Oh Mon Dieu! What a day. We started bright and early - 8 am departure in order to get to school in good time. Monsieur A (the man who's house I'm living in - I'll just refer to him and his wife as Monsieur et Madame A) gave Jamie, Melissa, and me a lift, thank goodness. We got to school by 8:15, and gathered together all the people we knew. There are 5 girls from Central Michigan University, and 6 of us from X (two who've just graduated), and we met various other people along the way. We were ushered into a large amphitheater, where we met the directeur of the programme, the hilarious Monsieur Malin, and the coordinator of the programme, Yves. They told us a bit about how things were supposed to happen, and then we were given out placement tests. One part listening comprehension (zut alors!) and one part written. No one was quite sure how he/she did afterward, but we were given a whole day to be pessimistic about our results. After an hour of friendly conversation with various people, we were taken to the cafeteria. And you'll never guess...
... You know what company provides the food?
You got it.
Sodexo. In France. I mean, really? The meal was ok. Various shredded raw veggies (seems to be a French thing to not eat your vegetables in one piece), chopped cooked veggies, and meatballs... But it was followed with cheese and lemon tarts, so I guess it was ok.
Met up with Mum after lunch. She's here until Saturday morning with Anne-Marie and Eliane, our resident saints. If either of you are reading this blog, please know how grateful I am pour tout!! Vous êtes mes anges gardiennes! Alors, we went back to Eliane's for a little rest in the garden. She put out some mattresses for us to lie on, and we spent the afternoon taking a much needed rest in the shade. After a while, they took me back to my house in time for dinner.
After dinner, Jamie, Melissa, and I decided to go out for a night on the town. We went to Falstaff, a sort of multi-national student bar not far from the school. We had a few adventures. On the walk over, we were accosted by a couple of oddly-dressed girls who asked us if we'd seen any strange people around. We said no. They asked us what school we were at, and when we said CIDEF, one girl dunked her hand into a bag of flour, grabbed a handful, and chucked it at us before we had any idea what was going on. They seemed to think they'd done us a favour. We stood there in complete shock, unable to comprehend what the eff had just happened to us. Furious, we walked to our friend Becky's to dust ourselves off. Turns out they were some sort of orientation crew from a nerdy local uni. They amuse themselves by preying on poor unsuspecting passersby. Not our lucky night (although apparently, it could have been worse; they might have thrown eggs). Nevertheless, the bar was fun. We met up with Laura and Matt, and a couple French friends that the Michiganders had made the other night. The only major difference between that bar and any Canadian student bar was that all the patrons sat or stood at tables outside on the narrow street. We various French people, watched some weird old guy breakdance, and enjoyed the warm night. It was, en fait, a night well spent.
No comments:
Post a Comment