First Encounters

Bonjour, tout le monde! Greetings from McDonalds, Square-Victoire, Bordeaux, France. I'm alive and well, I suppose you could say. It has been wild and crazy, meeting lots of people and forgetting most of their names, no internet so no contact with the real world until I get moved in elsewhere... which will hopefully happen, and I hope to not become a French hobo.

So the dorms. The dorms are very interesting... I moved in early on Tuesday morning, and immediately started meeting people. I'm up on the 3ième étage, which is the equivalent of the 4th floor. It was SUPER fun dragging all my luggage up... But anyway, I have a typical dorm room, with a very hard bed, a huge window, a sink, etc. etc. The bathroom facilities are equivalent to a gas station, maybe worse because I don't think the French believe in toilet seats. No internet, which is not as bad as one might think, I've been spending a lot of my time "being" rather than "doing" (AKA trying to be less typically American). In other words, I've been reading. And lying around in bed doing nothing.

I've had several excursions into centre-ville Bordeaux; the main university and Village 3, the dorms, are technically in Pessac, a suburb. There's a very nice tram that goes straight into the heart of Bordeaux, and it's quite amazing, actually. I've been having a good time so far, making plenty of friends (I suppose many of whom I might not see after we all move out of the dorms...). The first day here we got groceries, since the program feeds us a grand total of three times over three weeks, and we have no fridge and no microwave, just a stove. My food consists of pasta, bread, cheese, and canned vegetables. This will be a very slimming three weeks.

Nothing major other than that to report - simply been wandering the city, meeting people, attending meetings, taking LOTS of pictures. The connection here is quite terrible, so don't expect pictures until I'm able to move out and find a different place, but it suffices for a little bit. I ate out for the first time at - sadly - le MacDo, mcdonalds. I had a couple of sandwiches before at different French places, which were quite good, but I told myself that I would try French McDonalds... despite not having eaten it in the States for something like ten years. And let me tell you - it was not that much different, especially for 5.70 Euros. But France itself is amazing - did I mention that? My legs are dying from walking at least several kilometres a day (even more when I had to walk back to my hotel cause I left my phone charger there...), I'm usually at least a little hungry (bread and cheese just doesn't cut it - sorry, stereotypes), the weather's been either gorgeous and sunny or gorgeous and cloudy/rainy, the other Americans are fun, the French are very cool and very chatty and I can usually understand them and chat right back with them... Beaucoup de choses.

Anyway, I'm gonna head off. I'm in an awkward place, sitting right next to the bathroom and people keep passing by and looking over my shoulder - despite that they probably don't speak English. Au revoir!