Welcome back to an exciting new year of blogging! Yes, ladies and gents, I have continued my noble quest to speak French and live abroad. I landed about a month ago-- clearly it has taken a bit of time to get settled and simmer down. Now, let's try for a quick recap of the past four weeks!
I landed in Charles de Gaulle airport, maneuvered my way to the train station where I was to board a direct train to Reims, saving me time and agonizing frustration by avoiding having to enter Paris. I then receive a phone call from my roommate, Victoria, who is from Spain. She lets me know that there has been a change of plans-- she was supposed to have arrived before me, bringing with her the keys to our apartment. Due to medical reasons she needed to staying at home for a week... in Madrid. So, I landed and had no keys to my apartment. She arranged plans for me to stay with a friend of ours from school, Sebastien, until she arrived. I dragged my stuff to the platform where the train was supposed to be, only to be evacuated 2 minutes later because of a bomb-threat. Nice. I eventually got on a train, and headed back to my (cough.. cough) city of Reims. The next day, I was headed back to Paris to pick up my visa. Having mastered the Reims-Paris trip a while ago, having an excellent knowledge of the metro, and having gone to the immigration building countless times, the trip was easy. Picking up my visa was beyond simple, the process taking no more than 10 minutes. I had a lovely lunch date with my friend Pia, and then headed back to Reims, leaving my beloved Paris behind. The next day, I went to the Reims immigration building to change my address, finding out that it's impossible to just update an address because I moved from Paris to Reims, and thus to a different department of France... so I would need to reapply and do the entire visa renewal process over again. I don't even know why I was surprised to hear this for after all, this is France we're talking about, a country known for democracy and Napoleon... not efficiency or logic. Perhaps the next day, Victoria arrived to Reims, yet as our apartment was completely unfurnished (not even a refrigerator) we decided to stay at Sebas' place until things got settled. We ended up living there for another week, and finally moved into our new place. Interesting sidenote-- the real estate agency only had one set of keys for us. We had to make our own copies, even though there are three people signed on the lease. Idiots.
Quick, fun stories:
1. Having rented furnished apartments all of last year, I had to buy lots of furniture. I ended up going to Ikea with Victoria, Michael and his roommate. Long story short, we got a bit lost, ended up quite far away from Ikea, and caught in a downpour. We ended up hitch-hiking to Ikea with a lovely French couple who graciously made two separate trips as we couldn't all fit in their car. We spent hours there, and found most everything we needed. We purchased our things, and made our way to the counter to rent a van. It turns out that van rentals needed to be done earlier in the day, as the vans must be returned to Ikea before a certain time. Naturally, we wouldn't be able to make it. So, we then decide that we must get our things delivered by Ikea. Funny thing- Ikea delivery only will ship things in boxes. Therefor, anything wrapped in plastic (including tables) is classified as "undeliverable." Essentially, we could only have a few things delivered, leaving us with carriages upon carriages of utensils, chairs, bedding, the works. We scrambled to call everyone we knew that might have a car. A few amazing friends dropped what they were doing, drove out to Ikea, packed their cars with our stuff, and drove back into town. Witnessing this fiasco must've been hilarious. I think the entire Ikea ordeal gave me a few gray hairs, and a deep hatred for Swedish furniture. A few days later, I haven't even opened the box of my 39 euro wood bed when I learned that 4 of my friends who had bought the same model ended up on the floor because the bed broke and collapsed. Great. I managed to plan a return trip to Ikea with my friend who has a car. We arrived before the store opened, walked a few laps around the parking lot, and eventually returned my bed-frame. When asked by the cashier the reason why I wanted to return the bed-frame, I answered quite simply "Because it's cheap and worthless." She must hear this response quite often because she didn't even question it.
2. I successfully finished my 20 page paper about my internship! What a nightmare! I'm really proud of myself though.
3. The strikes-- hate em! Hate hate hate em. France, I love you dearly, but this striking nonsense has to end. You look foolish, and everything is inefficient. To the idiot highschool students that were striking for over a week about the retirement age being bumped up from 60 years old to 62: you're stupid. Instead of missing tons of classes, why not study a bit harder, do better on your exams, get into a great school, get a great job that pays well and set your own retirement age! Please explain to me how throwing road barriers in the middle of the street, tipping garbage cans, and walking in front of city buses and thus blocking traffic in ANY WAY helps your cause? In fact, doing these juvenile things and harassing people detracts from the seriousness of the issue. Stop worrying about your retirement when you don't even know how to behave like an adult. And come on, 62?? It's not like the government is making you work until you die. 62 is a very young age for retirement. Stop being brats. And as for the transportation strikes, don't even get me started... I'm just saying, if the workers want more benefits and money, maybe the solution is to NOT increase losses by preventing willing passengers from buying tickets. Transportation strikes not only annoy me because they prevent me from going to where I want to go, but also because the companies/government lose SO much money. Inefficient and stupid to the max!
4. Remember that visa that I absolutely had to change my address within 8 days? Remember the urgency of this process, and how I had to renew the entire visa because French bureaucracy is stupid? Well, it's been over a month and they still haven't mailed me the receipt to pick up my new one.
5. Guess who's going to Morocco in December?!?! Mwahaha
So, I'll try to keep up with my blogging. School is pretty intense, and I find myself either not having enough time to blog, or being so tired that all I want to do is lay in bed and not think about anything.
It's exciting being back in France. As small of a town as Reims is, I find myself easily being able to have fun. It's definitely nowhere near as incredible as Paris, but it's not as bad as I remember it.
Continue reading-- I promise there will be more to come!
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