Jericho or Cowley? Chore rota or laissez-faire? Guys n' gals, or strictly sorority? All of these questions are ones that you have doubtless wrestled with yourselves and have equally doubtlessly caused superb factions to arise within college, leading to hall storm outs, bop cock-blocking and even pidge based sabotage. I, having performed my infamous college migration, sat as a smug spectator on the sidelines of such events last year, safe and far away (we're talking miles away here. Summertown.) in my college accommodation. Not for me the fruitless debates over whether or not the person who has tactically ensnared a fresher deserves a bedroom seeing as they pretty much have free college accommodation now anyway.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Oxford has two universities and enough student houses to satisfy your wildest dreams (provided these dreams involved identikit terraced housing in Iffley.) Lyon has 7. That's 7 universities full of far cooler, far better prepared, Gauloise smoking frenchlets than I. They, presumably in between enigmatic shrugging and protests, have managed to secure apparently every single flat in Lyon that has a roof and a notable absence of abestos. To be frank, it's got to the stage that the aforementioned wouldn't even be deterrents.
I've been using two sites akin to Gumtree, which involve a mini profile more suited to a dating website than an estate agent. Age range, smoking preferences, hobbies, BDSM yay or nay.... I don't know if I am just being too picky. Maybe it would be an adventure to live with a group of four youths who identify as "cyber-goths" and list "pot" in their list of hobbies. Or perhaps the profile picture-less 36 year old male who has made it abundantly clear that I can have friends over any time I want, provided they are female. Then again, perhaps not.
It's made even harder by the fact that I have a) no idea of which areas of Lyon are meant to be nice and which are a bit Dundee/Blackbird Leys-esque (#internationalreadership) and b) how to make myself seem even remotely normal when typing in my second language. Every email I've sent to normal looking potential flatmates has made me seem either overly enthusiastic about gas and water being included in the rent price, or completely lifeless and a bit depressed. If only the French did sarcasm...
So the search continues. There is one girl who is my age and likes wine (pretty much all the boxes ticked there) AND the flat has a shared pool, although I'm wary of the old adage that if it seems to good to be true, then it probably is. All of a sudden, I find myself longing for a terraced Cowley house all of my own. At least I'd know my way home from Camera.
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