I slept too late today, I really did. But it wasn't just me. By the time that I was up and ready for the day, I still hadn't heard from the other assistants with whom I was supposedly meeting up at a café for them to have internet access. By 10 a.m. when I finally got to Café Eqwi - our current haunt due to the fact that there's wifi (pronounced "wee fee" in French) and it's at a very central location - there were only a couple of us already there. The others arrived pretty quickly with a handful of classifieds and real estate publications, most of which wanted a lot of money to purchase not very much space.
Before diving into the classifieds, Madeline, the girl with whom I've been apartment searching, and I walked over to Book in Bar, the English bookstore to search for apartment postings one more time. I called one number I hadn't seen before, but it was no good. Many of the apartments posted in various places are already rented out by the time you call the number, even if the publication was printed on the same day. This particular one wasn't able to be rented for another month, and I can't really wait that long.
We gave up and went back to Café Eqwi. It didn't take us too long to realize that we were stuck. Most of the apartments were out of our price range, not the right size/number of bedrooms, or something else, and many of them had an "hono." or agency fee of about the cost of one month's rent attached to them. That "hono" came before a security deposit of one to two month's rent, and when you're looking at a 900 euro apartment, even split between two people, those extra costs and fees run up costs pretty quickly.
Another assistant, Florence, found her studio through an agency, so we decided to try going with them. Four of us, Florence for guidance, Liz, Madeline, and I went to the real estate agency to talk to them about prospective apartments. Their system is that they'll check and see what and how many spaces they have available to your specifications, and you pay them a flat fee of 190€ for them to provide their list to you. From there, you make all the phone calls and arrangements to go see apartments, which, for a native English speaker with very rusty French on a cheap cell phone with poor reception is quite a daunting task. But on we plodded.
Madeline and I were actually very fortunately able to split the agency fee, so it turned out to only be 95€ each, which would have been a good amount to pay if we had ended up finding our places through the agency. Madeline and I split up the list - about fourteen apartments total: several of which were visibly out of our price range, and most of the rest of which were only one bedroom. When you live with a stranger, you want your own bedroom!
So, of the ones we called, the only acceptable place we found was already rented out. Go figure, right?
We actually got so frustrated that we went back to the agency to say, "Look, these won't do, you need to find us some more!" or some variation of that (in French). The lady there said that our maximum price that we were willing to pay was too low and our standards were too high and that we needed to go back and call some of the other people back. That wasn't really what we wanted to do.
But we did it anyway and made a bit of progress. We actually went to see a beautiful "grande studio" on the top floor of a bed and breakfast. It had a lovely kitchen, a nice living area, and a loft with a queen (or bigger) bed, a bathtub, and a terrace. If it had been available before the 16th of October, which she hadn't told us or we hadn't understood over the phone, we possibly would have considered it. But, like the one we looked at yesterday, it seemed to be geared more towards a couple that towards roommates, with one big bed instead of two beds/rooms.
We met back up with Liz and Florence after that; they'd been making the same kinds of contacts that we had except about studios. Liz was adamant from the beginning that she wanted to live alone, which is fine, but she, too has yet to find a place to live. We went to Florence's studio, which used to be a restaurant in an alley way and has a metal grate locked by a u-bold bike lock instead of a front door, and a sliding glass door behind that. It's very small; I would guess it measures about 17m^2, but I haven't really gotten down the square meters thing yet, so I'm not certain. All that said, it's quite a cool space and she really seems to be fond of her landlord, and that's great! I'm glad she found it as quickly as she did.
In the rounds of calling out of papers and whatnot this morning, I had called a number about a tiny studio. The ad says it's 14m^2. The man I spoke to on the phone gave me another number to call, which he patiently recited to me probably three or four times before I was able to actually understand all the numbers. The sound quality on my phone is really, really bad, and the French speak really, really fast. Well, I called that number and received no answer, so I called the man back. I half expected this to annoy him, but he seemed unperturbed, and told me that the apartment was still available and to call that number back in the evening, which I did.
In the meantime, I went with the other three assistants at Vauvenargues to introduce ourselves to the headmaster. He asked if we all had lodging, and I explained what had happened to him. He called the lady who told me Tuesday that there were no rooms and explained to her that if I didn't have a place to live by tomorrow, that they were going to rearrange so that two men who are staying there twice a week for free would be staying in the same room and I would get a room at the school.
