I started EOTO with my finnish tutor and a german girl, then I moved for another group with only a finnish girl, Elina who wanted to learn French but finally our group has grown and we are 4.. This time Im with three people who want to learn French (Elina, Tilda & Michèl) and this is really interesting for me! All of them do not have the same level but all of them are quite good so it’s a pleasure.
Just after the break in october I went to St Petersbourg 5 days with Michèl, we didn’t know really well each other so far so it was a good way to know other. We were in the same shared cabin in the boat and in the same room also in the Hotel Dostoevsky. Michèl is always trying to speak in French, when he is texting or when it’s little sentences. Something I have to give him the right sentence but sometimes it’s already good. In the boat we played a game « speed », it’s an easy game so he understood really quickly when I taught him how to play in French. We spent all our time on the boat together and it allowed us to know each other.
The first day in St Petersbourg we missed the meeting with the group in the main lobby of the hotel so we were « lost » in the city trying to find them… At least it was fun but we have realized that it is not always easy to be understood in English even in a big city like St Petersburg. Indeed almost nobody speaks english (or nobody wants ) in St Petersburg..We finally found them by walking around the city under the snow.The first night we went to the limousine trip, going by night, all around the city, it was really great.
I realized something, when we have EOTO meetings with my group we can talking about everything but when you live few days with someone you notice so many things which you would not perhaps had the idea to speak about. For example the breakfast, I’m totally used to eat some sweet things but Michèl was totally oriented to things with salt. It was interesting to see how much our habits can varied depends on where you come from.
I can’t enumerate all the things we talked about but the most relevant were our hobbies, our way of life at home, our studies and our work next to our studies. First fact, Michel unlike me is already accustomed to live alone in Germany while I had never been living alone before Filand ! He explained me how he managed this and what are the inconvenients and advantages. We spoke about our studies, a bit differents between France and Germany and finally about our work and hobby. We have both a job in connection with cars (BMW for him and Classic Cars for me) and we both love motorbikes! We were trying to say to each other the specifics terms in French or German to speak about parts of the motorbikes or the different styles. 
During this trip we spoke a lot in French and I saw that he found his words easily with the time. Sometimes even, we didn’t want to be understood by the others so we talked in French! What I really learn that EOTO can be practiced everywhere and this is really enjoyable! We discovered thanks Facebook that he was in holiday the last year in France just next to where I live. Maybe we will be able to meet each other again next year in France !
Erwan
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