Backlog

So I basically haven't had internet since last Wednesday afternoon, EST. I'm going to post backdated entries here, slowly, until I can figure out whether I can backdate blogger entries themselves. Til then, onward!

*****

14 Jan 2009

I was operating in panic mode yesterday. Today, not so much. I was okay til I brought my suitcases downstairs and flipped out about everything not being able to fit. Left Mom to repack them because I was about to kill something. Packing and I just don’t seem to get along, despite how many times I’ve had to do it. The rest of the day went smoothly. Got aisle seats for both of my flights. I was anxious for my flight to London to just start boarding and take off; I’d had enough of waiting. Usually I hate flying, but I had absolutely no problem this time. The woman in front of me insisted on reclining her seat as far back as it would go, but that was about it. The only time I got anxious was when they didn’t turn on the entertainment system right away; Moulin Rouge was playing and I wanted to watch it. For the millionth time.


15 Jan 2009

Heathrow airport is a pain to get around when you have a connecting flight. But it happens, yeah? So made it through there. They took the liquids out of my carry-on bag to inspect, and after the security lady gave it back to me, I was an idiot and managed to leave it on the counter. >_> I suppose I’m lucky I didn’t get arrested for abandoning it or something. I realized I didn’t have it while sitting in a little restaurant and talking to my mother on the phone. Had to go back to security and get it, and the guy there wasn’t happy. Returned to eat my overpriced bowl of fruit and yogurt and my smoothie. Got a venti café mocha from Starbucks immediately following, since I hadn’t slept in a while and felt awful. Slept the entirely of the 1.5 hour flight from London to Lyon. Then spent 3 hours sitting in the train station in the Lyon airport waiting for my train.

There was a guy, Lee, from Virginia Tech at the train station, who had also been on my flight from London. I was too tired/disinterested/skerred to ask if it really was him, since I only recognized him from Facebook and didn't want to be a creep. However, when we almost missed our train because it was retarded and didn’t stop where it was supposed to, we started commiserating. Then we dragged our bags together from the train station to our respective hotels.

From there I wandered around Chambéry for about an hour and a half. Saw the stupid elephant fountain that everyone talks about, saw the castle of the Dukes of Savoy. Saw a bunch of other stuff. Took pictures. Got a panini. Yum. Went back to the hotel, met Juli from Indiana, whom I was sharing a room with, and went to bed at like, 8pm. Wow.


16 Jan 2009

We got up earlyish to check out. The lady at the hotel had told me that there was a place we could leave our bags while we were gone (check out was at noon and we didn't know if we'd be back in time, despite leaving around 845); turns out that place was the hotel lobby. Our stuff turned out to be fine when we got back, but I wasn't pleased because I had to drag my laptop around. We walked with Elizabeth, from Washington, and Victoria, from Tennessee, and Victoria's aunt. Found the dorm, filled out paperwork. Had to go get insurance. Went back, got our keys to our very interesting rooms. Took a cab from the hotel to the dorm with all our bags, because that would not have been a fun walk. Weren't pleased to find out there's no internet here. :(

Everything in France is closed for lunch. Even the restaurants. Because that makes sense. So while wandering around, we went into a bar that didn't say it was closed. And they guy didn't say anything when we went in. He was really nice, and we found out that hey, the bar was closed. Oops. We got croque monsieurs and fries anyway. Those fries were really good. The guy there joked with us, and it was a little difficult because he spoke really quickly, but we got most of it.

For dinner we went to a place called Café de Lyon. Food was really, really good. I have no idea what kind of drink I ordered. It was a kir something and I think it had wine in it? Also pretty good. Some guy came up and took our picture for a website/brochure called "Night People Chambéry." (nightpeoplechambery.com). Picture's not up on the site yet though. From there we went looking for a club. There's one on a corner near us and the sign just said "Le Nightclub." We should have realized there was something weird about it because the windows were covered. But whatever. There was a doorbell to ring to get in, but Elizabeth tried to open it anyway. The door was locked so we walked away. A woman poked her head out and when Elizabeth asked if it was open she said (in French, of course) "Well... yes, but it's only for men." Heh, nice. So we tried to go into a stripclub on our first night here. =D

We wound up at an Irish bar/pub/thing called O'Pogue's, but it was definitely run by French people. I have no idea what kind of beer I had. It was crowded and noisy and some interesting things happened.


17 Jan 2009

Saturday. Nothing of interest, really. Wandered through a market. Went to a bookstore. They had all four Twilight books there, but the names are super different. Instead of Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn they're called fascination, tentation, hésitation, and révélation. I'm half-tempted to buy one and see how different they are, but that would be a total waste of money. We wandered around for about 45 minutes looking for a France Telecom (internet/phone company) store that Juli thought was marked on her map. Turns out that for some reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to mark a phone booth on the map. Awesome. So we got frustrated. Met Jill from Mississippi. Elizabeth and Juli bought cell phones. We took the bus to Carrefour, which is pretty much Wal-Mart on steroids. @____@ Need to make a list and go back. Nothing of interest happened later; made dinner, decided not to go out. Whee.

18 Jan 2009

It raaaained. Boo. And nothing is open on Sunday. Like, nothing. Juli and I took our laptops to a café with free wifi. I was disappointed that my crèpe came out triangle shaped like the ones at home. Maybe it's only at to-go places that they come rolled up? :( Had a fun adventure to a butcher shop because Juli wanted chicken. We couldn't remember how to say breast. "White meat" did the trick though. For the rest of the night we stayed in. I cleaned my room and put stuff away. Watched movies thanks to the lack of internet.


19 Jan 2009

Meeting today with the coordinator of the ISEP program here. There are 12 American students. They don't really care here whether we take classes or not, which amused me. Basically we just go to classes, see if we like them, and in three weeks or so tell Laure, our administrative coordinator, which ones we're "in." We can add or drop them as we please. Each department here chooses their own start dates, so some started today and some don't start til mid-February. But we have to go to each department and get their schedule. Fail. Classes only meet once a week for two hours though, so it's quite easy for us to have a 3 or 4 day weekend. Should make traveling fun. They also don't use textbooks like we do. Whee. Credits are something different, which worries me, but for now I just have to pick interesting classes and go. Which is going to be hard considering it's a little over a mile walk to campus, including hiking up some stairs in the side of a hill. And more hills on campus. Yay exercise?


20 Jan 2009

I has a bank account! Took forever for the guy to put in all my information, but I didn't have to do anything except sign papers. Victoria and I went together and alternated being sitting in awkward silence and talking to each other. We missed the 10am Linguistics class we wanted to go to, but it turned out that the professor didn't show up anyway. From there we went to get internets!! Juli had been talking to people on our floor and finally found out where to go to buy some (for realz, we'd heard so many different things from people but all of them turned out to be wrong). I has the modem and it has the wifi, so right now four of us are sharing it. Wheeee~ internets. Officially registered at the school in the afternoon. From there we went into a lingerie shop (by we I mean everyone went in and I followed). Stuff is super expensive here. And small. So we split up and I went shopping for foods. I'm going to be living on spaghetti for the rest of my life; it goes a lonngggg way when you're cooking for one. But it's good with chicken, garlic, veggies, and carbonara sauce. Need to branch out though, which means a Carrefour trip is in order.

After getting the internets set up I spent 2.5 hours on Skype with mom. Wow. And finally caught up on all my emails, Facebook messages, etc. And I have to Skype VCU for my NSEP interview Thursday, which makes me happy for some internets.