Well, it’s hotter than it was in Paris, and the program-provided housing has no air-conditioning. I arrived a little after my roommate, so apparently I walked in on him changing. No I didn’t see anything, because he ran into the closet behind the door. He introduced himself as Justin. He’s going to be a Junior political science major, and he’s from Florida but goes to UCLA. The room itself wasn’t so bad. Basic double with two twins, a desk, etc. you get the picture (literal picture right here).
We were on the fourth floor, or troisieme etage, which is third floor in french since the French start their floors at zero. The next hour we spent together consisted of complaining about the heat and coming up with ingenious ways to abate it. We went from opening the window, to closing the window, the blinds, and turning off all the lights. We also tried leaving the water running and opening both the windows and the doors to create a wind tunnel, but we felt guilty about the wasted water. Our ideas eventually converged into a cold shower, which lead to us asleep for three hours.
I woke up to a knock on our door. This “young lady” informed us that our first meeting was starting “now” and we needed to get down there. As we headed towards the room, I could help but wonder how many people were in the Language and Culture program. Me and Justin had discussed this before, and he mentioned there was a facebook page consisting of 65 fans, so we assumed there’d be more participants than that since not everyone has facebook right? Well, it turns out there’s only 13 students in our program. I also happen to be the first person from UCM to participate in this program, something Christine Ebnother had to point out very coyly to the rest of the group. Go figure. GO BOBCATS! =P
Lots of reminders and cautionary tales were passed around during this meeting. Thankfully nothing heavier occurred since most of us were beat. After it ended, we went down and ate dinner in the canteen. It was light and simple, small entrée, light hot dish, and dessert. I had a loaf of stiff bread, some kind of pea salad that had a slice of egg on top of it, and battered fish with fried rice. Dessert was this interesting pastry: a dry custard crème between two pastry puffs, the top puff decorated with a set crème frosting. I ate it with my hands. It was so-so for my first pastry from France. Dinner conversation was also so-so; you know the awkward first meeting kind of conversation. Christine was there too, so more tales of students gone wild and what happens to students when they start a new life abroad (from her stories it seems like we turn into a freshman again).
As we finished with dinner, people started discussing what to do their first night in the program. I set myself aside since I knew the outcomes could only involve alcohol (they went to a club). The boys and girls split up into their respective genders, and I went for a walk.My original intention was to head towards the river, but I got turned around and ended up sitting in a small metropolitan park, the kind with more cement than trees. It was nice, and I took some of the city in from that bench as the sun set and the shadows turned the landscape into a familiar unknown. The park eventually emptied out and I found myself getting frigid. I looked around for a bus stop map to regain my bearings. Public transportation works pretty much the same everywhere.
The city itself seemed large, from what I found that night. There were many one-way streets, many tall buildings, surprisingly only a small amount of business activity going on (but of course it was late{ish}). Once in awhile you’d encounter that same familiar stench, the kind all metropolitan areas sport. The tram was still running, but it was n’importe quoi. I was in no rush. The weather was turning, and there was some sprinkling. It was a nice change, a nice cool down from the scary heat we had before. The streets seem isolated to me. Things are narrow here. They don’t mind it being like that, or maybe that’s the only direction they can move in. I found my way back eventually, it felt like it was midnight by the time I got there. With nothing left to do, I put my affairs in order and went to bed.
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