Horrible Horrible Giant Sand Mountains

So I realize now that I never actually blogged about this weekend.  We had a field trip on Saturday to the sand dunes and the beach.

The sand dunes are these horrible horrible giant sand mountains that are just the worst ever to climb.

Because you all know that I dislike taking pictures, I obviously stole these from the facebook group for our French class.

(If you blow up the screen on the second picture you can actually see me looking exhausted climbing this in the middle--I'm wearing an orange shirt and walking all by myself).

No one appears to have uploaded any pictures from the beach, so I don't have any for you.  It was a super exhausting day (such climbing) and I may have fallen asleep on the way back.  It's ok though because I counted four people around me who were asleep before I was.

I didn't have any sunscreen and I voted that I was okay, so I didn't ask to borrow any from anyone, but there was obviously no shade at all on the beach, and I didn't bring my swim suit, so I left after about 30 minutes with a different set of Germans and we went to go on a tour of the winter village which I thought sounded shady.

It may have been shadier, but it definitely was not any less hot.  I brought two bottles of water with me, and I drank both of them and bought another one on the walk back.  Everything was uphill and hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot.

It was pretty cool though, I guess.  It's basically the place where you would send your relatives with asthma so they could go be healed by the salty sea air.

Then I think I came home and made noodles.

On Sunday everything is closed, so I went out around noon to buy a sandwich (I know, this again) and struggle-bussed a little bit but in the end achieved an actually really gross sandwich which I supplemented with a chocolate muffin.

Then I took about an hour and a half to figure out how to wash my hair in the tiny shower with the shower head that you can't fix to the wall.

That's all really. 

No, I don't know what "forbidden" means

I definitely thought today was the 1st of September all day long and so when my tram card didn't work this morning I got really irritated, because OBVIOUSLY the machine hadn't broken...the tram people just hadn't put my payment for September on.

As a person with greater intelligence, you understand that today is the 31 of August, and September probably is indeed on my card, just that the week that I purchased may have run out.

Today after class I went with the 3 other anthropology German girls (and Oskar, but I don't think he does anthropology so idk why he was there...?) to the Victoire campus to find a secretary -- all aptly named Secretariat -- and ask if we could pretty please register for classes.  The building doesn't open until tomorrow, and we have a field trip all day to the Musee Aquitaine so we are going to go together on Wednesday morning.

As it turns out, absolutely zero people have the same information.  One girl got an email that she had to bring her birth certificate, but no one else did.  Two people have information for the French class.  I'm the only person that knows our mobility coordinator is gone all year.  It's like Clue in real life.  We had no idea where the building was for registration at all, so we wandered about this big stone campus for a smidge until we found it.  Then once you went up the stairs, they had a sign that said you couldn't go down them...?  We went down them anyways and were just going to pretend we didn't know what "interdit" (forbidden) meant.  Or a big red circle with a white line going through it.  No idea.

After the campus-y bit we went out for lunch.  I went with Liza to the chwarma place which was amazing but I wasn't loud enough so I accidentally got fries in my chich taouk.  The other people got bagels.

Then I came home and took a shower because it's like 10000000 (~90) degrees out here.  It's absolutely awful if you're outside for any amount of time.  If you're inside and stay inside it's pretty okay in here with my window open.

Now I'm searching out insurance and registration information.  I haven't heard back from my coordinator about classes, so I'm hoping I get an answer from her by Wednesday so I can give it to the administrative people.

We found out about sports and stuff today in class.  I didn't listen super well because I don't know a lot of sports words, but she gave us all the links for the information so we can do it ourselves.  But it looks as though I would have to go down to Montaigne or Pessac to take any classes, and you have to pay for them anyways so I will make a decision later I think.

Much Disappoint.

If you talked to me at all today, you know how excited I was that some girls from the program asked if I wanted to meet up with them tonight and added me to their facebook group.

As I don't have any friends, I was really looking forward to maybe getting some.

Google maps said it would take 26 minutes to get to the meet up spot from my apartment.  I left about 20 minutes early because I walk much slower than Google predicts, and I wanted to make sure they wouldn't leave without me in case I was late.

