bank

What a wonderful day finally. It took about a week and a half in order to see the sun for a few minutes. It’s been overcast since I arrived back from Lyon, and it even has been raining a little bit.

Our exams went this week and quite frankly they were mostly a joke. We don’t really learn much since it’s just ‘language’ and we aren’t tested on language structure, at all. It’s weird to notice this, but at any rate I went into the audio lab and was fooling around with pronouciation tapes; boy was that fun for a Friday afternoon!

But alas, the best thing to have happend on that day was the receiving of a package. At first I thought it was something superduper special, that I’ve been expecting, but it wasn’t; it was the package my mom sent me. It had my book, scarf, and mittens in it which made me really happy; however it was the wrong scarf, sigh. It doesn’t matter anyways since I will need more than one scarf, otherwise the French will make fun of me.

I walked over to the post office to get the package and the beggar lady harrassed me. I’m getting kind of sick of people harrassing me all the time, pretty soon I will start to do the same to them, and I’ll fit right in, but until then I’m screwed. I’ve attached some photos for your viewing pleasure of things going around the city!

Everything is closed on Saturday because it’s Armistance Day, therefore I realize this late in the afternoon and had to run to the bank and then to the supermarket to stock up on food; otherwise I would have starved. I’ve attached photos of this ‘excursion’ as well!

I’m bored and I’m cleaning my room since it seems to have collected dust or something at some point in the last little while. Also the fan above my room has shut off, so my room is quiet for the first time ever; how weird is that. Maybe I should clean it as well! Things to do, golly!

The day started with our meetings with Dr. Lee where he told us what we should do and what the course offerings are, the only thing he didn’t tell me is how to choose my option courses (but that will be figured out in time). He recommended that I look into some of the courses in the ‘normal’ university, so I went to ‘La Portique’ where the department is, but all the offices are closed and they aren’t very nice to students. So we will come back the next day, becasue we had to meet to go to the bank. So we get to the bank and we go in pairs to set up our accounts, Ginette and I go with this really really young guy, and he sits us down and talks to us about the accounts and such. Really nice, but really slow, and we were joking the whole time. We just about had to ask him to repeat everything because he talks so quietly it’s difficult to hear what the heck he’s saying.

So anyways, we are trying to figure out how old he is, and my guess is he’s a tad bit younger than us, but it’s tough to say because he’s tall and skinny (like all other French guys) and he’s being kind of coy with us. So all is swell and we were about to do my account, but then he (who we found out was named Jeremy) moved me to this other woman named Delores, who frankly spoke no English, and a type of French that was completely un-comprehendable. She kept trying to say words in English but they weren’t working out right, and I coudln’t understand anything, so it was a major struggle the whole time. All worked out (at least I think) and we just have to bring back one of the documents, and then we will be set. Now I just have to wait for that page from the Gallia. So we were walking to the Palais Univérsitaire, when Ginnette gets a call, then I get a call and it says ‘Blocked’ so I thought it was weird. I answered it and it was someone speaking French, but with an accent I couldn’t understand, and the reception was quite bad. It turned out to be Birahim my conversation partner, who was calling me, but he spoke horrible English, and I spoke horrible French, so communication was a major barrier for us. Eventually I mannaged to tell him that I would send him an email about when we can meet since the next days are very busy for me. He said okay and then we ended the conversation, then Ginette and I freaked out because it was Jeremy that called her. Apparently she ‘forgot’ to sign some papers, so we have to go back tomorrow to get them done. We were excited and convinced that he just wanted to see her/us again, so we came up with this huge plan to dress up really nice, and go over there, and ask him if he wants to show us around, because we are new, and then like hang out with us (after we find out how old he is). We, more specifically I, and most convinced that it will fail, but we figure that if anything bad happens we can just never go back to that agency again. *LOL*

We vowed not to tell anyone about this, and then we hope that we can start to form our own little French possie without the other Anglophones! I am exicted, because new friends are awesome, but I’m nervous that it will go over horribly. We will find out tomorrow!

So we decided to go to Kehl again at spur of the moment, and took a bus and then ended up ditching Crystal and Amber accidentally in a shoe store, then we shopped for awhile. I found an umbrella for less than 5€ (which is great compared to in Strasbourg), and we decided that tomorrow would be a busy day because we had to get some course info, go to the bank, get food, possibly go to Kehl, and definantly figure out where IKEA is and go there ourselves. So we took the tram back and then found our British friends at the Gallia resteraunt, and looking like idiots we asked them where the line starts and how it works here (as it’s different and confusing). So we ate and then decided that we were going for a drink with Jon, a guy from North Carolina who we met in the street. He’s studying his Masters programme here in International Relations, so Ginette is obsessed with him.

We met up with him, but Amber and her weiner 18 year old French Friends didn’t show up, so we were worried, but went to a café instead. The wine was wonderful, and we were there for hours just talking about tons of things! We walked over to Amber’s residence to see if she was there, as she didn’t answer her mobile, and we were worried. Ginette and I are convinced that she’s pissed off at us for avoiding her in Kehl, but it was accidental. Then we got invited to go out for drinks the next night with the British girls and guy, so we are doing that too. Jon was really nice and super polite, but I feel as if Ginette totally got drunk and was monopolizing the conversation. I couldn’t care less, but it was annoying to hear her voice for the whole evening. She’s soo smart, which is amazing to listen to, but I think that we disagree on some political level issues and that sort of irritates me, but she’s awesome anyways!

So as I said, Ginette and I have a hot date with the banker, and then we are going to IKEA. Woot woot, let’s just hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces!

PS: We were in Kehl and I couldn’t find a damned thing to buy to wear, as I don’t understand the sizes and they make them bigger here! So I am convinced that I need to find a pair of womens jeans just to get something that fits.. Bugger!