The school housing's advantages are that it is incredibly cheap and that it is incredibly close by just about everything. The school housing's disadvantages are that the "kitchen" consists of a mini-fridge and a toaster that doesn't work. Being someone who quite likes food, this lack of a kitchen quite bothers me, so I'm hoping that I'll end up with a tiny (14m^2) studio with an oven and a stove. However, having the ability to move into the school as a fallback makes me very, very happy. Perhaps this apartment will work out due to the fact that I'm not in need anymore. Who knows?
So, after that, Chris and I walked down to the Cours Mirabeau to wait for Michelle so that we could go get un café (coffee; it's good for words to mean two things, I guess) and then go out for pizza (which is kind of a different experience here than, say Mazzio's). Before Michelle caught up with us, I called the number the man had given me this morning. I spoke to a woman who told me that the place was still for rent, but that she had someone coming to look at it at 7:00, and could I call her again at 8. I told her I would call her back.
Michelle showed up and we walked down the road to meet Hannah, an American from Virginia who is an assistant at Lycée Emile Zolà (another high school in Aix). She seemed happy to have company; she got here earlier this week and hadn't been in touch with anyone before she came, so she seemed to feel odd contacting us. We, of course, were thrilled to have her company.
So, we went for pizza and Lucy and Joanna met us, although Chris had to go find them as they got lost in town, and then Michelle got lost in town trying to find them and came back to us to say that she'd been lost and could someone else go. It was rather comical. Then Michelle broke her knife trying to cut through her pizza, which was also rather comical.
We had a lovely dinner, and at 8:00, I excused myself temporarily to call the lady about the apartment. The people who saw it at 7:00 didn't rent it (yet?), and I made an appointment to go see it at 2 p.m. tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's perfect and has somewhere to cook things, but if it's not and/or doesn't, I've got school lodging for just over half the price.
Going around with Chris is quite a linguistic experience. Being English, he is quite adamant that french fries are chips and that chips are crisps, as well as a lot of other things. Hannah was in a sorority at her university, and she and I tried to explain that to him, although with little success. This led to that, and by the time we were finished with dinner, I was trying to explain to him the Hotty Toddy cheer, by which he seemed highly entertained. Most of all, he laughed at the fact that we said "flim flam" at any point in time which, to him (and perhaps to all of us if we really stop and think about it), is ridiculously comical.
I'm back at Mme. Trotman's home tonight. We spoke (in French, although not always) for a bit about things, and she headed off to bed. I believe I shall await a less stressful day tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed that the studio I'm going to look at is perfect, and I will keep mine crossed that my first day of work tomorrow goes swimmingly!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Oh, and another thing...
I have been showing off my physical abilities by walking through Aix. Today, I walked so well that I turned my ankle and fell over. Go me! The girls that were with me were much more concerned that I was hurt than I was; I was concerned that they would think I was a dweeb for falling over while walking around town.
Also, if I keep up this walking:food ratio, I'll be incredibly thin by the time I get back in April. Portion sizes here are considerably smaller and a combination of meals and café treats seem to all be eaten throughout the day. I'm not sure it's exactly the "many small meals" model, but I haven't felt particularly hungry yet.
Also, if I keep up this walking:food ratio, I'll be incredibly thin by the time I get back in April. Portion sizes here are considerably smaller and a combination of meals and café treats seem to all be eaten throughout the day. I'm not sure it's exactly the "many small meals" model, but I haven't felt particularly hungry yet.
What a long day!
So, it's really hard to believe that yesterday was my 48-hour travel day. It may be harder to believe that today has been a normal length because of how much stuff was crammed into it.
Mme. Trotman is a wonderful lady, plain and simple. Not only has she put a roof over my head, but she has also fed me dinner and breakfast and dinner again. After breakfast this morning, she walked with me down to the Office du Tourisme (I'll let you guess what that one stands for), and I got a map of Aix and a classifieds list of places offering housing.
I didn't realize it then, but housing in Aix goes as soon as it is posted. We made a mistake when we didn't call every place on our list the instant the list was in my hands. Needless to say, that mistake came back to haunt us later.
So, Michelle, a girl I've been talking to online for a couple of months, met us in front of the Office du Tourisme, and offered to take me to the store where she bought her French "portable," or cell phone. Due to the nature of being abroad for a fixed period of time, getting a phone and a two-year contract was not the best of ideas. She and several of the other assistants had already bought the French equivalent of a "go phone." Since that was what I needed as well, I headed off through town with her.
