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The flight from Phoenix to Philly took 3 days. At least, if I were a betting man that's how long I would bet we were in the air. The flight OVER France to Frankfurt, though, wasn't nearly as bad. Finally, after having fun sitting in the airport listening to Spanish, Italian, German and English announcements I was able to take the final flight to Paris. From the airport I hit Gare de Lyon and those damned pay toilets with all my damned luggage. I met Betsy by the track and again the waiting ensued as we sat there, waiting, for the TGV. It was after 10 p.m. when we arrived in Montpellier. Betsy's suitcase wheel had broken so I decided, stupidly, to switch bags with her so she could take one that didn't drag. Eric had come to meet us and take us to Vert Bois, so Betsy rolled my sort of heavy suitcase and I carried her heavy ass suitcase out to the car. The drive to the dorms was very confusing and when we got there, we had to go all the way to the back to building E, all the way up to the 7th floor, to room number 13. On a lucky floor in an unlucky room, that was the beginning of my year. |
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September was hell. It's usually about the 3rd month that really wears down on you when you study abroad. The problem was I had already done that in Pau. My first month here was my reintegration period. Instead of getting to France and spending my first couple months trying to figure out what the hell everybody was saying, I already understood.....a good portion of what I heard. Soo, instead of just ignoring most everything around me, I actually tried to understand everything I heard which is extremely tiring and irritating to a person who is used to understanding everything instantaneously.
This was also the month of pre-stage: 2 weeks of class for 5 days a week and 2 weeks of class for 6 days a week. Now granted, I had recently been through an entire semester of non-stop French classes, but those were at least designed to teach you something. Pre-stage, on the other hand, could be best described as a nice refresher course for those who were already quite versed in the French language. I, unfortunately, wasn't quite versed enough in French to derive any real benefit from these classes.
Despite all my difficulties, I managed to get through 2 entire weeks before I got extremely ill. Had I not needed to eventually eat or go to the bathroom I would have slept an entire 72 hours straight. These were literally the only 2 reasons I got out of bed and I made sure that it was for as short a time as possible. Two days after the weekend ended I quit pre-stage. I was the first one to do so, ever, and nobody was quite sure what to do about it. |
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