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Published: September 6th 2009
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Saturday
My hands are raw and sore from lugging around over 100lbs of suitcases. My shoulders ache from carrying my huge back pack and sitting uncomfortably on the plane. I’ve now been awake for 32 hours. The departure from YVR went smoothly and tearlessly. After gathering our luggage at the strasbourg airport, we hailed a taxi (the driver laughed at home much luggage we had) and headed off to our first stop :
le cité universitaire Robertsau, soon to be home to Taryn and me.
I went into the residence office to find out what we need to do to get our keys while Taryn and Katherine watched our bags outside. The office was busy and the woman who helped me get my keys also taught me
cultural difference #1 : where Canadians are polite and eager to help, the french are abrupt and with hold information to make you feel stupid (at least that’s how they come across!) This also leads me to
cultural difference #2 : In France indecision isn’t tolerated. If you’re asked for something, you better know what you want. The lady asked me if Taryn and I wanted rooms on the same floor and I
said "it doesn’t matter." She asked me again in an unpleasant tone "so do you want the same floor or not ?" (
en français of course)
So after being fully frightened by the rez lady (who meant well of course) we searched out our rooms. From first glance, they seemed to be gross and worse than I had expected. I picked the 3ieme étage because I don’t mind taking the stairs however taking the stairs to the third floor with hundreds of pounds of luggage is not fun.
Cultural difference #3 : No elevators. When I got to my room I found out my fridge and blinds didn’t work so I went back to the office and got a new room, one room away from Taryn.
Cultural difference #4 : offices are closed from 12-2pm for lunch. How anyone can spend 2 hours at lunch and then come back to work is beyond me, but that’s what they do here. The rooms are pretty decent. They have a little alcove with a sink, a small fridge, desk, book shelve above the bed, and a closet type thing for clothes. There’s a heater under my desk right at my feet.
It’s a nice foot rest but kind of makes me wonder how many times I will burn my feet in the winter… Although the room has a sink, the bathrooms don’t. Okay, this detail I guess I can handle.
Cultural difference # 5 that I can’t handle : no toilet paper or seat. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m supposed to bring my own toilet paper to the bathroom in a place that supposed to be my home ! The washrooms, well I guess that can’t be called that since there is no sink, the toilettes leave much to be desired and the showers are no improvement. They have a button you have to push and they turn off after 20 seconds, like showers at the pool. Hmm…well see how this works out. I did meet a really nice girl from Normandy on my floor named Morgan. She helped me out at the rez office when I was traying to explain that the blinds were broken but couldn’t remember the word for it (
rideau if you were wondering).
Then we dragged Katherine’s stuff back downstairs and decided to walk down a few blocks to
an area with some stores in attempt to find a taxi. We didn’t see any taxis though so we walked over to the tram stop (which runs all over the city, similair to our skytrain system) and I asked a girl how to buy tickets. We managed to tram to Katherine’s residence without any trouble. We stoped at a student cafeteria next to her rez and grabbed a coke. I asked one of the students there where we could find wireless access and he told me about a cafe downt he street that had it. He was leaving as we were so he offered to show us where it was (not all French people are unhelpful!) I also aked if he knew how to get to Ikea and a puzzled look came over his face. I said " a store for furniture and household things ..Ikea ?" Then he said "ooh you mean
eeekea." Apparently we even pronounce Ikea differently, who would have known?
After that we went to Katherine’s room, which is
huge and in a super old building, and dropped off her bags. We then went to the cafe and looked up how to get to Ikea.
The washrooms in the cafe were disgusting, which I’m starting to think is a trend in this country. We were all starting to feel a bit sick and really tired at this point but we got back on the tram and headed to the shuttle to Ikea anyways. There we made our way as quickly as possible through the store and got bedding, dishes, lamps, etc. Ikea was pretty much the same as in Canada except (suprise) the washrooms didnt have toitlet seats either. We had dinner at Ikea and then trudged back to the shuttle and tram. Katherine got off at her stop and we time the trip to ours and it only takes 15 minutes. Our rez is in a nice location by the river, the European Union, and the human rights court. Sunday most stores will be closed but we are planning on walking around to see what’s near our residence.
Sunday
This morning I woke up at 5am, did a few things and then went back to bed for another 3 hours. Then I went for a run and found a grocery store and spots centre on the way. Hopefully the gym has a
pool. I'll have to check this week.
Taryn and I met up with Katherine for lunch and then we found our school so we'd know where to go for orientation tomorrow. Only a very small number of restaurants and little markets are open. Now I'm sitting at a café eating pistachio ice cream (which is delicious) and catching up on my emails!
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amy
non-member comment
wow!
it's so beautiful there! that's so weird about the toilet seat and toilet paper =P im glad you guys got there no prob. anyways, good luck!