Dojo had told her family that we don’t greet like that so the first time we seen them there was some awkward handshake and air kisses happening but it did provide us with some laughs.

During our time in Bordeaux we got to see how a different culture lived.  From wine tasting to beach houses this culture seemed a million miles away from my own culture of potatoes and farms but I was so glad that I had the chance to experience it and see Dojo again.