First, and BEST, of all, I moved into my new apartment today--YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's beautiful and sunny and furnished with very good taste. And most importantly, I was able to finally unpack and have my own room and my own space and my own bed. Woo-hoo! :) As soon as I have some time (I know I'm supposedly only working 12 hours a week, but with my babysitting job and traveling to and from my schools and trying to have some sort of social life, I'm finding myself quite busy!), I will take pictures and post them. So yay, I'm in my new apartment and the internet works and the bed is comfy and the building's heat is being turned on on Friday (thank god, because it turned into winter in Lyon today). BUT... Unfortunately and completely randomly, the hot water doesn't seem to work. Which was pretty bad news tonight when I got home from moving the last of my stuff and was freezing and just wanted a nice warm shower, especially since the shower here has an actual shower holder so you don't have to hold the nozzle AND has a shower barrier so the entire room doesn't get wet! I mean, I've been looking forward to this shower for like 2 weeks. Alas, it was probably the coldest, most miserable shower I've ever taken! :( I wouldn't even have bothered once I realized the water wasn't getting any warmer than frigid, but I had my mind set on finally being clean with clean pjs and clean sheets in a brand new bed! So I braved the freezing water and am now wearing approximately 85% of the clothes that I brought to France in a futile effort to warm up...
Secondly, I was finally able to get my bank card today! (Went yesterday only to find that my branch was closed on Mondays...) This is extremely important because French ATM/debit cards aren't the kind that swipe; they have a little metal block thing on the front that gets inserted into machines. Because of this, certain places (including the 300+ bike rental stations around Lyon that are AWESOME) only accept French cards. So I was really excited to get it. A little card on the front said that the card isn't validated until I put it in an ATM machine and get money out. Small problem: there isn't any money in my account. Zero euros. I don't get paid for another week and a half, and in order to deposit the wad of euros I have stashed away, I need to use my ATM card because the people at the bank apparently can't do it themselves. Catch-22. It ended up not really mattering, right then at least, because the cash deposit machine was broken at that branch. I ended up finding another branch with a machine that worked and that actually accepted my potentially unvalidated card (although it sounded like it was eating it at first and I almost had a heart attack) so I was able to deposit my money and should be able to access it tomorrow. Yay! The bad news in this scenario (yeah, none of that craziness was bad news) was that I had gotten a text message saying that my checkbook was ready too so I don't have to pay my rent in cash again, which is a really weird thing to do just FYI, but when I asked for that at the bank the little man at the counter babbled something about the checkbook being sent to me in the mail at some later date. Not sure that's even really what he said, but he basically "dismissed" me after that so I guess I'll wait to see if I get any more mail from the bank in the next week or so before harassing him again.
No other hugely noteworthy events. Some interesting tidbits:
- went to my disorganized school today and was supposed to observe some classes but none of the teachers seemed to know I was coming... I did get to meet the Spanish assistant at the school and she's AWESOME. We talked in French for 45 minutes (sooooooooo impressed with myself) and are both at the school on Thursdays and have planned to eat lunch together next week.
- did end up going to one class with Paul, an English teacher I met last week. It was supposedly a "rough" class for the equivalent of vocational students, but I loved them! I won't be seeing them once my real schedule starts (if it ever does), but Paul asked me to come back tomorrow because they were so excited about having me there.
- played "Guess Who?" with Aurore today in English and then played with Phillippe-Emmanuel (turns out I was spelling his name wrong that whole time) in French. Such a good game for practicing another language!
I think that's it... Snuggling into my cozy bed now since I have to get up at the crack of dawn to trek to my school by 8 tomorrow. Awesome. :)
Welcome to your new home away from home. Hope the hot water is fixed soon. It is feeling like winter here too. Je t'aime beaucoup! ta mere
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