Before we went to the phone store (Bouyges), we decided to stop in the "Book in a Bar" English bookstore to look at their wall of ads. What an odd place! The sign out front has a teapot with a union jack design on it, the books are in English, and there is a corkboard wall covered in various and sundry classifieds. The majority of these ads are requesting language partners - people to speak English or German or Dutch with for a certain period of time in exchange for getting to speak French with them. There was actually a listing asking for someone to help with "american." I was entertained by this. There was one apartment listed, though, and I took the ad away with me. I thought later that I should have left it and just copied down the information so that someone else could rent the apartment if it didn't turn out to be perfect for us, but I took it anyway.
So Michelle had met and been in touch with a girl named Madeline, who met up with us at Book in a Bar. Unlimited text messages are an incredible thing. She, too, is looking for a place to live in Aix, and said that perhaps we could live together.
We went by Bouyges where I spent 49 euros on a phone that will have unlimited text messages and something like 45 minutes of talk time for the next 20 days. I'll have to refill my card after that. We began our apartment searching day by having a cup of coffee (except I actually got juice) at an Italian Café in Centre Ville. It gave us some time to exchange phone numbers, get our bearings, and figure out where we wanted to begin in earnest. We left there and went to another café to meet up with another set of assistants, at least one of whom is also looking for a place to stay. En route, we happened to run into Chris, the boy who got one of the last rooms at Vauvenargues, who joined us.
I actually spent money on a bottle of water there (something I told myself I wouldn't do and for which I bought and brought a bottle with a water filter in it), but I needed to buy something and that seemed as tasty as anything at the moment. At this café, we met Liz from Chicago, Rougina from Egypt, and Florence from Vancouver. Upon arriving, Florence had paid a real estate agency to find her a place to rent and ended up with a perfect little one-bedroom place. I have yet to become convinced that it's worth the 180 extra euros to have them look for me, and since I haven't exhausted my resources QUITE yet, however close I might be, it seemed more reasonable to continue hunting on my own.
After we left there, Madeline, Liz, Florence, and I walked up to the Bureau de Jeunesse, or the "Youth Office," which supposedly had housing leads. We got a handful, but most of them were websites instead of actual listings, and since we were out about town, that wasn't particularly helpful.
It was about that time what my computer crossed my mind. And when my computer crossed my mind it struck me that I had no idea how to get back to Mme. Trotman's place. I didn't have her address because I had left it when I walked out the door in the morning, and I hadn't payed attention to where we were going because I was following someone who knew where she was, so there was no need to know where I was going. It didn't strike me until then that it would've been nice to know where I was coming from.
So, we walked back down towards the Office du Tourisme to get another copy of the classifieds listing and to make some phone calls.
Gravity works better to the south, you know. Aix seems to be a hill with the lowest point being at the southeastern most point of the city and the highest point being at the northwest. That's how a city should go. But anyway, when I say we "walked down," we literally walked down. In the meantime, we stopped at a sandwich spot on the sidewalk and got food. I had a croque-monsieur, one of my favorite things, and Liz and Madeline split a panini. It turns out that Florence is allergic to wheat and yeast, whcih makes eating sandwiches very difficult. (Aside: On a subway sandwich place this evening, I saw a sign that read, "Sandwichs.")
Before we left where we ate lunch, I called a number from the English bookstore about a place to rent. He had a one-bedroom apartment that would be available on October 1st, which would be perfect except... And we scheduled an appointment to meet with him at 6:00 p.m.
We got our ads and made several phone calls. If the foreshadowing earlier didn't hint to the outcome, we weren't able to get in touch with anyone with an available apartment, studio, or room. So, we went back to the "Book in a Bar" and looked at their classifieds again. We found one other listing, but it only slept one person, so we let Liz, who is adamant that she wants to live alone, call it. I believe that call went straight to voicemail.
We met back up with the group that we had left at the café earlier on the Cours Mirabeau - the main street in Aix - and they had found Lucia, or Lucy, the Italian assistant at Vauvenargues. She also got one of the last rooms in the school. She's very pretty and rather entertaining in the things that she says.
After that, we wandered off to get ice cream, and then Chris and I went up to Vauvenargues to try to find Mme. Trotman's address. After some waiting and an odd conversation with a "Mrs. G-something" who was married to a "Mr. Trotman" but who certainly wasn't the woman with whom I had been staying and it certainly wasn't his parents' home in which I was staying unless I happened to be in New Zeland," a very helpful male receptionist got her address and gave us the general idea of how to get there on a map.
