I always believed advertising is the reflection of society. It reveals its aspiration, its problems, provides cue about how people think and in what they believe in. If you just take a moment to look with your eyes and mind, you may discover those “hidden mysteries” hiding behind images, words and colors which all together are full of meaning.

 Visiting foreign countries I really enjoyed glancing at all sorts of adverts and advertising strategies. Back in Russia I remembered being amazed about how different and old-fashioned adverts could seem to be whereas I remembered smiling watching at Thai very kitsch adverts, full of colors and cute shapes. What you always need to remember is that there are as many ways of seeing thing as there are people and what I may judge old-fashioned or kitsch may not seem at all for locals. Perhaps, adverts, way of thinking, way of dressing or eating, communicating and many things are shaped and conditioned by culture.

 Of course, while visiting London, I saw many kinds of adverts some that surprised me and some I didn’t really paid attention to. Yet, among all those, one truly caught my attention and I think deserved to be the subject of an article.

This advert is a poster published by the public transport company of London (DLR) among a series of others to warn people using the DLR about decency rules:

 I almost laughed when I first saw it; I was shocked to see such an advert in London. My first thought naturally was “dear I never saw that in France” and then I smile and told myself “It must be there for a reason…” which I believe is because the “incident” must have happened already. I then by curiosity made a little research and found out that in effect, this incident have had happened just a month before I arrived (Rob Virtue, 2013).

 If you watch a little bit closer you will see: “Saliva Recovery Kits are held on every train and will be used to identify offenders”. What better solution we can think of to prevent people from doing such an act? And this is when I told myself not “I never saw that in France” but “we would never see that in France”.

My personal opinion about this advert and what it tells about London is of course not “people spit on DLR staff in London” (which would be quite limited) but “this city has admitted a problem, found and invested in a real solution to it”. In few words, this small barely noticeable advert finally represented a real prove of this country’s efficiency…

I believe the advert would make quite an impression in France as there rarely is non-commercial or warning about decency rules advert. Those are often published somewhere but in non-attractive and written in tiny characters posters which absolutely no body reads…

Why does two-third (or three-quarters according to some) of the world drives on the right side? And why is the world divided over such a matter?

There clearly is a historical mystery to solve: in the past, most societies travelled in the left side of the road for a very simple reason: most people are right-handed and at the time swordsmen, warriors and knight kept moving on the left side of the road for their right arm to be able to hold a weapon to be able to face an eventual opponent.

The question now is how could it change over time? The answer came from France and United States in the 18^th century that began using large wagons (to transport farm products) pulled by pairs of horses or mules with no driver’s seat. Therefore, the driver had to seat on a left rear horse to use the right arm to guide the other horses. Naturally, the drivers preferred others to pass on the left for them to ascertain that the carriage will keep clear from being damaged.

 In addition to this explanation, in France, aristocracy drove carriage on the left side forcing peasants to the right. It only was after the French Revolution events in 1789, that aristocracy chose to keep low profile and drive on the right side. Yet, how this new custom, that became a law in 1794, could reach a global impact? The answer is Napoleon that imposed to the conquered nations the “rightism” traffic. This is how Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Spain, Italy got to drive on the right side of the road while Great Britain and its colonies (India, Australasia and African British colonies) kept the ancestral tradition to drive left (more or less official in 1872, written as a law in 1924). Hitler then imposed the right-hand traffic to Czechoslovakia and Austria in 1930s. Finally, in Japan, that never has been part of British colonies, always drove left for the same reasons all society drove left in the first place and had no reasons to change. Over times several countries around the world changed sides such as Gibraltar, China, Sweden and Korea that changed to right-hand traffic for various reasons such as war and political influences.

 Recently (7 September 2009), Samoa, a Pacific island swap sides from the right to the left side of the road for economic reasons: open the territory to low cost autos from left-driving countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

Have you ever noticed Capitals often have their guest or invader animal? I remember how funny it felt to be observed and times to times approached by squirrels in Washington and how quickly you get surrounded by pigeons when you seat on a bench in Paris. Well, I happened to unravel the riddle of London’s animal… Let me give you clues: this animal has red fur and is famous to be mischievous in the following fable:

Perch'd on a lofty oak,
Sir Raven held a lunch of cheese;
Sir ... who smelt in the breeze,

Thus to the holder spoke:
"Ha! How do you do, Sir Raven?
Well, your coat, sir, is a brave one!""

Most of you certainly solved the mystery: London’s animal is the fox!

One very cold night around eleven o’clock, I went outside in the dark and empty streets to walk my dog. He was behaving in an unusual way running and smelling as if he was chasing something, something I couldn’t see myself. Then suddenly, we fell nose-to-nose with a red fox staring at each other too surprised to react. After few seconds, our unexpected guest calmly ran away in the dark leaving us gob-smacked. It is so unusual to meet those mysterious animals and especially from such a close point of view. I remember being delighted to be able to contemplate the fox’s magnificence like never before.

It only was when I shared my experience that my host family almost laughed telling me how usual crossing foxes around London was. They indeed were right. After this first experience, I times to times had the chance to catch sight of a fox wandering in the darkness of the night, probably searching for something to eat.

