My week...

What a difference a week makes! I am in my new place, its Friday night & I have nothing to do right now. I also don’t have internet access yet so I am typing my blog now & will publish it tomorrow when I go to Mc Donald’s for the free Wi-Fi. There is one really close to my place. So a lot has happened in the past week & I need to catch you up.
Monday
The beginning of school: We have our “intensive” introduction to French culture. It is for the next 2 weeks. A woman tells us all about Lyon & France. We will be tested on it but it is mostly her opinion of things like the best place to eat & when to get used bikes & cheap groceries. Some of it is interesting but at 8 a.m. its really hard to stay awake. I have also asked some French people about the things that she has told us & either they have no clue what we are talking about or they say she’s wrong. Oh Well. As far as housing goes, I was notified by the housing people at the school that they found a new family for me but I won’t be able to move in with them until Thursday. I am only able to stay at the hostel for 6 nights. It is not my idea of a comfortable place either. I was sleeping in a room with 3 other people, I had to go down the hall to use the toilet that 40+ other people use & the shower was the smallest thing I had ever been in & you had to press a button for the water to come on. In a nutshell, it was cheap & the cheapest price isn’t always the best price. I guess it’s not so bad if you are prepared for that kind of thing but clearly I wasn’t but it beat sleeping outside somewhere. So the girl at school that was handling housing for the real guy who is in charge of it who was on vacation, brought her mom to work because she spoke better English. Her mom took pity on me & offered to let me stay at their house until I could go live with my family. The family by the way, I was only going to be staying with for September. I was supposed to move with another family in October & then stay there for the duration of my stay. So I moved out of the hostel & into their house. It was nice. Nice to sleep in a bed in a room by myself, nice to use a shower where the water stayed on & you could wash everything without touching the walls.
Tuesday
Tuesday started with more French culture. Then we had to take our language test to find out which groups we were going to be in for our language class. Let me just start by telling you how unorganized this school is. It really doesn’t make any sense – at all. They don’t use the computer for anything; the people who are giving instructions don’t really know what’s going on themselves. It seems like their first day – EVERYDAY! Yet my teacher tells me that French people work harder & faster than any other country in the world. I really don’t understand how they can claim to be the epitome of efficiency when they don’t know what they are doing. It’s not even organized chaos. Then they tell us that the classes that we pre registered for are too full & we have to confirm our schedules individually with 1 person but don’t’ worry because we have 10 days to do it & there’s no problems. Huh? They wonder why there are 100+ people lined up outside of her office every time we have a break.
After school I went with some girls to Part Dieu. It is in the center of town & there is like a mall there. That is also the train station where I arrived in Lyon. We were on a mission to get some things done. There were 3 of us who needed to get student train passes. Well since everybody returns to school in September, there was a line that was like 2 hours long & they told us that we weren’t going to make it today & closed the line. So then we went to the mall. Another girl had to get a phone. Guess what – another line. When they finally called her name about an hour after she got there, it took another 40 minutes to get that all straightened out. I have discovered why there are so many French people on mood stabilizing drugs. I think they should hand them out upon entry to the country. By this time dinner was long overdue. There are sandwich places everywhere but I had already met my quota for the day at lunch. So we wandered down to the food court. The selection was pretty limited & I ended up having a cheeseburger & fries. I must admit their fries are pretty damn good here. Since there was endless walking going on I decided to have some dessert. Haagen-Dazs hit the spot. It was delicious! Then we stumbled onto Carrefour. It is the French Wal-Mart. Seriously, the same crazy people are there, they stuff is cheap & the people are ghetto. It was so crowded & ransacked. I guess every country needs somewhere to let them go & spend their money. I bought some school supplies. Still with nowhere to go I was hesitant to make any purchases. At least I know where it is.
Wednesday
Class now starts at 8. Not my favorite time of day. There is one thing that I very much look forward to most days. It is the pan au chocolate. That is a rectangular croissant with chocolate chips baked into it. Delicious! It makes you forget for a few seconds all the drama of the morning but soon enough its gone and you are back to reality. You may know about the relationship I had formed with Dunkin Doughnuts & their coffee. Well needless to say there is no Dunkin Doughnuts here. The coffee here is very different. Its like syrup or tar possibly. There is not enough room in the shot glass that it comes in for the sugar or cream so I have been having trouble trying to substitute. Coca Cola is all I’ve got for now. So a coke & a pan au chocolate & sashay into class.