I believe I might have mentioned this French phenomenon yesterday. When you ask someone for directions in France, they give you the next "100 kilometers" as Chris said, and tell you to "et le demandez à quelqu'un là," which means, "and ask someone there." It's hard enough as an American to get up the gumption to ask the first person how to get somewhere, but it's really irksome to spend all day asking the next person and the next person and the next person.
In our wanderings, I discovered an England-English/southern-English disconnect. We were talking about vespas and scooters and motorcycles, and I mentioned that I'd driven a 4-wheeler for the first time this summer. Chris asked me what that was and after much discussion, he said, "Oh! You mean a quad-bike. We do have those! They're rather square-ish." Go figure that one out. Take the kettle off and walk through corridors eating biscuits. (I did tell him I would make southern biscuits when I got a kitchen. That would be best.)
Eventually, Chris used the GPS on his phone to find where we were (I'll probably pay him back for the 50p. that cost with an ice cream cone or something), where we needed to be, and vaguely which way we needed to go. After finding a main road with a name, we got to a road that was the right one, but wasn't on the map. I put a large sharpie star on it and shouldn't have trouble finding my way back again.
By this time, I was rather frustrated. My phone battery died, I couldn't make any of the keys open any of the doors to Mme. Trotman's place - although I did eventually, and very proudly, I might add - and my phone was dead. So, I couldn't call anyone, I didn't know the man's number, and I'd called another lady earlier who I also couldn't get in touch with because the only number I had for her was saved in my phone.
Eventually I got inside, and by then it was time to go meet with the man about the apartment. We saw it, and it was very nice considering what we had been finding. It was a fairly spacious apartment with one double (or larger) bed, a living room with a futon ("un clic-clac"), a tv, and two small marble-top kitchen tables, a fantastic kitchen, and no doors. Who doesn't put doors between rooms! There was a connected bathroom, which is a great asset to a place in France, but it didn't suit us entirely. We decided to sleep on it and make a decision in the morning after checking the classifieds.
After that, I had an appointment with a lady out in the country - a 13 minute drive from and to town with a bus that stopped only every 30 minutes or so, and a final bus that left at 8:20. This not only wouldn't do, but I also couldn't turn on my phone due to its orneriness. So, Madeline and I walked back to Mme. Trotman's, where we got my phone working after quite some effort, and where we spoke with the lady again who told us to take a specific bus out to a specific stop and the bus left at 7:15. From the top of Aix to the bottom is about a 30 minute walk, and as we were coming up to the bus station the bus we wanted to be on drove off. I called the lady back and told her the situation and she sent me a phone number of someone (her husband?) who was in town at a doctor's appointment and could pick me up. I sent her a message back saying that I didn't think this place would work out for me.
So, Madeline and I went up to her hotel room, browsed some more classifieds, texted the others some, and I returned to Mme. Trotman's house - a place I have committed to memory or my map (sort of both) - where she fed me dinner. Tomorrow, I will perhaps begin my search a bit earlier.
For now, I'll go to bed and pretend like I'm living in a place of my own.
Mme. Trotman is a wonderful lady, plain and simple. Not only has she put a roof over my head, but she has also fed me dinner and breakfast and dinner again. After breakfast this morning, she walked with me down to the Office du Tourisme (I'll let you guess what that one stands for), and I got a map of Aix and a classifieds list of places offering housing.
I didn't realize it then, but housing in Aix goes as soon as it is posted. We made a mistake when we didn't call every place on our list the instant the list was in my hands. Needless to say, that mistake came back to haunt us later.
So, Michelle, a girl I've been talking to online for a couple of months, met us in front of the Office du Tourisme, and offered to take me to the store where she bought her French "portable," or cell phone. Due to the nature of being abroad for a fixed period of time, getting a phone and a two-year contract was not the best of ideas. She and several of the other assistants had already bought the French equivalent of a "go phone." Since that was what I needed as well, I headed off through town with her.
