In which I: buy insurance for my apartment, arrange to hook up the electricity, fail to set up a bank account and start the assistantship.
1. Understand very little French, especially of the official, house-renting/cell phone buying/ insurance kind. But it's important to understand just enough that you want to try and you feel you could understand if you just scrunched your face up a little more into a look of intense concentration.
2. Try to actually do any one of these things: set up a bank account, buy insurance, or hook up electricity for your new apartment (which by the way, you're not even really sure you want). Or, if you're really insane or convinced that nothing can remove the romance from France, do all of them…in one day. (If you want to be nice to yourself, pick October 1st…on the first of the month, all the French offices are empty of people-I don't understand why, but it's true)
3. Find yourself buried under piles of paperwork the likes of which you have never seen before….Then walk home in the rain, getting lost and cold. When you finally find the way to your apartment, you will walk too close to the road and a car will splash water into the tops of your boots.
P.S. Mom, thanks for the wonderful job you did Scotch-guarding my boots. My socks stayed completely dry until the aforementioned car splashing incident.
And although anywhere else, all these things might have brushed the bloom from my experience, I also have another guide:
How to Keep the Romance in France:
1. Have a French friend who will help you with all these chores, allowing you to mostly sit by smiling blankly as French whirls about your head. You won't feel very grown up, but you will feel grateful.
2. Meet your contact teacher and understand almost all the French words pouring out of her mouth.
3. When you are wandering lost and cold in the rain, searching for your apartment, discover the LIBRARY and a USED BOOKSTORE!
4. Stop at the grocery store and buy dark chocolate cookies…yum.
So despite everything, France retains its shine.
And tomorrow is Saturday, which means the Market!
awww, poor twin! the car splashing incident sounds like something straight out of a movie when the protagonist is having an especially awful day. only you would discover a library and bookstore in the midst of that though!
ReplyDeletethe scrunchy face part made me giggle a little, i can just picture it!