It took me about 35 minutes to get to Place Saint Pierre which is where the facebook page and everyone I had talked to said we were meeting.  I was 10 minutes early, so I sat down in a central location and waited, looking around to make sure I didn't miss anyone coming in from a different direction.

No one came.

I waited 15 minutes after the meet up time.  During this time, I saw another group of people from my program walking about, but I had told one girl through fb messenger that I was definitely going to be there, so I didn't want to confuse her by going off with other people.

However, no one came.

I went home, and walked very defeatedly back to my apartment.

In total, I spent two hours of my night trying to have friends.  Still don't have any.

I miss having friends.

Plums that Fix the World

I, of course, had some more frustration today as it was the last day I could set up my electricity.  The man originally told me that I had to do it by phone, and I just got my phone to have minutes yesterday.

More about that later.

I thought I had this afternoon off, so I was just going to go to the electricity office, since I realized it's in Gambetta and that is super easy to get to.  But after I got to class I was informed that we were going to go to a castle and that we may not get back to the campus until 5h30 and then it would have taken me 30 more minutes to get up to Gambetta and I wouldn't have been able to go into the office.

So I was like, wow this castle time sounds good though I'm not really dressed for walking around (as I was wearing jeans and fake vans from Target).  And I decided that I was going to call during lunch and then everything would be taken care of.  But because it takes so long to get to the castle, they cut our lunch an hour short, and all 100 of us had to stay in the same town to eat lunch.

I followed a bunch of Germans to a pizza place, then I fell down and ripped a hole in my jeans, hand, and knee.  I thought pizza was going to take too long (and I obviously hated the restaurant for making me fall down) so I walked very quickly to a sandwich shop and bought the very last pre-assembled sandwich.  I put the sandwich in my bag to eat on the bus and sat down to call EDF (that's the electricity company).

I got a robot person who spoke too fast and gave me options.  I picked one, mostly randomly because I have no idea what robot woman was saying.  Then she gave me more options.  I stayed on the line because I couldn't decide what option I wanted and so eventually she said something that I think was "I'm searching for someone to answer your question."  I was on hold with this woman for half an hour, and in the meantime walked back to the building.  I wasn't going to be able to do my electricity over the phone on a bus, and I needed to get it done today, so I told my professor that I couldn't go to the castle because I had to go do my electricity.  She agreed that that is an important thing.

I'm still sad I didn't get to go to the castle.  But it'll be ok obviously.

At this point I'm very frustrated, and I made the executive decision for a new word "Frenchstrated" in which you are frustrated by something that the French people do, or something that just seems very French and irritating.  Why isn't anything easy here?

Well it turns out going to the EDF office made the electricity very easy.  I brought every single document I had and watched the woman as she filled out a form online for me.

Then I went to the Monoprix and bought plums and dish soap.

Afterwards, I returned to my room at like 3pm and ate lunch.  And some plums.  It made everything worth it because even if I fell down and missed the castle I have plums and I wouldn't have had any otherwise.

I went with Kashif at 8h00ish to his friend's Indian restaurant and they gave us so much food and I had to keep eating it because they kept bringing different kinds for me to try.  It was ridiculous.

Now I'm going to go to sleep and hope that everyone tells me the castle was horrible and I didn't miss anything today when I go into class tomorrow.  I did all my homework so I'm super ready to go.

In Which I Acquire an Indian and Learn About Cricket

After a fun-filled day of class, a two hour walking tour, and a two hour long wait at the phone store, I arrived back at my room around 8pm.

I wanted to pick up my room and start putting things away before I ate some dinner, so I went downstairs to discover the "trash room".  It was a disgusting place btw.

Upon leaving the trash room, I encounter two Indian men and I say politely "bonjour."

