Well, this is a little cramped

So, I'll be completely honest: this has not been the smoothest ride in the world. I'm still not completely comfortable here and it's taking me a while to get acclimated. Angers itself has changed a LOT since I was here in 2008 (i.e., they're laying train tracks down the center of the road) and some of the restaurants and stores have closed down or are remodeled in some way or another. But I keep telling myself that my blargh-ness will get better over the next couple of days as I start classes and basically get a life. Hopefully my french will too because it's sucking pretty hard right now. Thank goodness I'm planning on taking "expression orale" so I can stop stuttering, haha.

Okay, so, packing: My bag ended up being 45 pounds even and I took a backpack and a small duffel bag as my carry ons. Packing actually wasn't as hard as I expected it to be, although I procrastinated a LOT before finally biting the bullet and doing it. I only used one spacebag for some fluffy sweaters and my thermal pajamas and I rolled everything else. I really tried hard, too, to bring tops that I could wear with more than one "outfit." There are really only one or two tops that are clearly going-out shirts. I have some dressier/cuter ones too, in addition to the standard v-neck long sleeve cotton tops, that can be worn under cardigans to dress them down for daytime. I'm still going to have to hit up H&M in the near future to get some serious sweaters. No matter how many layering peices I have, it's still 32 degress on a sunny day. And my room is like, insanely cold because the floor is legit tile. I'm going to have to handwash a bunch of this stuff in my sink, too. Yes, there is a laundromat nextdoor, but I'm sure it's insanely expensive so I don't want to be there every other day.

I also brought, against vehement protests, about 8 books (Harry Potter and the Socerer's Stone, in french; my Bescherelle french verb conjugation guide; Hittleman's 28-day yoga guidebook; Other Voices, Other Vistas, a collection of short stories from around the world; Life of Pi; Books 1 and 2 of the Vampire Diaries; Ender's Game; a YA romance during Hitler's Reich; and a 2010 student travel guide to Europe). I like to read. A lot. And I know I'm going to read all of these, especially on any train rides. I also brought a bunch of DVDs (P&P, Star Trek, season 2 of the Office, 300, Finding Nemo, etc) but I put them in one of those car visor CD holders so they all lay flat in my suitcase and took up absolutely no space at all. I only brought 3 pairs of shoes and plan to buy a pair of boots while I'm here, which I believe will help me fit in better.

So, the dorm/foyer. When I got here, apparently the nun was out so I ended up banging on the door for a good 5 minutes until some girls needing to smoke a cigarette came out and found me. They asked where my key was and I just gestured to my luggage and said that I was new and didn't have a key. When the nun finally came, she took me to my room, gave me the most random selection of sheets, and left without telling me the time for dinner or breakfast or what the passcode to the internet was. I got the latter from some moroccan girls eating lunch who wanted me to say something in english. Everybody's french here is so insanely good. Like fluent. I guess the other CIDEF students haven't gotten here yet? Or they're all living with host families...either way, I'm ready for classes to start so I can catch up. My room has its own shower and sink, and i have a bed, a closet, and some shelves, but other than that it is TINY. The floor has 8-inch square tiles, my room (the part with the bed and desk, excluding the shower area and closet) is 11x15.5, so 7.33'x10.33'. Luckily, I'm short!

James and I went out around 7 to walk around and I had completely forgotten that like, EVERYTHING closes on sundays. It felt like we were walking through a ghost town, but it was good for me to get out and see Angers again because I just wasn't feeling good about this whole situation. Today I'm going to monoprix to get some groceries and toiletries and look for some stuff for the room. Like a lamp, and some more towels. I feel the need to do all this in stages so that I don't set off alarms like "HEY--I'M AN EXCHANGE STUDENT, I'M NAIVE AND EASY TO COERCE!"

Anywho, I haven't really felt the urge to take pictures yet, but I'm sure I will soon.