Before we went to the phone store (Bouyges), we decided to stop in the "Book in a Bar" English bookstore to look at their wall of ads. What an odd place! The sign out front has a teapot with a union jack design on it, the books are in English, and there is a corkboard wall covered in various and sundry classifieds. The majority of these ads are requesting language partners - people to speak English or German or Dutch with for a certain period of time in exchange for getting to speak French with them. There was actually a listing asking for someone to help with "american." I was entertained by this. There was one apartment listed, though, and I took the ad away with me. I thought later that I should have left it and just copied down the information so that someone else could rent the apartment if it didn't turn out to be perfect for us, but I took it anyway.
So Michelle had met and been in touch with a girl named Madeline, who met up with us at Book in a Bar. Unlimited text messages are an incredible thing. She, too, is looking for a place to live in Aix, and said that perhaps we could live together.
We went by Bouyges where I spent 49 euros on a phone that will have unlimited text messages and something like 45 minutes of talk time for the next 20 days. I'll have to refill my card after that. We began our apartment searching day by having a cup of coffee (except I actually got juice) at an Italian Café in Centre Ville. It gave us some time to exchange phone numbers, get our bearings, and figure out where we wanted to begin in earnest. We left there and went to another café to meet up with another set of assistants, at least one of whom is also looking for a place to stay. En route, we happened to run into Chris, the boy who got one of the last rooms at Vauvenargues, who joined us.
I actually spent money on a bottle of water there (something I told myself I wouldn't do and for which I bought and brought a bottle with a water filter in it), but I needed to buy something and that seemed as tasty as anything at the moment. At this café, we met Liz from Chicago, Rougina from Egypt, and Florence from Vancouver. Upon arriving, Florence had paid a real estate agency to find her a place to rent and ended up with a perfect little one-bedroom place. I have yet to become convinced that it's worth the 180 extra euros to have them look for me, and since I haven't exhausted my resources QUITE yet, however close I might be, it seemed more reasonable to continue hunting on my own.
After we left there, Madeline, Liz, Florence, and I walked up to the Bureau de Jeunesse, or the "Youth Office," which supposedly had housing leads. We got a handful, but most of them were websites instead of actual listings, and since we were out about town, that wasn't particularly helpful.
It was about that time what my computer crossed my mind. And when my computer crossed my mind it struck me that I had no idea how to get back to Mme. Trotman's place. I didn't have her address because I had left it when I walked out the door in the morning, and I hadn't payed attention to where we were going because I was following someone who knew where she was, so there was no need to know where I was going. It didn't strike me until then that it would've been nice to know where I was coming from.
So, we walked back down towards the Office du Tourisme to get another copy of the classifieds listing and to make some phone calls.
Gravity works better to the south, you know. Aix seems to be a hill with the lowest point being at the southeastern most point of the city and the highest point being at the northwest. That's how a city should go. But anyway, when I say we "walked down," we literally walked down. In the meantime, we stopped at a sandwich spot on the sidewalk and got food. I had a croque-monsieur, one of my favorite things, and Liz and Madeline split a panini. It turns out that Florence is allergic to wheat and yeast, whcih makes eating sandwiches very difficult. (Aside: On a subway sandwich place this evening, I saw a sign that read, "Sandwichs.")
Before we left where we ate lunch, I called a number from the English bookstore about a place to rent. He had a one-bedroom apartment that would be available on October 1st, which would be perfect except... And we scheduled an appointment to meet with him at 6:00 p.m.
We got our ads and made several phone calls. If the foreshadowing earlier didn't hint to the outcome, we weren't able to get in touch with anyone with an available apartment, studio, or room. So, we went back to the "Book in a Bar" and looked at their classifieds again. We found one other listing, but it only slept one person, so we let Liz, who is adamant that she wants to live alone, call it. I believe that call went straight to voicemail.
We met back up with the group that we had left at the café earlier on the Cours Mirabeau - the main street in Aix - and they had found Lucia, or Lucy, the Italian assistant at Vauvenargues. She also got one of the last rooms in the school. She's very pretty and rather entertaining in the things that she says.
After that, we wandered off to get ice cream, and then Chris and I went up to Vauvenargues to try to find Mme. Trotman's address. After some waiting and an odd conversation with a "Mrs. G-something" who was married to a "Mr. Trotman" but who certainly wasn't the woman with whom I had been staying and it certainly wasn't his parents' home in which I was staying unless I happened to be in New Zeland," a very helpful male receptionist got her address and gave us the general idea of how to get there on a map.