My feminine wiles are too much for these men and they want to talk to me more.  The one guy's name is Kashif and he has lived in Bordeaux for 5 years studying business and working at a restaurant.  He will turn 21 in November and asks if I will help him with his English sometime.  I say that of course I will (because I have already explained that I am from America).  He asks for my phone number to meet up sometime and I once again embarrassingly don't know it.  He says he has to go out now to buy some ingredients for the dinner he is making with his friends and asks for my room number so he can come up and put his number in my phone when he returns.  I give it to him because he lives in my building and FRIENDS.

He comes up a little while later and we talk about some things and he puts his number in and I text him so that he has mine (whatever it is).  Then he asks if he can bring me some of the food they're making.  Why would I pass up delicious homemade Indian food?  Answer:  I wouldn't.

Maybe 30 or so minutes later he comes back with a plate of food and a glass of coke.  I'm not certain what I am supposed to do now because I can't just take the plate from him and leave, plus he's nice and talks a lot.

So I offer him a chair at my (now actually useful) table.  He says "can I go get my dish and eat with you because I'm soooo hungry."  I say "Yeah that would be okay" because I like having people to talk to.

Like 10 minutes later he comes back with his own plate and I've moved some things around so he can actually eat at the table.

I think we sat here for probably two hours before I told him I had to go to sleep.  The last bit was watching cricket matches on my laptop so I could learn how the game works.  He was a cricket player on the under-19 French national team until he got injured last year.  He's hoping he can play on the team next year.

After it was clear that I couldn't eat any more of my food because he gave me a portion identical to his own like a fool, I explain that I am a tiny person and that his food is really good but it's too much.  He didn't seem to understand this for a very long time.  I kept telling him that yes his food was delicious (he wants to open a restaurant after he graduates with a business degree) and he was very confused about why I wasn't eating all of it.  He let me keep the plate it's on until tomorrow so I can eat it for lunch.

Kashif taught me all about cricket, and we are going to meet up tomorrow night so he can show me his favorite places in Bordeaux.  But did I mention how much I know about cricket?  He doesn't speak very good English, and my sports French is rough so we had a lovely Creole dialogue trying to figure out what the other person was saying.

For all you Americans, here is how you play cricket:

1.  There is a coin toss, the team that wins the coin toss gets to decide if they want to "bat" or "field" first.
2.  The team that bats first keeps batting until they are 50 over the ball.  I'm still not certain what that means but it took me about 10 years to get that sentence out of him.
3.  When you bat, you cannot hit the whiffel or you will be out.  Every player but one person on the team can be out at the same time and won't be able to bat the rest of the game.
4.  If the ball you just hit goes past the boundary you gain 6 runs.  Every player also gets 6 balls thrown at him total.
5.  The person who throws the ball talks with the captain beforehand about how he's going to throw so the captain can line up the fielders accordingly.
6.  You don't take turns batting and fielding.  One team does all possible batting, and then their "run" score is the target score for the other team.
7.  The other team bats (and btw the person who threw the ball before also gets to bat) and tries to beat the target score.
8.  You win when you have the higher score.

Also, if you are fielding and you hold the ball longer than 10 seconds then something bad happens to your team.  I don't know what.

I am actually going to probably go to sleep now because I did too much learning today.

And When I Thought Nothing More Could Go Wrong

Today was okay until I moved into my residence hall.

Then it became the worst day ever.

The idiot man who was doing my state of entry spoke so quickly about such important things that I made him repeat everything multiple times.  It pissed me off.  After the first time, shouldn't he understand that maybe I need him to talk slower?  Or maybe to not be such a jerk in general?  I raised my voice and said "I need instructions, SORRY" and then got out a piece of paper and made him spell things that I didn't understand because I hate that stupid idiot man.

I have to set up my own electricity.  It's through the residence hall account through the EDF place.  Couldn't they do it for me?  Couldn't they tell me before I show up?

I had to buy mattress protection for my brand new mattress that has stains on it.  If there are stains on it when I leave, I have to pay.  I would like to leave right now.

So in order to sleep on my mattress tonight I had to go to the other side of town to go to the store.  The whole trip took about two hours.

