Jour Trois

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Day 3 en France

After my restless night I woke up around 9 to get ready and eat since I had to be at the bank at 11. I left a little after 10 thinking it would take me longer to get there and sadly it took about 10 minutes. So with some time to kill I wandered around the shopping square in Longwy. I went to a magazine shop where they sold newspapers, magazines, cards and other items. After wandering around the store for awhile looking at all of the dvds and books in french titles that were originally american blockbusters I came across some calendars. Yesterday I realized I should probably have a wall calendar of some sort. Here were my options: Men 2010....yup, pictures of men. Michael Jackson King of Pop (and there were like a billion copies of this one) and as much as I love MJ I didn’t buy it...and one last black and white french calendar that was 5 euros. Yes that one was the choice. This calendar was a good one since it had vacation dates already on it. After waiting around for awhile I went to the bank and opened an account where the woman spoke no English and told me about some of the other exchange students and some of their issues with money in France. Honestly I didn’t understand much of that story much I smiled and nodded politely and tried to ask her as many questions so I understood what was going on. She was great. I told her that none of my visas worked here and she looked at them and to my dismay told me that it was probably because they all lack a certain chip that the French visas now have for security purposes. So I cannot use my visas here in Longwy and I have no idea, possibly not even in France. I might try an ATM in Luxembourg or Belgium because not being able to access my money at home is going to be a huge problem. And its not just taking out money from an ATM like I can’t make in store purchases either. Shoot.

After the bank I stopped off at school to use the computers and made a pretty poor introduction to two French ladies as I left. I came back to my apartment, had some bread, butter and rondele (this cheese spread) and for some reason I laid down and took a two hour nap. Which made me think of something staci in her blog as she is teaching english in China...being in a foreign country is exhausting. I guess I was tired. In less than an hour, I am meeting up with Vero to go washing machine shopping (the school is getting us one I think) then we are going to check out the bus/train schedules for my trip to Metz tomorrow. She also invited me over for dinner so I’m excited about that. I’ll probably go back to the school tonight to use the internet or wander down to the Mcdonalds and use their internet.

Pictures are soon to come. I think my view of Longwy from my bedroom window is what’s keeping me here. Until next time, love to all.

A bientot (see you later).

Metz, Oktoberfest, Munich and a 15 hour train ride

Oktoberfest was awesome.

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