I believe I might have mentioned this French phenomenon yesterday. When you ask someone for directions in France, they give you the next "100 kilometers" as Chris said, and tell you to "et le demandez à quelqu'un là," which means, "and ask someone there." It's hard enough as an American to get up the gumption to ask the first person how to get somewhere, but it's really irksome to spend all day asking the next person and the next person and the next person.
In our wanderings, I discovered an England-English/southern-English disconnect. We were talking about vespas and scooters and motorcycles, and I mentioned that I'd driven a 4-wheeler for the first time this summer. Chris asked me what that was and after much discussion, he said, "Oh! You mean a quad-bike. We do have those! They're rather square-ish." Go figure that one out. Take the kettle off and walk through corridors eating biscuits. (I did tell him I would make southern biscuits when I got a kitchen. That would be best.)
Eventually, Chris used the GPS on his phone to find where we were (I'll probably pay him back for the 50p. that cost with an ice cream cone or something), where we needed to be, and vaguely which way we needed to go. After finding a main road with a name, we got to a road that was the right one, but wasn't on the map. I put a large sharpie star on it and shouldn't have trouble finding my way back again.
By this time, I was rather frustrated. My phone battery died, I couldn't make any of the keys open any of the doors to Mme. Trotman's place - although I did eventually, and very proudly, I might add - and my phone was dead. So, I couldn't call anyone, I didn't know the man's number, and I'd called another lady earlier who I also couldn't get in touch with because the only number I had for her was saved in my phone.
Eventually I got inside, and by then it was time to go meet with the man about the apartment. We saw it, and it was very nice considering what we had been finding. It was a fairly spacious apartment with one double (or larger) bed, a living room with a futon ("un clic-clac"), a tv, and two small marble-top kitchen tables, a fantastic kitchen, and no doors. Who doesn't put doors between rooms! There was a connected bathroom, which is a great asset to a place in France, but it didn't suit us entirely. We decided to sleep on it and make a decision in the morning after checking the classifieds.
After that, I had an appointment with a lady out in the country - a 13 minute drive from and to town with a bus that stopped only every 30 minutes or so, and a final bus that left at 8:20. This not only wouldn't do, but I also couldn't turn on my phone due to its orneriness. So, Madeline and I walked back to Mme. Trotman's, where we got my phone working after quite some effort, and where we spoke with the lady again who told us to take a specific bus out to a specific stop and the bus left at 7:15. From the top of Aix to the bottom is about a 30 minute walk, and as we were coming up to the bus station the bus we wanted to be on drove off. I called the lady back and told her the situation and she sent me a phone number of someone (her husband?) who was in town at a doctor's appointment and could pick me up. I sent her a message back saying that I didn't think this place would work out for me.
So, Madeline and I went up to her hotel room, browsed some more classifieds, texted the others some, and I returned to Mme. Trotman's house - a place I have committed to memory or my map (sort of both) - where she fed me dinner. Tomorrow, I will perhaps begin my search a bit earlier.
For now, I'll go to bed and pretend like I'm living in a place of my own.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Blanche DuBois
A famous lady in a famous play once said famously, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." So begins the saga of my stay in France.
In airline travel, I have been blessed. I don't believe that, aside from one eight-hour delay in the Chicago O'Hare airport, I have ever been seriously delayed in a flight or that I have ever had an airline lose my luggage. Knock on wood, as they say. So my airline travel went fairly seamlessly. Sure, we had a delay in Atlanta, but it was nothing so disastrous that I missed a flight. In fact, as far as the "day" goes, the airline travel was probably the easiest.
As I got off the plane in Amsterdam, I met a couple (although, in retrospect I don't think they were "a couple," I think that they were two people flying together) from the states who were en route to my flight to Marseille. I tagged along with them as we went towards the gate, and they were kind enough to wait on me when the dutchman (not a flying dutchman, just a regular one) decided that my bag was the one he needed to search today.
As a side note: The Dutch are more passable for southern people than any other group I've encountered. Their english can imitate ours and they look surprisingly like us. Go figure, right?
On the flight from Amsterdam to Marseille, I conversed at length in franglais with a man from Portland, Oregon who does tech support for IBM. He and his wife were on their way to Aix for lunch, and I cordially turned down their offer for a ride. When everyone's a stranger, it's hard not to talk to strangers.
So, I landed in Marseille and took a bus to Aix en Provence. That seems to be the system if your flight lands in Marseille. Getting off the bus in Aix, I realized that I neither had a map nor a firm grasp of the layout of the city. So, I walked inside the Billets/Info station and asked the lady at the gate how to get to Lycée Vauvenargues, the school where I have had a room reserved for 3 months now.