When I returned, I noticed that my bed was broken (again).  It was broken when I got there, and it was fixed and broke again in those two hours.  Maybe it wasn't fixed in the first place?!  Maybe they could have checked everything when they knew I was coming?  Maybe they could have written down when I was coming in the first place so I could have not spent 4 nights in another apartment?

The idiot man didn't want to fix my bed because he was leaving for the day.  Sorry sir, but I would like to sleep on my bed that I am paying for tonight.  He tried to fix it without tools.  It broke again.

The idiot woman didn't want to listen to me about the stains on my mattress because she was leaving for the day.  Sorry ma'am but I would like to make my bed that I am paying for tonight so I can sleep in it.

After I made most of the bed I moved onto the packaged blanket given to me by the residence.  I thought it was a duvet, so I went out and bought a duvet today.  I opened it.  It was a sleeping bag.  Like it literally has zippers.  I put it in the duvet cover because why not at this point.  I don't get anywhere trying to explain things so I'll just take the god forsaken thing because no one cares.

Now that I was mad about the blanket, I thought, I'll take a relaxing shower.  I have no hot water.  I pay for my own hot water, so I better have some god forsaken hot water available to me.  Maybe I just need to turn on a switch?  Couldn't some one tell me that?

And if I did have hot water, the shower head is broken anyways so the water comes out in every single direction and you can't put it on the wall.

I'm just done now.  I don't want to be here anymore.  I'd rather live on the street than a residence run by idiots.

I have to go to bed soon because I have class tomorrow.  Not real class because I don't have any of those yet, because why respond to someone who's coming from another country.

In Which I Recognize that Only Bankers are to be Trusted

I sat down on my bed after I got back from the poste and was all set up to email the residence hall, when I realized that I could just walk there.

So I put on my athletic leggings because I'm 'MERICAN and I went there.  (I was also wearing ballet flats because France can just go away and I'm going to wear what I want).

The ridiculous woman did not believe me that the post office said I couldn't do it.  She was like "talk to my colleague."

And so I did, and her colleague told me I had to go to this other bank (which begs the question--why did the first woman tell me to go to the post office in the first place???)

I went immediately to the other bank and told the woman "au revoir" with a really snarky face, because I also asked for the copy of my contract that they never gave me on Friday and she couldn't find it!!!  Like, why am I doing all this work to live here (and also paying you a fee to complete my residence folder??) if you lose my folder both times I've been here???

The woman at the bank was super super nice.  She works with Estudines all the time and said that everything would work out exactly how I wanted and she was going to get me a credit card to pay the EDF (which is my electricity bill I think) and that it would be free and that I could cancel in December no problem as long as I went in and wrote a note with them.

She did my housing insurance and my bank account even though I didn't have my passport on my person, which apparently I needed.  I told her I would walk back and bring it to her.

So it takes me about 15 minutes to walk to the residence hall from where I live now, and then a couple more minutes to get to the bank--let's say 20 in total.

I walked to the residence hall to the bank to my apartment to the bank to my apartment which totals:
80 minutes of walking for this single trip.

Ridiculous.

Now I'm going to pack up all of my things again because I get to move into my residence hall tomorrow afternoon!!!

In Which the Joke is (once again) on Me

This morning I set an alarm, but then I turned it off and set a new one about every half hour until I actually got up at 11:30.  I had an email from Anna at the University that said I could come visit her today.

I was the most excited because maybe again I would actually get to pick out my classes and get started on the rest of my life.

Joke was very clearly on me.

I took the tram to the other campus, where her office is.  The tram machine wouldn't take my credit card, so I'm not certain how I'm going to buy a monthly ticket unless I can accumulate like 20 euros in coins.

After I got to the campus I found a very handy map that showed what building her office was in.  That was the only map I ever saw.  Next time I should take a picture so I know where I'm going later on in the journey too.

I did find the building after creepily stalking a group of men I pretended were also going to that building.  They weren't, but they took me near it so it all worked out for me.

When I walked into the office, Anna was talking with someone else, and a guy from Holland (I only know that cuz I eavesdropped later on) was sitting at the table.  I sat next to him.