My host family then told me about a terrible story where foxes weren’t only mischievous but actually dangerous when they weren’t scared enough to stay away from humans: A four-week-old baby was injured in this own room by an “urban fox” that managed to creep into his bedroom while the mother was in the house. The attack took place in London on the sixth of February 2013. Yet, it wasn’t the first time that a fox had been reported to break into houses. Indeed in 2010, another serious attack took place in London: nine-month-old twins were attacked in their cot while sleeping. The two girls survived to their serious injuries to the face and arms but the story aroused great concern… While a range of animal experts were trying to reassure people highlighting the rarity of such attacks, Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) declared: “They may appear cuddly and romantic but foxes are also a pest and a menace, particularly in our cities. This must serve as a wakeup call to London's borough leaders, who are responsible for pest control. They must come together, study the data, try to understand why this is becoming such a problem and act quickly to sort it out”. A new war has begun...

It was in the Christmas atmosphere that I finally had the confirmation this adventure; I could only imagine till then, would actually become true. The time to get prepared was short as the courses started on Monday the 14^th of January. At first, I felt confident about finding a nice place to live and a way to get there with my little philosopher, Platon (my dog). Yet, when I started searching, I understood it definitely wouldn’t be as easy as I though… After a stressful couple weeks of research, I finally found a family with two kids (respectively aged 2 and 8 years old) renting a room in their own house. I jumped on the occasion and luckily got the room. But I wasn’t expecting what I was about to discover: plains, trains, ferries, none of them were accepting dogs on board I almost laughed when an airplane company asked me on the phone “would you like me to call X (name of the company) cargo?”, with the size of my dog it could only seem ironic. There was a last solution that kept glowing in the shadow: getting there by car. The problem was that I don’t drive and my family lives all around the world and therefore couldn’t help me so I explored the option of carpooling. I found great and very well structured national websites to help me finding my carpooler. I couldn’t tell I was very comfortable about this experience but still, I remained enthusiastic. Long story short, we were seven in the car and missed the last train to get to England. We had to wait almost three hours in an empty and closed commercial center till 1:30am to catch the next train. Surprisingly even with this misfortune, the trip was enjoyable thanks to other carpoolers’ cheerfulness. Yet, it took time to arrive to London and drop off every body at their place. As a result, I arrived at my place at 4:30am. The householder left a key next door so that I could get in, but it was a strange sensation to enter an unknown, dark house without making noise in the middle of the night. In fact, I didn’t even know where I was supposed to sleep. Luckily, I wasn’t as silent as I thought I was because the householder, Tristan, came downstairs to welcome me and show me my room.

I was then very tired but I also felt relieved to finally be there. In the morning, I had to wake up early to take my marks and be able to go to the University for the Welcome meeting. Tristan nicely helped me with my first steps in London. Everything was new and it gave me a strange feeling that I rarely experienced as I was used to travel.

There I was, in the bus to get to the University. It felt nice to discover the surrounding in the daylight and I could then understand I was living in the suburbs. After a twenty-five minutes ride, I discovered the magnificent and full of history buildings of the University Of Greenwich. It almost felt as if I was in a movie but the wonderment didn’t last long as I had to find my way in this very large campus.

I eventually succeed in finding the other ERASMUS students and recognized the other ESDES’ students. Even though we didn’t know each other very well, it felt nice to see familiar faces.

We didn’t have any other lessons that day which gave us time to discover the campus and partly understand how things worked there. I was positively surprised by the cultural mix on the campus and was excited about the idea to meet those people, all coming from different horizons.

Back home, I spend time with the family I was living with, in order to get to know them better. They were very nice and friendly which could only help me to feel good. They even had the kindness to invite me several times to share their meal. Often, Tristan would offer me a glass of wine telling me with a tone of humor that the fact I was French made him want to drink wine more often! I quickly understood that living with this family would be a fabulous human and linguistic experience.

Seeing daily the university’s wonderful buildings made me curious about their history. According to my investigations, Greenwich city is an old Romans site that has been shaped by seafaring, industry Royalty and the Navy. It was only recently (2009) that Greenwich University acquired the buildings. Today, from the campus, people can admire the Maritime museum historically known to be the Royalty’s secondary residence.

I didn’t have to wait long before starting the classes. I chose to study leadership, management, social marketing and strategic brand management. The first classes fortunately weren’t too intense which helped me to get used to the British accent.

Yet, I quickly noticed that everybody knew each-others in classes and that we were the only new faces in there which would make the integration task a little less easy. I was surprised to observe that British people were very amiable in the streets but not as nice when it came to the student population, indeed, other students seemed distant.

In the first days I wasn’t ready to rush into finding outdoor activities as the weather was rather cold and as I already had a whole family to discover and do things with at home.

It didn’t last long before we had to prepare our first homework and luckily we made friends with other permanent students. They were very helpful explaining us how to search in the library, how to borrow books and how to reference our work.

I think that one of the most difficult things I had to deal with starting from the beginning was the academic logic that is the complete opposite of French one. Here, teachers are expecting before everything else solid references and would only then, consider our writing. In France, the academic system is made to improve the ability to reflect and then research and not the other way round. In fact, a teacher even told me that we were too young and inexperienced to think by ourselves… Yet, experiencing different ways of thinking is a good training for us to be adaptable and prepared for our future.

From this point, the experience was very promising J

I have a strange feeling: I'm not sure yet if it is fear or excitement. Even though I lived my whole life in foreign countries, this time it's different. I am all by my own in this wonderful new experience. I don't even know yet when will I be going: I am wainting for the University to confirm my inscription.