I will try my best to post at least once a week, so check back once or twice!


So it seems like we are finally getting settled in. We’ve had a very busy past couple of days (except for Sunday, where everything in France is closed, even most of the restaurants). We opened a bank account, got our student card, got a cell phone, got insurance, got our carte de sejour, and finally found that on campus, the internet is fantastic...... when my computer feels like cooperating with me.

The local (well more local than us) France students are slowly moving into our residence as well. For the first few days it was just international students. There is a French girl living beside me, and one living beside Virginia. They both don’t speak very good English, but really want to learn! Virginia’s neighbour is extremely nice and helpful, and we ask her a ton of questions all the time, from learning the local slang words, to where the best place to grocery shop is. We’re helping her a little with their English, but they’re helping us so much more

My neighbour is pretty nice, but not as friendly, she also wakes up at 6 in the morning, and the walls here are pretty thin, with squeaky floors so I hear her until she leaves :s – hopefully that won’t wake me up soon.

Our res is also starting to feel a little bit more like home. It’s decorated, and I can call it MY room now. We’re getting more used to the atmosphere here as well, and less scared to go to the bathroom alone at night (there’s no bathroom on our floor, and the lights shut off automatically after about 2 minutes). It might take me a little bit longer to get used to the showers which are a little odd. They have the detachable head, but the only problem is that it attaches down by your belly button, so to wash my hair, I have to hold it above my head....

We’ve made a lot of international friends so far as well as French ones J I think we’ll make even more when school and classes actually start as well. I’ve met many international girls from our residence (which is an all girls residence if I haven’t mentioned before), Scotland, England, Turkey, Australia – all over! There is an international students association on campus called ERASMUS that organizes get togethers with all of the international students as well, so I signed up to maybe go skiing in January!

School is also slowly getting started. We had an information session on Wednesday to learn how to choose our courses, so we’ll be doing that on Saturday. We also took a placement test on Friday morning for mandatory grammar courses. We (as international students) have to take two mandatory classes, this one (FLE course) and a French culture course, both which start late in September. Normal classes start on Wednesday the 16th, which is pretty soon. I’m looking forward to starting school so we can get a kind of routine down. My days are pretty all over the place right now, still just trying to make sure I have everything prepared for starting school and living here.

That’s all for now, but I’ll keep everyone updated on how my classes are next week!