As it turns out, that guy and I had the same idea--that we didn't have to fill out any more forms and could just get what we wanted.  He met with Anna and she was all like "fill out that form to "inscrire" to the university" (I don't actually know what inscrire means, but I also have to do it).

So then she told me I had to fill it out too.  I did, and I asked her if I could pick out my Anthropology courses now.

She said, "WHAT I THOUGHT YOU WERE DOING NEUROSCIENCE" and so I had to explain that I had applied to the university thinking that I could do neuroscience or biology or science at least but in the end that wasn't going to work out for me.

And she's all like "we can't inscrire you to this university until you have your classes picked out because you need to turn this in in the office of Social Science and not Science and Technology.  And also why aren't you doing science"

And I said, "yes but I talked to everyone about this already and I can't do it"

She was like "contact this guy for biology and he will help you pick out those classes"

And I was like "I already contacted him and it's not possible"

We went back and forth like this for a while and it was the most irritating.

Finally she realized that I needed to contact the Anthropology woman and I was like "I did that two months ago" and she was like "yeah but she may not respond until September"

So now I through a bit of a snark fit because not only do I have to bring some more documents for this ridiculous inscrire-ing, but I also have to take care of the rest of this myself.

I CURSE FRANCE TO HADES!!!

So I left there with a list of things to do and nothing completed.

I went back on the tram, but because I am ingenious, I went farther than my stop and went to the now open Monoprix and bought a shower curtain and also some snacks.  And because I learned my lesson yesterday, I bought a sandwich ASAP.

I walked back to Victoire and tried to go to La Poste where the residence woman had told me I could get my housing and bank account for electricity.

You can't get a bank account for only 5 months from the post office and you have to write a letter saying that you will put money in it every month and you will get charged after you leave for some reason and I had to bring all these other documents and I was so frustrated.

I TWICE CURSE FRANCE TO HADES!!!

I went back to my apartment.

In Which I Repeatedly Attempt to Buy a Sandwich

First I would like to update you all on the smoke detector irritation.  When I returned to my room this afternoon at about 3:30pm it was still going off (so that's like two days straight pretty much), and I received a text from Celine (from when I was without internet) about it:

I think at this point, if the owner of the apartment was anywhere near here they would have heard the stupid thing.  If you're on the street outside of our building you can hear it--and much louder than in my room.

But as of about 4:30 when I was eating my sandwich (more about that later), I couldn't hear the alarm anymore, so someone must have come and shut it off which is awesome.












So last night I planned out where I wanted to explore today, which was over by the river, but kind of in the same neighborhood as the Monoprix I went to yesterday.  This was supposed to be a double-whammy kind of a trip where not only did I get to see the river, but I got to go to a store that would hopefully sell me a journal, unlike the Librairie Mollat which was too enormous for its own good.

My phone wanted me to take like 20 different roads to get there, when clearly on the map I could see that I only needed to take three.  So once I left the apartment I just went straight until I ran out of road, and then I turned right until I ran out of road on that street, and then I turned left and supposedly that would take me to the store.

I was quite correct in that this was an efficient way to get where I was going, but I realize why maybe my phone didn't want me to go this way.  Going straight out from my street (basically, the road is like 20 ft to the right of mine) is kind of creepy and alley-esque and maybe I should have followed the instructions instead.  But I persevered, and I got to the river.  I even took a super quality picture for you guys:

It's kind of brown and gross and  I didn't cross the bridge to take a better picture because I didn't feel like it at the time.  Maybe some other day.

I walked around this road to the river and my phone was telling me that I was going the right direction towards this store.

But then I ended up at Place de la Bourse which is exactly where my store was supposed to be, but it was nowhere to be found.

As I learned today, nearly everything closes on Sundays.

I think my store may have been in this bigger building that had big gates down over all the entrances. To make sure this trip hadn't been a waste, I also took a picture of the statue in this square.

 I don't know what the statue is of, and though I did end up getting closer to it to walk toward the building behind it (the one I think my store was in) I didn't take any more pictures.

