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Published: October 5th 2007
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Salsa night!
At the salsa night with the girls. Dearest friends,
I hope that you all are doing well. I'm glad to hear that many of you have read and enjoyed my previous blog entry; your responses keep me motivated to continue writing. :-)
So, it has been a little over 2 weeks since I arrived to France, and it feels like yesterday.... time, indeed, flies by quickly! I have finally settled into my new residence; I'm renting a room at an old lady's house, which is in the center of the city, and a block away from my school (talk about convenience!). Moreover, 2 of my friends are living in the same house with me, and we have our own kitchen and a bathroom which is pretty nice. Initially, I didn't want to live in a private home, but this was the cheapest deal I was able to find, and considering its location and the fact that we barely ever see the lady, I've decided to go for it.
I also managed to open the bank account, and I finally completed the whole paperwork nightmare which makes me really happy. There are many people in the program, and surprisingly enough, a ton of us live
Moi
At Micaela's house in Avignon (this includes assistants of German, Spanish, Italian and other languages). Since everything is so difficult to accomplish, and some of us don't speak French as well as others, we helped each other a lot with the administrative stuff, and pretty much went in groups to open bank accounts, get cell phones, look for housing, etc. Despite all of the craziness, however, we sure did have some great times. Last weekend a group of us got together, bought food (cheese, wine, chocolate - the French style) and had a picnic by the river, overlooking the city's most famous monuments, like Palais de Papes, Pont d'Avignon, etc; it was amazing! Morever, one night we went out to an outside salsa dancing party; it was very interesting to dance salsa and drink mojitos in France, but I wasn't complaining! :-)
So on Tuesday of this week, I went to an orientation in Marseille which our program had prepared for us. This orientation was the most disorganized event I've ever participated in! First of all, they send us vague schedules via e-mail on where to go in Marseille... I should clarify this, some people get the addresses, and others don't. They
didn't even bother to provide us with any directions even though they were fully aware that a bunch of foreigners are coming to this huge city, trying to find where to go. Everyone's schedules were also different, and they had some of us stay at a hotel for 2 nights, while others weren't provided with that luxury. I, however, had a priviledge of being put into a hotel room with one of my friends. The hotel wasn't the greatest, but it was good enough, as we had a bed to sleep on and a bathroom.
On Tuesday morning a group of us from Avignon caught a train (TGV) which took about 30 min. to get to Marseille. When we got to Marseille, we had hard time finding this building where our meeting was, but we finally managed to find it without being terribly late. So the meeting was totally pointless, and say that it was pointless because the answer to every question we asked was "it depends on your school." After that was over, we had the rest of the afternoon free so we took a boat ride around Marseille and its islands. It was an absolutely gorgeous day,
Avignon
The walls around the city's center and the area was amazing - I took many pictures. That evening, the program did provide us with a dinner at a restaurant, which was really nice. At dinner we got to meet each other assistants from the Academy, mostly Americans, as they had divided us into groups according to the language we were teaching. That night after getting back to the hotel, people from our group decided to go out, but my friend Emily and I just passed out because we were so tired.
The next day, however, more people came to Marseille as we had events every day for about 3 days. Some of our friends who weren't provided with housing during the orientation spent the night in our room, so it all worked out fine. So on Wednesday, all of us Americans had another meeting with a consul of the US, which my friends and I almost missed because we were told that the consul wasn't coming until 11 AM, but she came at 10:30 AM, and we were late. After that was over, we decided to take another boat ride, and this time, to visit the Chateau d'If (famous prison island from the Count of
Picnic
Assistants having a picnic by the river Monte Christo). The visit to the castle was AmAzInG! We pretty much explored the whole place, and took many pictures of all the nice views. The castle is mostly devoted to the novel, and not so much to French history and architecture. However, I still liked it a lot because I'm a big fan of the novel. :-) That night after another dinner at the restaurant we went out to bars in a large group, and that was so much fun; I seriously felt like I was on vacation during those days in Marseille.
The last day in Marseille was not as fun, at least the beginning of the day, because we had to walk far to find this place where we all had to turn in our paperwork. Then, we had a few other meetings where they talked to us about how important our jobs are, etc., etc. and we got to meet some important people in their ministry of education. Those meetings were so boring and pointless, so all of us became restless and started acting really immature; we laughed and passed notes to each other the entire time. A few hours before we were going to
Avignon
A beautiful view of the city! leave for Avignon we went to explore the city, and in search of a beach, we came accross this amazing park on a hill which overlooks the ocean and the entire city, so we just hung out there for some time, talked, took pictures and finally arrived to Avignon at about 9 PM on Thursday.
So this weekend I don't have too many plans except to rest and mentally prepare for teaching which should start next week, even though they haven't given me a schedule. On Sunday, I'm planning on going to church which I found here (Saints Cosmas and Damian Orthodox Church under the Patriarchate of Constantinople). I went to the chruch last Sunday, and I really liked it. It's very small, and there's no one my age, but I'm still happy that there's a church I can go to. The entire liturgy was in French, which was sooo interesting to me, as I have never heard any of the chants sang in French; it sounds really beautiful. This sunday they are having an ordination, and I'm super excited to see that.
As you have heard me say before, I really, really enjoy living in this town;
Marseille
A view of Chateau d'If from the boat! it is seriously one of the most beautiful places I've seen. Even though Marseille is nice, I think that it's way too big and noisy, and I wouldn't perfer living there. Avignon has everything that one would need for living; its history is very rich and there are a ton of young people around, so it's very fun.
So, I hope you have enjoyed reading this entry. I'm sorry that it was kind of long; I hope you weren't too bored. :-) Please stay in touch; I would love to hear from you!
Love,
Darija
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Miruna
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I'm so jealous! Keep having an amazing time so that I can live vicariously through you! ;-)