#ONLYINNICE

Isn't it nice to wake up, turn on your phone and see that you got 10 texts, 10 WhatsApp voice messages and another 10 missed calls? Ah, the appeal of popularity. But for all the wrong reasons... They were all my mom's and dad's and some were from the real estate agency I rented my appartment at. After having read the texts, I did not even do the effort to listen to the voice messages, for they were all saying the same thing. It started quite reasonable, really:  How was it? Did you get home safely ? But it quickly escalated into 5 question marks: A re you home????? Elise????? You promised to text me when you got home!!!!! Whenever I used to go out in Ghent, my parents hardly ever asked me if I got home safely. But since I was in Nice, or apparently,  The Bronx , they were panicking because at 9 o'clock in the morning, I had not yet sent them a message because of the simple reason that I was still asleep and unaware of that fact that, at that very mo...

Thursday 31 August. Lille Aeroport. Early afternoon. My dad, my stepmother and my best friend waving me goodbye. Trying not to cry. After all, why would I? I was kicking off my Erasmus honeymoon! A honeymoon. That's how I like to refer to it. Not that I'm experienced in that field, but I might have some idea after having watched too many  romcoms. Those first days where all is well and overwhelming... Visiting the city, exploring the counrty, meeting new people, soaking up the sun, going out, sleeping in, sipping coctails at the beach and most importantly: no school! I fell in love with Nice, and after all those months, I still am.  Of course, not all was cakes and ales. First of all, my aeroplane was delayed, which forced me to take a 40-euro taxi to my future home I had never seen before, where I had an appointment to do the état des lieux with a woman I did not know . Sweaty, hungry and exhausted from my travels, I arrived at the Ruelle . A woman was awaiti...

What I like about day -1 is that things can't get any worse than that. Any experience that follows, which in my case was my Erasmus, would automatically be a better one. So when I woke op on day 1, I actually felt good - set aside the shivers running down my spine or the gastric acid moving up my throat. It was the start of an adventure! As for me, honestly admitted, I never even went through a Day -1-phase. At least not on Day -1. On Day -1, I actually felt quite good, simply because I had been travelling for the past month and had never been home for literally one day. So when I got home from my latest adventure -  only 4 days before my departure to Nice, the unfamiliar ritual of unpacking and packing my backs and the unfamiliar feeling of knowing I would not be home for a long time, felt oddly familiar. In fact, I even felt safe. Safe, because I was going to live in a country I knew rather well, a country I would even want to move to. Safe, because I knew I wasn't going ...