Maps- They're Useful!

            WOW I HAVE ZERO ATTENTION SPAN.  I totally gave up/forgot I was writing in that last post.  I thought about putting on a nice little ending there and pretending like I had completed it, but that would be dishonest (and require more writing than I already have to do!).  Anyways, I keep putting off blogging because I have so much to blog about now, not having internet and all for the first two weeks I have been here.  What happens when you put off blogging?  More shit happens and then you have to write more.  That habit is stopping now, thank you very much!

            So as many of you know, the French are funny people- at least to Anglophones (people who natively speak English y’all).  They are really lovely people.  They will be your friends forever and give you little air cheek kisses and make you crepes and junk.  They may however at the same time drive you stark-raving mad.  For instance, after my arrival Martine, my coordinatrice, picked me up from the train station which was awesome since I don’t really know where I am or where I should be going.  This was super nice of her. She also brought me some stuff, yay!  However, a map of the town or my giant campus were not what was a part of my welcome package nor considered the most important things I would need in my first few days here. To get me through my first few days in Amiens I received: a comforter and sheet (super necessary since I am living in the dorms), biscuits (I count these as necessary because I was friggin’ starving when I got here), an electric tea kettle (eh, ok, nice to have), coffee and tea (again nice to have but not necessary in my transitioning to Amiens).  To reiterate, I DO NOT HAVE A MAP.  I am also super dazed from traveling.  Martine seems eager to leave and after showing me where I live and getting keys for me, she asks if I need anything else.  I ask her where I can find a supermarket.  Martine speaks really fast in both English and in French and if I take more than a millisecond to process what she’s saying she’s already trying to clarify for me or is asking if I understand while looking at me like I’m a lost puppy.  Her directions went something like this “Go out the other entrance and go the opposite direction we came in at.  It’s on the corner.”  Ok cool.  I don’t ask for further clarification because I figure I am a smart person and I can find it.  I just want her to stop looking at me like I ride the short bus. 

            After my much needed shower (which is impossible to temperature control- there is only ONE button you keep pressing until it’s kind of warm and it runs for about 20 seconds each time it’s pressed) I am off on my first adventure en France.  I have my book bag (no store-supplied shopping bags here!), my walking shoes, and vague instructions- I’m off!  I go out the only entrance I know, and walk away from the direction we drove up in.  I walk for about 15 minutes and I have no luck.  I walk back.  I walk down a road I happen see a billboard at the end of. What luck!  It’s says something about the market I am looking for.  I start to follow where the arrow is pointing…. and there are no more arrows after that!  (Apparently in France when they are directing you, they only again vaguely point you in the direction you want to go, no further instruction should be necessary.) I walk back up to make sure I hadn’t in my jet-lagged stupor wandered down the wrong road.  Alas, I had been on the supposedly right road.  I wander up and across the main road that the school is on because I see a Carrefour sign (which is essentially French Wal-Mart- I was desperate!) and start walking that way.  Signs here tell you in minutes how long it is to drive there and/or kilometers (obviously).  Neither of which are really helpful to me because I am on foot and the American educational system is really lax on kids knowing metric.  That evening I erred on “cities are more walk-able here!” side and kept on trucking.  But again, there were no further signs of instruction after the first one.  I walk back.  I head down the road with the billboard again and keep going, and going, and going.  I was like the little determined Energizer bunny.  I remember that it’s supposed to be at a place called the “Vallee des Vignes” or something and I start seeing medical buildings with that on them.  I follow those.  I end up wandering through a medical park.  STILL NO GROCERY STORE.  At this point I had been wandering over two hours looking for a grocery store that is supposed to be ten minutes from my school.  I give up.  I wander back towards a pizza place I saw across from my school.  Yup, the first night I was in France, I had pizza. 

            Now, I am not great at French, and I will admit that.  I have however mastered a few things, with ordering food being one of them.  This however made zero difference at “Allo Mario’s!”  I walked in and it was busy and there were giant stacks of pizza boxes covering just about half of this tiny take-out restaurant, and two other couples waiting on pizza.  There is a big lit up sign with their specialités, and hot-dog!  They have paninis, and they’re cheap, perfect!  But wait, you might say, didn’t you have pizza?  Yes, yes I did have pizza, I am getting to that.  I walked up to the sweaty, bald man at the counter furiously taking phone orders and waited for a break in the calls to place my own.  He looked up at me and in perfect French I said “Je voudrais le Chicken Panini” (I said “chicken” because that’s what it was called on the menu- I’m not that bad at French!)  He looked at me like I had grown a second head.  “Comment?” My flabby, French pizza cashier asked.  “I would like a Chicken Panini,” I said, again, in French.  “Le poulet?” “Oui, je veux le poulet, s’il vous plait,” (Yes, I want the chicken, please).  He then points to the three different sized pizza boxes he has stacked on the counter.  I knew this was going awry.  He tells me that the middle one is cheaper and I am so hungry and tired I just agree.  Ten minutes later out came my chicken pizza.  I tried to tell him I had asked for the sandwich (which is just goddamned “le sandwich” in French, this vocabulary was not difficult) and finally dough-making/tossing dude beside him tells me they only do that at lunch.  Super-duper.  I would have asked for the vegetarian had I known I was ordering pizza!  I sigh and take my pizza home. It was pretty good, although it had crème-fraiche on it and that was kind of weird.  I had to throw most of it out too due to my lack of frigo situation.

So yeah, I really needed a map- but I had my caffeine in the morning!