I like this one because that woman is holding her foot up for some reason and I really like that I didn't notice her at the time when I was taking this picture.

If you couldn't tell, I am practicing uploading pictures because I downloaded dropbox so I don't have to struggle with getting pictures off my phone anymore like I always do.

The internet pretends it's soooooo easy but they are lying to you.






Anyways, to the sandwiches--almost.  I made an executive decision that from here I would walk to the Monoprix again and maybe get some food and definitely a shower curtain that I need for my apartment.  I walked through some touristy bits of town and thought about getting ice cream, but I didn't do it because I'm clearly a fool.  I did buy a canelé on the way over there.  The woman gave me like 12000 different options and I didn't understand them so I told her I wanted a traditional one.  What she gave me was like a mountain thing that was kind of chewy.  It was tasty but it made me want some water, which I obviously did not have because I was at least a mile away from my apartment.

Next to the canelé place was a Paul which is like a sandwich and pastry place, but because I do not have forethought, I was like "no I'll buy my sandwich at the other Paul after I get to the Monoprix."

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 1

I walked toward the Monoprix, but I discovered that since it's Sunday, every single thing is closed, including the mall--which kind of makes sense.  So I could not buy a sandwich at the Monoprix, or a shower curtain.

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 2

Right next to the Monoprix was another Paul, which I knew about.  It was closed.

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 3

From the Monoprix I decided to just take Cours Pasteur all the way back to my apartment and hopefully the Brioche Doree would be open on Place de la Victoire.

On the way back, there are two grocery-store-ish-things that I went into yesterday.  Both of them were closed so I could not buy a sandwich at either place.  One of them closed at 1pm, which was nearly when I got up today.  Lesson learned, Bordeaux.  Wake up before noon or no sandwich.

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 5

The Brioche Doree where I bought my sandwich yesterday at Victoire was also closed.

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 6

I looked at the map on my phone and I zoomed in a lot so it would show me food places around the square.  There was a taco place, and I voted that taco places wouldn't take the Sabbath off.  On my way to get tacos, however, I found an open sandwich shop!  It was called Tricolor and it also made kebabs.  But the picture of a kebab was just a different kind of sandwich, it was nothing about being on a stick.

It think the tricolor name was maybe supposed to represent the French flag because it was like a sporty deli where they have TVs with soccer on and things.  I bought a sandwich and a Fanta, and I had to stand and wait while the guy made it.

Sara: 1   Sandwich: 6

I brought the sandwich and the Fanta back to my incredibly hot and smoke alarm sounding apartment.

Because I am basically an engineer, I realized that if I moved my fan to the other side of the room so it faced the bed, that I would actually feel the air from the fan.  It was ingenious and I am pretty darn proud of myself for figuring that out.

The sandwich, even in my now cooled room, was not actually very good.  But I ate it anyways.

Tomorrow I'm going to set an alarm to wake up in the morning time so that I can maybe be ready to meet up with actual people on Tuesday morning for class.

In Which I Learn About Linens

As I was informed yesterday that I needed to buy sheets for my apartment, I voted that today would be a good day to do it.

I woke up around 2pm to the sound of a lot of children and someone's smoke alarm going off.  I voted to lay in bed longer and eat some cookies before I took a shower.  My shower is one of those awful ones that I remembered using when I was in France like 4 years ago.  It's a bathtub with the shower head on a hose that you move around.  But unlike the one in my actual apartment, this one cannot attach to the wall so you can at least pretend you are taking a normal person shower.  Fortunately, it is also unlike the one that we used in a hotel the first time I was here, as there was indeed a shower curtain, so I did not flood the bathroom like I did previously.

Shower?  #achieved

Then I found some directions to the Monoprix and set off to go there.  My garmin vivofit that I am using as a watch was still set to Iowa time, so I tried to quickly sync it before I left.  It refused to even be seen by my phone.  So I tried a little harder and about an hour later I re-paired it to my phone and still have all my previous data, as well as the correct time on my wrist.

