I'm in France!!!

            So this is literally the first moment that I have had a break since I got here!  This last week has really been hectic.  From the moment I got off the plane last Wednesday I have just been rushing to something or other. 

            The trip to Amiens from Paris got me back into the swing of things transit-wise here which can be confusing for foreigners.  I had to buy a train ticket from the airport to get to Amiens, which involved me standing in the wrong line at first, but I met two other assistants that were working in different cities so I got to chat with them and have some people with whom to navigate Charles de Gaulle (and get in the correct line!). My train departure time quickly approached so after making a quick call to my contact person, Martine, about when I should be in Amiens, I was heading down to the voies (platforms) to catch my train. 

            Oh, the trains in France.  So the way you are supposed to take the train is that you buy your ticket (duh) but then you have to “composter” your ticket before you get on which means that you have to have this little machine punch a hole in it (and I totally forgot to do this in my rush), then you have to find this lit up picture of the train on the voie to figure out about where your car will stop so you can get on the train in the right place.  I sort of remembered how to do this from when I studied abroad here four years ago but it was pretty fuzzy so I was kind of nervous and it didn’t help that I gave myself a whopping 10 minutes to remember what to do on the voie.  However I found a very nice Belgian girl who helped me out.  Well she didn’t know where to stand either, but she alleviated my fear about getting on in the wrong place, which I still managed to do somehow after being told by her mom about where I should be (I was overly concerned about how to get my bags on since they were huge).  I ended up walking back through a few cars to my seat which ended up being next to the Belgian girl again.  Her name was Alexandra and she was really nice and we talked about where we were coming from since we were both coming from the airport.  I told her about my assistant job and living in France again and she said she was coming back from Cuba from an internship.  Her internship had to be cut short though because she was sick and they put her in the hospital for two weeks and wouldn’t let her out (!!).  She wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t release her because her Spanish isn’t that great and they wouldn’t tell her Cuban fiancé what was wrong either because he technically wasn’t her husband.  Her parents ended up having to come and get her and the hospital finally released her to them. I was pretty shocked by this story and she then relayed that was why she was engaged so young- so that her fiancé could leave Cuba.  I wanted to chat more with her but my stop arrived in a scant thirty minutes but she invited me to come visit her in Bruges and in Brussels so I can’t wait to have some free time to see her and Belgium.

            After the train which had taken 20 minutes to go twice as far as the bus needed to go, I was on a bus for an hour from Picardie to Amiens.  Well it was an hour after we  I am not sure why I had to do this because there is a train station in Amiens, but my general motto in France is “pourquoi pas” or “why not”.  Often I don’t know why things are done the way they are done and they tend to be counterintuitive to my American sensibilities, but I have learned to accept that that’s just they way it’s going to happen and “pourquoi pas”- things can be done in other ways even if they don’t make total sense.  I also met another assistant on the bus to Amiens.  His name was José and he was going to be a Spanish assistant at another school in Amiens.  It was nice to have a fellow foreigner to hang out with and assuage my anxiety about not knowing what exactly to expect when I got here. 

            Martine was gracious enough to meet me at the bus stop and take me back to the school.  As we drove to school I realized how adorable Amiens is.  The city buildings are monstrous and stately while the houses are candy-colored, tiny, and lined up along cobblestone roads along the Somme river that sleepily flows through Amiens.  Across the river is the St. Leu quarter- the oldest part of town.  You can also see the Le Notre Dame Cathedral d’Amiens from just about any point in centre ville- it’s apparently the largest in the world!

            Arriving at school I was stunned to see such a large campus.  There are actually three schools on my campus- Edouard Gand, Edouard Branly, and my school, Louis-Thuillier.  It’s as big as a college campus.  I had a hard time finding my way to and from my dorm that first night.  Ah!  Martine told me when I arrived that I had dorm accommodations and I was thrilled to know that I wouldn’t have to traipse around Amiens looking for an apartment and then attempt to rent one with my barely passable français.  The accommodations are hardly anything to brag about though.  They are in one of the buildings that has yet to see the reconstruction being done currently everywhere else on campus, the furthest from both entrances, and no kitchen or internet.  I have a bed, desk, sink, and wardrobe in my room and down the hall there are showers and toilets.  I live with two other assistants- Gwenola (Guh-ven-oh-lah), the German assistant, and Marilyn, the Spanish assistant from Costa Rica.  They are both very sweet.  It is all French all the time just about in my little dorm set up- Gwenola knows some English and Marilyn knows none, so it is excellent practice for my French, but it is also nice that if I am really lost usually Gwenola can explain pretty well in English.  We live in a six bedroom hall and we are only using three rooms so we turned the other rooms into a laundry room (I can’t find a dryer on campus so we hang our wet laundry up here), a kitchen as we have been promised a frigo (fridge) and a micro-onde (microwave), and a common room- which I need to have the cleaning ladies unlock again because we were also promised a TV and would like to put it in there.  Right now though our kitchen only consists of an electric kettle, an extra desk being used as the table, and a wardrobe as a pantry.  I need to find out who I bug for the frigo and micro-onde- I am really tired of eating overly processed (but shelf stable) food!