Bienvenue à Toulon, faites attention à la vie en descendant du train

There is something to be said about train journeys. Nothing quite beats the worry of watching the countryside zoom past as you obsessively glance over at the luggage racks to make sure your too-heavy-to-lift-yet-alone-steal suitcases are still dangerously stowed in them. And when it comes to get off the train, the wave of panic that you won't manage to lift both cases off in time before the doors close means that you're ready to alight (and practising lifting both at the same time) for at least 20 minutes before the train stops at the platform.

And that is exactly how I behaved on the whole journey from London Waterloo to Toulon. The only time I wasn't obsessing was when I put on my "defenceless female in a strange place" act on the Paris metro to get help in climbing the stairs. Stepping off the (double-decker) TGV in Toulon, I found that I still had flights of stairs to contend with to get to the main reception where my new landlord/flatmate was waiting for me. Except he wasn't. Or so it seemed. So I park myself next to the Welcome office, with suitcases explicitly in view of everyone that walks past, and wait. Two pidgin-French texts later and I'm collected and taken away to my new home.

Now the insecurities set in: do I remember how to make conversation in French? Do I remember how to make conversation? Have I made the biggest mistake of my life by not turning back when I had the chance? Hmmmm...

I don't remember feeling so homesick as I have since I arrived in Toulon. I don't remember ever feeling so shy and insecure that I have to hibernate in my room. But homesick, shy and insecure I have been. Thanks to an excellent WiFi connection, and friends who are as obsessed with MSN and facebook as I am, I've managed to hold onto my sanity in here. The timidity has subsided a bit, and I've been known to venture out into the living room every so often and attempt a conversation with my new flatmate. I even went as far as the city centre the other day.

So now that the unpacking is done, my room neat and tidy (for the next few hours at least), all that remains for me to do is sit back, turn out the lights, ignore the trains rumbling past at ridiculous speeds and watch episodes of Friends over the internet until I'm tired enough to sleep. Then it's time for the same thing again tomorrow, possibly with more escapades into the promised land of my new living room than I managed today.