I walked to Monoprix and discovered that the map on my phone is wrong a little bit in that neighborhood-area-place, but I got over it by going in a general direction.

The Monoprix turned out to be in the mall, which I suppose I could have guessed as it was right next to the words "centre commercial" on my map.

I went downstairs to the section where one would buy sheets.  However, I have no idea how big my sofabed is, or any of the words for sheets or pillowcases.  I picked up something that seemed like a sheet in the smallest size, and then I went to look for pillows.  I was amazed last night at the stupidly large size of pillow I was given, it looked like one of the square decorative ones you're given at hotels, and I was displeased.

Turns out, all pillows are that stupid size, so I got one.  Then I saw a lovely old woman and I told her that I had a bed that was also a sofa, and did this size of thing seem like it would be the right size?

That's when I found out that what I had actually picked up was a duvet cover, and I what I needed was the thing that I thought was a bedskirt.  (This is also where I found out that I don't think you can purchase a top sheet in France, but idk)   So the lovely woman and I walked over to that section and she pointed and explained and so now I have something that I think will be the right size.  She got out a tape measure from her purse and showed me how big each of the things were so I could pick the one that looked closest to the size of my bed.

I walked back, stopping in some food stores and the Librairie Mollat--which was way enormouser than I expected.

When I got to my room though, I couldn't get my key to work.  I'd had some issues with it yesterday, but today that stupid thing just wasn't having it.  After like 20 minutes, I knocked on the door of the old couple and asked for help.  They were originally upset with me because they thought the whistling smoke detector sound (which is still going off) was coming from my room, but I said "no" and they seemed okay with it.  The old man tried to help me with the key, but the woman made him go back inside.  She informed me that he is sick mentally with the Alzheimer's and that's why she sent him inside.  She tried the key a couple times, and like two seconds later the door was open.  She was very pleased that the sound wasn't coming from my room (you can barely hear it in here when I have the fan on, just sounds a bit like tinnitus).  And informed me that someone should call the police because it's impossible to sleep.  I agreed with her, though she is very difficult to understand.  She says I have some pretty bad luck, and I agreed with that.  I thanked her a lot and sat down to write this blog.

As Unfortunate Things Get Worse

After about 12 hours of plane rides Thursday-Friday, I was very excited to lay down in my apartment.  No, not the one I found and signed contracts for and pre-paid, but another one that could house me until the one I had planned on could actually let me check in (although, I would like to mention that I followed all the directions I had been given.)

However, I got incredibly lost on the way, and dragged all my luggage through the wrong neighborhood for about twenty minutes until a very nice man showed me a map on his phone.  Since I got to the apartment about two hours later than I expected, the woman I was supposed to meet there was not actually there.  And I had no way to contact her because I couldn't get anywhere.  So I waited on the steps in front of this locked building for about ten or so minutes, then I rang all of the doorbells to the other apartments until a grumpy old man yelled down at me from his balcony.  I tried to explain that I was waiting for Celine but I was just so tired and hungry and I didn't know what words to say.  Then his wife came out and made him let me into the building.

After hearing the ruckus I was causing in the hall, another man came out into the hallway and was like "yeah there was someone supposed to be coming and I was supposed to let her in."  How on earth I was supposed to contact him from outside the building and/or have him know when I got there, I don't know.  But by now I'm crying because I just want into my building and I don't know what else to do.

So the guy calls Celine and she comes over and lets me in and is trying to explain things but I really just want her to go away because I've had enough.

After she leaves, I lay down for a bit and facetime Madison because I like Madison, and she isn't horrible like the rest of my day.  But I still have to go talk to the other apartment people, so eventually I get up and walk there.  That woman makes me sign a whole bunch more paperwork, but moves up the date that I get to move in from next Thursday to this Tuesday-so that's muy bueno.

She also shows me the apartment, for which I apparently need to buy sheets and towels, which I didn't know about.

I leave that building and go to a store that looks like it sells food on the way back.  I bought some applesauce and some of those delicious Little School Boy cookies (but generic because more people eat them here).

Then I lay down again and sleep for 16 hours.