Day 3, 4, and 5

Days 3, 4, and 5 Orientaiton and Track and Field all-in-one.

Well these days have all flowed into one…where one ended and the other began you know as well as I! So for the first couple days of orientation, the MICEFA staff just reviewed all of the practical information we need; boring things like bank accounts, apartments, cell phones, which University of Paris ‘school’ to choose AND ‘funny’ stories about pick-pockets, homeless people, and French men/people in general…which means good luck trying to be my friend; I might deck you with my bag or strike you in the face with pepper spray before you can say enchanté.

There are about 30 students in our group…so far all I have met have been very congenial and we’ve become close already! Between mastering the metro, and I mean master, and literally running for 8 miles a day to go from orientation to metro to metro to apartment (a contender with a pink tile bathroom) to metro to group dinner to metro to metro to run run run to orientation to metro to apartment (only available for one semester with view of Eiffel Tower, bummer!!!!!) to metro to run to apartment (waaay too smoky, ugh) to metro to metro… and so on, I think you might get the picture. Funny, I really don’t have any pictures from the last few days because I’ve been, well, running! And I guess I should throw in a “…to sweaty” about a trillion times to the list above…no wonder Parisians have a stinky reputation; they are constantly in the middle of a marathon. You would be stinky too!

Today (Wednesday) we took our placement tests and oral interviews to determine our level, intermediate or advanced, for the Preparatory Language Program (PLP) before university classes begin at the beginning of October. It turns out one of my MICEFA professors is from CSU Fullerton and, therefore, knows Madame Driscoll (my French teacher from high school whom I loooove). I’m telling you, the world is getting smaller each day I’m here.

So, I was successful in getting a French cell phone…three trips in three days to Phone House and my friend and I finally have the right chargers too. Now the far less important: home and bank account. Tomorrow I have another appointment to see an apartment then tomorrow night we have a group outing on Bateau Mouche, a boat ride on the Seine River at sunset. By the way, every time the staff says Bateau Mouche I hear “Baton Rouge” and think “What? They’re taking us to the red light district?! Wierd.”…then realize I’m way off, but they do sound similar when said with a French accent! –Which I am noticing mine is improving (much needed) with each passing day, yes!

Funny story: so I was just thinking whether I should mention the other night when I woke up at 3AM and realized no one would be online here so I would have a great connection to the internet and proceeded to sit on a stool on my balcony (where the signal is strongest) in my PJs to use my netbook for over an hour and thought maybe my mother wouldn’t approve of such a display so maybe I won’t post that….then I look up out my window (right now) and see an old Frenchman right across the street, like 20 feet away, on his balcony (level with mine) in his undershirt and tighty-whities. Yuck. And it’s only 8:55PM and broad day light! Ha, at least I was in pajamas!

Hugs & kisses!

Oh good, he just put some clothes on.