Scotch College

Voyage en France

Croissants, escargots, bitter cold and the Eiffel Tower; not your average summer holiday. However, this was the unique cultural experience that was undertaken by ten Scotch boys, six Ivanhoe Grammar girls and one Trinity boy, accompanied by Ms Hibben of Scotch and Mrs Cartwright of Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar, on a student exchange program to the city of Lyon during the last Christmas holidays.

After three long plane flights, the group touched down in Lyon where our respective exchange partners greeted us. From here each Australian joined their host family, scattered around Lyon and the surrounding area, ready to begin a five-week discovery of different language, food, culture and way of life.

Language was the greatest barrier to be overcome by the students, experiencing three weeks of French schooling, in the beginning often struggling to understand anything in class. However as the weeks progressed, it became significantly easier to communicate and respond to all the French students’ important questions about kangaroos, asylum seekers and whether we could speak ‘Aboriginal’.

Another significant aspect of the trip was the French cuisine. The diet of cheese, cream, chocolate, wine and more wine was a shock to the Australians, and was often delightfully accompanied with snails, frogs legs and unmentionable animal parts. However, after the feasts of Christmas and New Years Eve, this soon became normality for the Australian stomachs and was often looked forward to.

The two-week Christmas holiday offered an opportunity for travel around France and to neighbouring countries with the host family. Group excursions provided a chance to discuss our experiences and to visit the town of Annecy, as well as attractions in Lyon such as the Gallo-Roman Museum, the Lyon Town Hall, and the Lyon Opera.

Five weeks later, it was time to say our emotional farewells and head off to Paris as a group. This was the perfect conclusion to a very enjoyable and rewarding trip, visiting every possible monument and museum in the five short days including Versailles, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur, and it was here that we were finally treated to some warmer weather, with temperatures around 0 degrees.

Many thanks to Ms Hibben and Mrs Cartwright for their excellent support and helpfulness, and their organization of a fantastic and unforgettable trip.

James Buckley