She gave me bus directions which I probably should have taken, and a bus map with a teeny tiny map of the city on it. It was a beautiful day and I decided to walk across Centre Ville (that's "the center of town") to the school. That was relatively easy, although by the time I got to the school I was breathing hard and wanting water.
Then the frustrating bit began.
I went into the office of the lady with whom I had spoken on the phone to reserve a room in June. She tells me that all the rooms are full and that I have to go somewhere else. Now, since from my perspective I'd had a room reserved since June, that doesn't seem possible. I ask about what else I'm to do - I haven't been responding to all the e-mails asking for roommates since I was positive I had a room in my school. Well, I don't.
So, this lady kindly calls an organization designed to help pair English-speaking exchange students with host families, where a girl about my age is told by a frantic woman on the other side of the phone that there's an assistant and she doesn't have a place to stay and she's going to be thrown out on the street and she needs a roof over her head, etc. etc. etc. Lya, as it turns out the girl's name is, kindly - very kindly - informs me that in her home she is living with her Mother and her Brother, but that I'd be welcome to meet up with her and sort of "camp out" in their house until I can find another place to stay.
Off I go.
I was supposed to meet her at the "Place de la Mairie", which I couldn't find. The directions given to me by the lady at the school were to go down to the street, go left, and then go until I find someone else to ask. Which I did. And then I did again. And then I did again. Eventually, I get tired and sweaty and my luggage gets heavier and heavier. Eventually I run into Lya, who invites me into her home, gives me water, and lets me connect to the internet where I talked to my parents and my friend David who both guided me as to how to proceed.
Lya and I returned to Vauvenargues where she tried to have a polite conversation with the woman who had told me there were no more rooms (who proceeded to chew her out about how finding me housing is not her job and whatnot), and we sought out Mrs. Trotman, the incredibly kind english teacher at whose house I am now staying overnight.
So, when everyone is a stranger, and everyone is kind, I can honestly say I can depend on their kindness.
In airline travel, I have been blessed. I don't believe that, aside from one eight-hour delay in the Chicago O'Hare airport, I have ever been seriously delayed in a flight or that I have ever had an airline lose my luggage. Knock on wood, as they say. So my airline travel went fairly seamlessly. Sure, we had a delay in Atlanta, but it was nothing so disastrous that I missed a flight. In fact, as far as the "day" goes, the airline travel was probably the easiest.
As I got off the plane in Amsterdam, I met a couple (although, in retrospect I don't think they were "a couple," I think that they were two people flying together) from the states who were en route to my flight to Marseille. I tagged along with them as we went towards the gate, and they were kind enough to wait on me when the dutchman (not a flying dutchman, just a regular one) decided that my bag was the one he needed to search today.
As a side note: The Dutch are more passable for southern people than any other group I've encountered. Their english can imitate ours and they look surprisingly like us. Go figure, right?
On the flight from Amsterdam to Marseille, I conversed at length in franglais with a man from Portland, Oregon who does tech support for IBM. He and his wife were on their way to Aix for lunch, and I cordially turned down their offer for a ride. When everyone's a stranger, it's hard not to talk to strangers.
So, I landed in Marseille and took a bus to Aix en Provence. That seems to be the system if your flight lands in Marseille. Getting off the bus in Aix, I realized that I neither had a map nor a firm grasp of the layout of the city. So, I walked inside the Billets/Info station and asked the lady at the gate how to get to Lycée Vauvenargues, the school where I have had a room reserved for 3 months now.
She gave me bus directions which I probably should have taken, and a bus map with a teeny tiny map of the city on it. It was a beautiful day and I decided to walk across Centre Ville (that's "the center of town") to the school. That was relatively easy, although by the time I got to the school I was breathing hard and wanting water.
Then the frustrating bit began.
I went into the office of the lady with whom I had spoken on the phone to reserve a room in June. She tells me that all the rooms are full and that I have to go somewhere else. Now, since from my perspective I'd had a room reserved since June, that doesn't seem possible. I ask about what else I'm to do - I haven't been responding to all the e-mails asking for roommates since I was positive I had a room in my school. Well, I don't.
