My name is Mini and I’ve recently moved to the beautiful city of Paris for my year abroad.

I won’t lie, it’s not too shabby a spot to spend a few months out of the bubble, what with all of the (surprisingly drinkable) sub-three euro merlot floating about and more artsy looking Instagram spots than you can shake a baguette at. There really isn’t much to be missed about England at all, other than (a) my dog, (b) my ability to make six floors worth of small-talk in a lift, and (c) Sainsbury’s Basics houmous.

Now I may or may not be writing this column because I watched a lot of Sex and the City instead of revising for my exams and want to become the Carrie Bradshaw that could have been if she’d known what was good for her and stayed in Paris – that is, if Carrie Bradshaw was a 20-year-old pastry addict with big feet and a knack for walking into door frames.

Her spending habits I can relate to, at least. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves, if you’re going to go broke on anything it may as well be good cheese and an overpriced eyebrow pencil (that and the fact that I recently bought a dress purely for the fact that it made me look like a prawn may explain why I can no longer buy my lunch).

The thing is, unlike Miss Bradshaw, I’m not actually very good at the whole being-a-full-size-adult-in-the-real-world thing. In fact, there are several things I’ve learned so far about my failings as a proper human. Let me set the Seine…

Not wanting to completely abandon my British tendencies quite yet, the first topic that springs to mind is the weather. Recently it’s been very hot here and I’ve discovered that dealing with this isn’t my forte. I’m not talking the “Gosh darn it Jimmy take off that coat it is at least TWENTY degrees out here you’ll BURN!” kind of heat. No, I mean the soul-destroying furnace of death and oblivion kind of heat that makes me wish that all the windows in my apartment didn’t have quite such good views into other people’s living rooms so as to never have to wear clothing inside again (note, this only applies to my home – public spaces have a few rules in place against that sort of thing I hear). Of course, my workplace did its best to rectify this by making our desks colder than Voldemort’s top freezer shelf, causing my fingers to cramp up on the annoyingly-designed French keyboard while cocooning myself in a conveniently located bath towel. Don’t ever let anyone tell you the world of fashion isn’t glamour on tap.

One of the most adulty things I’ve witnessed adults do is take a packed lunch to work. I decided to hop on this bandwagon after I’d almost exhausted myself standing in line for five hundred years every day to buy a limp supermarket sandwich or some sort of grain concoction that left the smell of garlic lingering on my tongue for days (I brush my teeth I promise, Mum). However, being the person that I am I forgot to actually buy anything for the first day of my packed lunch plan so despite the best of intentions to include quinoa and other such adult-like ingredients like goats cheese and roasted beetroot, I ended up with what could have been whipped straight from a five-year-old’s Peppa Pig lunchbox. As I looked down at my medley of slightly squished cherry tomatoes and slice or two of sad-looking Edam that had melted into the side of the box and my single hard boiled egg, I couldn’t help but wish for garlic breath once more.

Nevertheless, I hasten to add that it’s not been all that bad since my time here in the croissant-fuelled capital began and I may have even picked up a thing or two. From learning to manipulate a wide variety of corkscrews to mastering the art of eating breakfast biscuits on the packed-out morning metro without being judged, I’m slowly getting to grips with my new life.

So I guess the first thing I’ve learned in my clumsy attempt to grow up at a million miles an hour is that simply, you can’t. While it’s hard arriving in a new place and struggling to keep up with people who’ve walked these streets a thousand times, whether that’s Paris, Cambridge or wherever, it’s important to cut yourself some slack. Mess up a bit, get inappropriately drunk on red wine with friends you met two minutes ago, and burn your toast, because this life thing is hard, but as a great man once said: “We’re all in this together.”

Watch this space for more lessons learned here as I pretend to have my life on track – luckily I embarrass myself enough on a regular basis to have plenty of material.