First day of school…..(July 7, 2008)
This morning William and set out to find some breakfast and get to the meeting point where we were supposed to be precisely at 9. In the first place, this is a bigger campus than we thought. Not knowing where we were going took even longer. It is a good
20-minute walk from our dorm to our university classes. We grabbed a pastry and drink and kept trucking, only to find that we had plenty of time, and they had juice, pains au chocolat, and coffee for us! We found our other folks and spent some time getting acquainted. Mary Soltys, my internet-buddy for Alaska, is really nice. Well, they are all nice. Kristen Kebhart (Pennsylvania) has been traveling in France already for 10 days, and Air France lost her luggage and she still doesn’t have it! They gave her 100 euros to buy some clothes and necessities, but of course that didn’t begin to cover 10 days worth of necessities. Bless her heart…..she’s hanging in there! We all think AF owes her a free round-trip ticket to be used in the future.
The registration/orientation process was long. There are teachers here from all over the world. We registered by taking pieces of paper around for the classes we wanted. The people are very nice, but they could use some lessons in organization. It seems that everything takes longer than it should. But, we survived.
After a quick lunch in the cafeteria, we went to collect our money (which again took longer than it should), and then we set out to walk to the Super Casino (like super Wal-mart) to buy some breakfast food, toilet tissue, etc. William bought a pillow, but I decided I didn’t want to spend 15 euros on something I would have to leave here. So I’m going to try to get buy with my blanket and t-shirt! We had another session this afternoon at 5, and then took the tram back into town for dinner. Tomorrow we have to get our ID cards so we can get cheaper tram passes.
Here’s something cool….they have all of these excursions planned to surrounding places like Lyon, Annecy, Chamonix, even Provence. There’s white-water rafting, hiking, a trip to the French Revolution museum on Bastille Day, a wine-tasting excursion, etc. They all cost money for the normal people who are paying to attend classes here. But for us, (guests of the French government), three are free! That makes our scholarship money go a little further for food, and shopping! In France they can only have sales twice a year….January and July. So the prices right now are slashed about 50%! (Renée, you went home too soon!)
Better organize myself for tomorrow. After I get my ID card, I should be able to get on the internet for free, so I can stay “branchée” (connected) on a daily basis.
This morning William and set out to find some breakfast and get to the meeting point where we were supposed to be precisely at 9. In the first place, this is a bigger campus than we thought. Not knowing where we were going took even longer. It is a good
20-minute walk from our dorm to our university classes. We grabbed a pastry and drink and kept trucking, only to find that we had plenty of time, and they had juice, pains au chocolat, and coffee for us! We found our other folks and spent some time getting acquainted. Mary Soltys, my internet-buddy for Alaska, is really nice. Well, they are all nice. Kristen Kebhart (Pennsylvania) has been traveling in France already for 10 days, and Air France lost her luggage and she still doesn’t have it! They gave her 100 euros to buy some clothes and necessities, but of course that didn’t begin to cover 10 days worth of necessities. Bless her heart…..she’s hanging in there! We all think AF owes her a free round-trip ticket to be used in the future.
The registration/orientation process was long. There are teachers here from all over the world. We registered by taking pieces of paper around for the classes we wanted. The people are very nice, but they could use some lessons in organization. It seems that everything takes longer than it should. But, we survived.
After a quick lunch in the cafeteria, we went to collect our money (which again took longer than it should), and then we set out to walk to the Super Casino (like super Wal-mart) to buy some breakfast food, toilet tissue, etc. William bought a pillow, but I decided I didn’t want to spend 15 euros on something I would have to leave here. So I’m going to try to get buy with my blanket and t-shirt! We had another session this afternoon at 5, and then took the tram back into town for dinner. Tomorrow we have to get our ID cards so we can get cheaper tram passes.
Here’s something cool….they have all of these excursions planned to surrounding places like Lyon, Annecy, Chamonix, even Provence. There’s white-water rafting, hiking, a trip to the French Revolution museum on Bastille Day, a wine-tasting excursion, etc. They all cost money for the normal people who are paying to attend classes here. But for us, (guests of the French government), three are free! That makes our scholarship money go a little further for food, and shopping! In France they can only have sales twice a year….January and July. So the prices right now are slashed about 50%! (Renée, you went home too soon!)
Better organize myself for tomorrow. After I get my ID card, I should be able to get on the internet for free, so I can stay “branchée” (connected) on a daily basis.
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