If they can get it done in one phone call, why not try three?

I finally made it into Aix-en-Provence, my final destination.  Will and I took the TGV from Paris to Aix which was a very fun experience.  The trains are well kept and never cross any roads, anywhere so there have never been any accidental deaths due to the trains.  I thought this was especially smart of the French.

My admiration was quickly forgotten once I had made it to campus and discovered that the French tend not to be concerned about efficiency.  We got to my grouping of dorms where the information office gave us a piece of paper and then told us we have to walk across campus to pay for the rent.  Why couldn't they take payments there?  I'm still not sure.  There was a slight miscommunication about my rent which translated into countless phone calls, information that I was never given or told about, and quite a lot of time walking back and forth from the dorm office to the payment center.  To top it all off, it was raining, hard, all day long which I was told rarely happens in Aix, but I guess we just got lucky.

And so, wet, tired, and beginning to understand the inner workings of French bureaucracies, Will and I finally made it to my dorm room.  Which was another learning experience altogether.  There is a sink in my room with two faucets, one hot, one cold.  This did not seem so odd until I turned it on and realized that I will never have lukewarm water, it will always be ice cold or dangerously hot.  So I'm going to have to figure out how to juggle between the two so as not to get seriously scalded.  

Also strange, the French have an apparent fear of drawers.  There are no drawers, just open shelves, everywhere.

Another interesting factoid.  The bathrooms are down the hall.  The toilet paper, you have to buy on your own, and the sinks are in your room.  So using the bathroom is quite the journey: grab the toilet paper, in preferably a less obvious way than just the roll, go to the bathroom, go back to your room to wash your hands.  Its exhausting!

There are a couple redeeming factors of my room: I have a perfect view of downtown Aix from my window, for a single, the room is somewhat spacious, and it has a mirror and and fridge, both of which I was not expecting.

Will and I then wandered down to the newer part of town which has a Monoprix, kind of like a Target but with better grocery options, an H&M, and a very lovely fountain which made me very happy.

It will be an adjustment, one which I'm sure will take some time, and like the French, quite a few phone calls.

Elise