Since the train pass mission was put on hold yesterday, after school we were back in action again. The day before we asked if there were places that would be less crowded so that was our plan of attack. The first station that we went to was closing 10 minutes after we got there so they closed the line again. We asked them where else to go & 3 trains later we were there. We got off in Croix-Rousse. It is a big hill & you can see the whole town from there. Our teacher had told us a story about something there earlier in the day so it was kind of cool to see some of the things she was talking about. However we tried to verify some of these things only to have the Frenchies look at us like we were crazy. We don’t really need help in that department – believe me. So we get to the train station & it closes at 6:30. There was a line of like 15 people in front of us. Somehow I begged in French for them to let us in the line. They were trying to cut it off right in front of us. Well I was successful! At this point I will take any victory. I wasn’t even sure if they would let me get his stupid pass to begin with. You are supposed to be less than 28 to get one. I was on a mission – the acceptance letter that the school sent me had the wrong birthdate. It said I would be turning 21 this year. After my negotiations we started making friends in the line. The lady that worked there was having a good time talking to us. Some people here really like practicing their English. Personally I appreciate that. We met a French girl named Annabelle. She was super nice & helpful. Another girl came back to say hi. She was up farther in line & heard us speaking English. She was also an exchange student, a smart one who already spoke French & she offered to help us get our passes. So after waiting & waiting & waiting it was finally our turn. The other 2 went first, we were the Americans & only 1 guy sort of spoke English so by the time it was my turn I was ready for him. I had everything out & ready and there were no problems! I couldn’t believe that it worked. I got my super discounted Metro pass. It is only 24.30 euros per month – instead of 40. As many things that have been screwed up since I got here, I kind of figure that they owe me…. After 2 small victories in the last hour, we all waited for Annabelle to get done & talked for quite a while after we were all done. She was super nice. She is a teacher. She teaches junior high English. We all exchanged numbers & e-mails & we are supposed to go out for drinks somewhere on Saturday night. It should be fun. I’m looking forward to it.
At 7:30 I had an appointment with the friend of a friend. He lives here in Lyon & is going to help me out of my homeless situation. His name is Olivier. He works for a major construction company here in France & some of his workers come here to work for the week & go home for the weekend & he knew a place where I could stay. We met at the big square in town it called Place de Bellecour. It has a huge statue of Louis the 14th in the middle of it. We went to go check it out. It is in the 9th district above a Portuguese restaurant. There are 8 rooms, 3 bathrooms & a kitchen/laundry/tv room. Its pretty cheap 350 Euros a month & I don’t have to pay for anything else - except food & laundry detergent. I guess we all share & when it gets low then someone buys some more. I was told it was like that with the cleaning & stuff too. The owner was supposed to be there but she wasn’t so I checked out another guys room. It was ok. It has a bed, bookshelf, desk & a little closet like thing with a mirror. His name is Fabian & I later learned that he speaks English too. So now the problem was solved & we went to dinner. On the map that they gave us at school there is only Lyon so I had no idea that there was more outside of it. Well apparently there is – and that is where all the rich people & soccer players live. We went to a seafood restaurant. Frutis de la Mer. It was pretty nice. There were all French people in there of course. Olivier translated the whole menu to me in English – it was hard & people were looking at me & rolling their eyes. Here there is not a lot of space so its almost like you are sitting together at the tables. So I ordered some fish – I don’t remember what it was but it was pretty tasty. It had artichokes & Spanish ham & some olive mashed potatoes. He took me back to Anne-Sophie’s and that was it. I was moving tomorrow.
This is a lot of work catching up. Not having internet access to make daily updates is really a pain in the ass. My landlord said that it would be installed sometime during September but I really wish that they’d hurry up already.
Thursday
Again school at 8:30 & more disorganization. I am starting to not care anymore. I’ll just do things my way since they really can’t seem to figure anything out. I had an appointment to pay my French Social security today & then they realized that I was right & didn’t have to pay. It only took 6 days & 2 appointments for that to happen. I went with my friends to pay theirs anyway & found a place to get my personal liability insurance that was really cheap & on campus so something good came out of it. There was more back & forth with lines & confusion but that’s how it is here. I am glad I brought extra hair dye because I am going to need it…
Well it was time to move & I hadn’t told Anne-Sophie that I wasn’t t going to go live with the family. I was hesitant to tell her because I felt like she tried really hard to help me & I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. So I got to her house & told her that I found a place to live on my own & that I wasn’t moving in with the family. She was upset & made some phone calls. Her mother told me that I was causing a lot of problems. I was upset because I still don’t see how ANY of this shit is my fault. Despite all of that, I wrote them a thank you note & left the gifts I brought for my family on the desk & left. Then Olivier picked me up & took me to my new place.
My room is pretty small & they told me that I would be moving into a bigger one on Monday night. The window is broken & doesn’t shut all the way but right now it’s hot so it really doesn’t matter. There is a guy who speaks English that lives here his name is Fabian. He works construction during the summers & is a ski instructor at some resort in the Alps in the winter. The problem is that he is only here during the week for work and then he goes home on Fridays. He was telling me all about this place. He was happy to meet me so he can start brushing up on his English before the winter & I was happy to meet him because he could translate for me. We ate some Dominoes Pizza for dinner. 4 Frommage (Cheese) it had blue cheese on it – it was pretty good. I felt bad for eating Dominoes here but everything closes around here pretty early so that & McDonalds were the only 2 options & I am not desperate enough to eat at McDonalds yet. So I guess I will have to stop & eat before I get home from school. The only big problem with my room is that it is hot so I keep the window open for fresh air but then the mosquitoes find their way in. Fabian told me that they will be dead in a month but then I won’t need to keep the window open either.
