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Published: September 22nd 2007
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Marseille
View of Marseille, taken from the airplane. Dearest friends,
As most of you have already heard, I finally made it to the beautiful Avignon! The trip was long... on Tuesday night, 18. of September, I flew from Tampa directly to London, and that flight was amazing; I had the whole row to myself so I was even able to lay down and rest. Then, however, I had to spend 6 hours in London, waiting for my connecting flight to Marseille, and those 6 hours spent in London were horrible. First of all, dollar is twice as expensive in the UK, so I was charged a little over 40 dollars for the 20 punds I took out. Second of all, all the restaurants had breakfast food out (and it was noon time!), so that was frustrating when I wanted to have lunch, and also it was very crowded with a very few places to sit at. I guess I was just too cranky, but as you can see, I did not like being in London, and couldn't wait to leave.
So, then, I arrived to Marseille and on that flight I slept pretty much the whole time. I was lucky that all of my bags came
Marseille
Another view of Marseille - from the bus this time on time, so once I received them, I went straight to look for a bus which was going to take me from the train station in Marseille. By the time I got to the bus stop with my 2 huge suitcases, the bus had already left and I had to wait for another one which came prety quickly. I finally got on the bus and arrived to the train station within the 20 minutes. But then, I had to look for a train to Avignon and wasn't really sure where to go, so I just stood in this one line and when it was my turn to go up to the counter and talk to the rep., I just told him that I have to get to Avignon, and pretty much zoned out while he was speaking to me. He gave me some kind of a discounted pass so I only paid 5 euros for that ticket. The other funny thing was that I had to contact the lady at whose house I'm staying now, and I had no idea of how I was going to do that, so I talked to one of the security officers there and he
Marseille
Marseille - from the bus called the lady from his own cell which was very nice. When I answered the phone the first thing she asked me was if I was Indian (she concluded this because of my foreign name), and when I told her I wasn't she was disappointed because she had prepared Indian food for me. Getting on the train itself was a pain because of my luggage, but luckly again, there was a guy who helped me carry them into the train. So because it had already gotten dark outside, and they weren't announcing the strain stations' names as we were stopping, I had no idea when we would stop in Avignon. There was one lady on the train who had mentioned that she was going to Avignon, so I just followed her when she got off. Then, I had another problem with my bags, which was to get them off before the train took off. So I managed to do all of that somehow, and once I got out, there was no one at the station, which made me FREAK OUT, because I wasn't 100% sure I got off at the right station. Then I saw one person who confirmed that
Train to Avignon
Me with my heavy luggage on the train to Avignon I was, in fact, in Avignon, and soon enough I saw Micaela (lady I'm staying with) who came to pick me up. Right away she wanted me to see Avignon by night so we drove around for sometime before heading to her house. She is such an amazing lady, former English teacher, who used to accomodate many assistants in the past, so she is very familiar with my program.
The very next day, I met up with other assistants (there were 5 of us at the time), and we began exploring the town and doing errands together. One of the assistants is actually a UVA graduate from '04, and we both were astonished to find that out. Later on that day, we went to look for housing... one of the places we were taken to by a lady from one of the schools was very old, but close to my school. Because it is a private house and an old lady lives in it, I wasn't sure if I wanted to accept that. So then, we went to look at this nice apartment in the city's center, which was affordable and nice, and I was willing to accept it,
First French Breakfast
Prepared by Micaela :-) but when they found out that I have a shorter contract than the other assistants, they increased the rate, which then became too high for me. I was very dissapointed when this happened, but Micaela encouraged me, and she said that she is going to help me find more housing options over the weekend, so I hope one of those works out. Also we went to open bank accounts which you can't do without an official proof of housing, but you can't even get housing without writing a deposit check to the landlord, and for the check, of course, you need a bank account! I've never in my whole life experienced anything like this, and because of reasons like this one I perfer US over Europe. I must confess that French are kind of lazy and like to complicate things which could be very simple. I also went to my school today and they don't even have a schedule for me yet, much less housing arrangements - this would have never happend in the US.
Ok now, don't think that everything is bad here... Avignon is an AMAZING town, and I LOVE it! It's small enough that you can
Avignon
Place de Pie! walk everywhere, but big enough to see/do all kinds of things. I am also very excited about going around and visiting all of the surrounding towns, going on wine tours, and traveling outside of the country as much as possible if I can afford it. Also, as I mentioned before, the assistants are amazing and we are all getting along well.
Ok, so that's it from me now... I hope you didn't get bored by reading this. I will stay in touch, and I would also love to hear back from you!
Take care,
Darija
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Sruti
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Darija! I'm so glad you're having a great time so far in Avignon! Good luck with finding housing =)