So, this lady kindly calls an organization designed to help pair English-speaking exchange students with host families, where a girl about my age is told by a frantic woman on the other side of the phone that there's an assistant and she doesn't have a place to stay and she's going to be thrown out on the street and she needs a roof over her head, etc. etc. etc. Lya, as it turns out the girl's name is, kindly - very kindly - informs me that in her home she is living with her Mother and her Brother, but that I'd be welcome to meet up with her and sort of "camp out" in their house until I can find another place to stay.
Off I go.
I was supposed to meet her at the "Place de la Mairie", which I couldn't find. The directions given to me by the lady at the school were to go down to the street, go left, and then go until I find someone else to ask. Which I did. And then I did again. And then I did again. Eventually, I get tired and sweaty and my luggage gets heavier and heavier. Eventually I run into Lya, who invites me into her home, gives me water, and lets me connect to the internet where I talked to my parents and my friend David who both guided me as to how to proceed.
Lya and I returned to Vauvenargues where she tried to have a polite conversation with the woman who had told me there were no more rooms (who proceeded to chew her out about how finding me housing is not her job and whatnot), and we sought out Mrs. Trotman, the incredibly kind english teacher at whose house I am now staying overnight.
So, when everyone is a stranger, and everyone is kind, I can honestly say I can depend on their kindness.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Commencement
The Jackson International Airport is a non-threatening beginning. Security is relatively simple, the people are nice in the way that Jackson folk are nice, it's small, so there's it's not really much trouble to get where you're trying to go.
This morning was hectic, as all mornings before leaving are. That said, I really finished packing yesterday afternoon, so it could've been much, much worse. There was only one thing that I realized last-minute I was missing, and mom had one of her own, so I've "borrowed" it. Now I can charge my little camera. Good.
I was glad to see everyone in my family for lunch yesterday. It's always nice to get together, especially as I won't be seeing them in real life for a while. My mom's parents came to see me this morning as I was getting ready to go, and I was really glad that they came by.
I'll hop on this plane to Atlanta in about an hour and then the "hurry up and wait" process will begin in full. It's really insane the way we travel these days: rush to the next gate to wait for the plane to arrive and wait for boarding to begin and wait to taxi off and wait to reach cruising altitude and wait for complimentary food and wait to land. Rinse. Repeat.
I should land in Marseille around 11:30 tomorrow morning, which on CST will be around 4:30 a.m. I hope that I'll be awake enough to "parle en français" enough to get where I'm going when I land.
This morning was hectic, as all mornings before leaving are. That said, I really finished packing yesterday afternoon, so it could've been much, much worse. There was only one thing that I realized last-minute I was missing, and mom had one of her own, so I've "borrowed" it. Now I can charge my little camera. Good.
I was glad to see everyone in my family for lunch yesterday. It's always nice to get together, especially as I won't be seeing them in real life for a while. My mom's parents came to see me this morning as I was getting ready to go, and I was really glad that they came by.
I'll hop on this plane to Atlanta in about an hour and then the "hurry up and wait" process will begin in full. It's really insane the way we travel these days: rush to the next gate to wait for the plane to arrive and wait for boarding to begin and wait to taxi off and wait to reach cruising altitude and wait for complimentary food and wait to land. Rinse. Repeat.
I should land in Marseille around 11:30 tomorrow morning, which on CST will be around 4:30 a.m. I hope that I'll be awake enough to "parle en français" enough to get where I'm going when I land.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Avant
It's odd how sometimes things creep up on you. I've been planning this trip abroad for months, and all of a sudden it's here. So, I begin.
My flight departs from Jackson tomorrow morning at 11:32, and with all of the hullabaloo surrounding airline travel, it will be 9 when I leave my house. Fourteen or so hours later, I expect to arrive in Marseille, France (after changing flights in Atlanta and in Amsterdam), take a train to Aix en Provence, find my school, and meet the people I will spend the next 7 months with.
I am also enrolled in coursework towards a Masters of Science in Communications, and this fall I will be studying miscommunications among English and Non-English speakers in France.
So, that's a start.
My flight departs from Jackson tomorrow morning at 11:32, and with all of the hullabaloo surrounding airline travel, it will be 9 when I leave my house. Fourteen or so hours later, I expect to arrive in Marseille, France (after changing flights in Atlanta and in Amsterdam), take a train to Aix en Provence, find my school, and meet the people I will spend the next 7 months with.
I am also enrolled in coursework towards a Masters of Science in Communications, and this fall I will be studying miscommunications among English and Non-English speakers in France.
So, that's a start.
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