Friday
I didn’t sleep so well the first night with the mosquitoes & it being a new place so I was running late. I was afraid that I would be super late for school but I only ended up being about 20 minutes late. The Metro is right around the corner & it’s only 7 stops. It goes by pretty quickly. School was pretty uneventful; I got everything done today administratively so I “should” have internet access when I go on Monday. That will make updating this thing much quicker. It is now Sunday afternoon & I am still talking about Friday…
After school I stopped at the Monoprix on the way home. It is also around the corner. It has clothes & groceries. It is a much nicer version of Wal-Mart. Maybe kind of like a Meijer? Well I finally bought a towel – so I can stop using my pajamas to dry off with. It was the most expensive towel I have ever bought in my life – but I have a towel. I also bought a few snacks I can put in my backpack. I hadn’t eaten anything so I wandered around the neighborhood & found a pizza place. Well that’s what it said on the awning but I ended up getting a salad, a taco & a drink for 7 Euros. A taco here is not the same as a taco anywhere else I know of. Mine had ground beef, tomatoes, green peppers, cheese & French fries. They put French fries in lots of stuff here; Even sandwiches. Very interesting. It wasn’t bad. Then I went home & started working on this monster.
Saturday
This was the first day I got to sleep in. So that’s what I did. I woke up around 10:30 but decided to lay in bed until 12 ish. I got up & took the Metro to Bellecour and walked around a little bit. I thought that the Farmer’s market would have been closed but it wasn’t so I took a trip through there & bought some more raspberries & a couple of nectarines. Then it was time to eat. There are so many place to eat around there it is very very hard to choose what to eat. Thankfully every place has its menu posted outside & what their daily specials are. Thankfully I know the words for chicken & beef & that’s what I pretty much stick to. So I had a green salad with tomatoes, carrots & gruyere cheese. It was really delicious. Then I had chicken & French fries. It was a chicken leg roasted with tomato sauce on it – It was different but really good also. Then for dessert I had chocolate mousse. That was also pretty good. It was only 10 Euros for all of that. Gotta love the platte du jour! Then I decided to see if I could find my way back home. I walked for about an hour and voila! I made it. I felt good that my sense of direction still works here. Especially since I don’t understand any of the street signs; they are on buildings – they’re not really signs.
After I got home I needed to check my e-mail so I thought I would go to Mc Donald’s because I heard the one here has the free Wi-Fi too. Well I walked down there & ordered a Fanta to be polite & then I learn that its broken & won’t be fixed today. Sorry. I was supposed to meeting my new French friend tonight for drinks & if I couldn’t check my e-mail how was I supposed to know where to meet her? This posed a problem. So I drank my delicious Fanta – It’s my new favorite here. It tastes so much better than the one in the states. It has orange juice in it & it’s not too sweet & sugary. Anyways so after the Fanta I did some more wandering around the neighborhood. I found a shop that sold computer supplies & I tried to ask the guy who worked there if there was any internet around here. He ended up letting me use his computer for 10 minutes. So I checked my e-mail & figured out where & when I needed to go. It made me realize that people can help you. It may not be exactly what you want but somehow you get what you need. It may be possible that my expectations are very high sine I am used to doing everything for myself so I usually get what I want. Sometimes settling isn’t so bad. This epiphany could be realized out of desperation & it is possible that I will not feel this way when I get back but it is something for me to think about.
Back at my place I decided to give myself a manicure & pedicure & then get ready for the night. I met Annabelle at the Hotel de Ville. It is like the city hall but across the street from it is the Opera house. They had a live Jazz band playing outside & a lot of people were gathered around watching them it was really neat. We waited for another girl that was supposed to meet us but she never showed up. We went & had a drink & talked – it was very nice. Then it was time to head home because the Metro closes at midnight. I had boots on & the streets are like brick & cobble stones. I already walked home once that day & I wasn’t about to do it again. So when I was coming home, the restaurant downstairs was still open so I stopped in there for a beer. There are a couple of people who are regulars there and they speak English as well. I had a couple of drinks & then went upstairs to bed. Not too bad of a night.
Sunday
Well I slept in again today. I got up after 12. I went to dominoes & got another pizza. I tried to watch some French tv but I don’t necessarily know that it is helping improve my French any. Everything is closed on Sundays so there’s not too much for me to do. I was thinking about taking the Metro down to Belle cour & reading a book down by the river. The Rhone. They have parks everywhere around the city. So many places for you just to sit & chat or relax. I guess the Frenchies need something to do with all of their free time since they have so much of it. We’ll see.