Weekend Update and Monday

Well, Sunday was a pretty boring day. I slept in, then got up and headed towards centre ville for some food and then I came back and unpacked the rest of my things and settled in more. Then I stayed in as it was rainy out and I worked on cleaning my computer up. I spent most of the night chatting with friends and doing just that before I put some Alias on and crashed.

I got woken up by an annoying alarm going off about 7 am. At first I thought it was the room's next to me but then i heard people out in the hall. Naturally it's the fire alarm, I think someone burned toast downstairs and that set it off waking everyone up. So i got ready for the day and headed down for my free breakfast. There I ran into a couple other foreign exchange students there and we talked a little about things so far for us. I seem to know the most French out of all of them, which was a bit surprising. We all had to go to Le Catho so we grabbed our things and headed out. However we ended up going separate ways when we got there as they either were waiting for someone or had to go a different place than me.

So I go inside to see Madame Bray who's the International Student Advisor with my school at Le Catho. I'm sent up to the third floor, where they then send me down to the second floor. Naturally they just sent me back up to the third floor with more detailed directions. There I filled out the paperwork they needed and got the information regarding the scheduling meeting on Wednesday and the orientation on Thursday. She then told me where to go regarding the French Social Security, so i went down the hall to that office and found out what I need to bring in for that. I then came back to my room to get more money to go open up a bank account here, as I didn't carry most of what I needed on my because stuff still needs paid. And after doing a few things here in my room I headed back out again. I stopped at a few banks and finally got an appointment for tomorrow at 4 pm to set up an account. Then I'll have to get back and get the French Social Security stuff worked out. But after I had that planned, I decided to walk around more and explore the city. Being daytime I was able to go farther than before and just explore more.

I ended up down at EuroLille which is basically like our malls here. There they had a huge general purpose store - basically a SuperWal-Mart. While there I was on a tight budget so i was looking for necessites and I found a cheap blanket throw thingy for 8 euros. As I'm tired of using my coat and towel, I picked that up! haha! I got some water as well and scissors as I somehow forgot about packing those. Then I started on my way back.

This was only about 5:30 pm and it was already dark here, and it had started to rain as well which didnt make things fun. Granted I could've figured out the bus system and taken the bus closer to where I'm living, but I didnt think it would be that far of a walk. And logically as I knew going the way I had come to Eurolille would get me back but in a roundabout way - I decided to opt for a short cut! Only that short cut ended up with me getting lost and not sure which way to go down streets, althought I found some rather interesting buildings along the way. For the first time since I was here, I had to pull out a map and figure out where I needed to go. In reality I wasn't that far off, just in areas I hadn't been through yet although it felt like I walked an eternity. That was also with me carrying a bag with 6 liter bottles of water in it! Though I finally made it back to where I knew where i was going. Although after I got back to my room I sat down with the map to see how far off I had gotten and realized that I've been taking a longer way all the time that I could've! I definitely got my exercise today though with walking! that is one good thing about being here, I'll be walking most places and burn the weight off! Yay!

But when I got back to my room, no one I met earlier was here in the dorms and i wasn't in the mood to go out as I am rather tired tonight - I worked more on cleaning things up on my computer and talking with friends. I'm going to get ready for bed here soon, put a movie or Alias on again and cuddle up under my new blanket! And be ready to start it all again tomorrow.

I also priced a cell phone here today but it was rather pricey so I need to look around more. I was also happy I carried on the majority of the conversation at the bank in French! Given one of the international students I met today only has had French for a year, I should be in great shape!

Well, tomorrow or if tomorrow deems a dreary day with nothing going on - then whenever the next big even or thing occurs I will post it! Laterz! Au revoir!