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1. Expectation: that you will be living in the Eiffel Tower.
Reality: you'll actually be living in a decrepit flat that hasn't been lived in for many a year.
2. Expectation: that you will be zipping around through Paris on your velib, looking effortlessly elegant.
Reality: you're in a town in the middle of nowhere and when you cycle you look like this:
3. Expectation: that you will be going to trendy bars every night, with your new friends.
Reality: that there's only one bar and it shuts at 11pm and you're on your own.
4. Expectation: that you will abandon your TV bingewatching for more cultural pursuits.
Reality: you will watch more TV than you ever thought possible.
5. Expectation: that you will pretty much forget how to speak English
Reality: that you will pretty much forget how to speak French.
6. Expectation: that you will visit your neighbouring cities to soak up the culture.
Reality: visiting neighbouring cities to go get drunk because that one bar shut an hour ago.
7. Expectation: that French TV will be philosophical and intellectual.
Reality: they have exactly the same shows we do, except each episode is three hours long.
That said, The Great British Bakeoff doesn't have choice clips such as this:
8. Expectation: that when you take English classes with your students that it will be some beautiful mélange of Dead Poet's Society and The History Boys.
Reality: that you bribe the younger classes with sweets and discuss your love life with the older ones.
9. Expectation: writing a fascinating blog of your travels around the world, generating an adoring fan base.
Reality: after your first post, that dream starts to feel a bit like this:
10. Expectation: that you will use your spare time to consolidate your university reading and improve your grammar.
Reality: that you spend your spare time watching a 9 hour omnibus of 'Le Meilleur Patissier'
11. Expectation: that you will spend all your time eating cheese and drinking wine.
Reality: yep, that one's pretty much exactly right.
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