Adventures in France: First Few Days in Rouen

Bonjour! Sorry for taking forever to write on this blog. In order to get internet in my room I need a France cell phone number, and in order to get a France number you need to be able to speak French!! (who knew.) So I finally went to the cell phone company with a group of people and between all of us and our knowledge of French (mostly Elina) we got our cell phones and some sort of plan (I say "some sort" because all of the details are in French so not 100% sure what the plan includes...BUT at least I have a phone!..and internet!)

So I'll start from day 1! Arrival at the airport: My airplane ended up being delayed 1.5 hours so I went through a huge hassel to call my french taxi driver picking me up, and papa ended up having to call him but never the less I ended up in France with my French driver awaiting with a sign saying "Rouen Business School". He took me to his taxi where I hopped on in. I was told that the driver would be able to speak English (no dice). I tried communicating via French, and again, no dice, so conversation was limited but he was very nice. We drove to another terminal to pick up Noora and Maija from Finland. We then ended up driving to another terminal where the driver said something in French and Noora who speaks french told me that he was telling me to get in the cab infront of me. So I hopped in that cab. Then before I knew it, he had pulled out a knife (not a butter knife, a REAL knife, and I started to PANIC), then he started peeling an apple or something...all is good. We then ended up picking up 6 students from Morocco and he drove us 1.5 hours to Rouen. Once in Rouen, he took us on a driving tour of the downtown area and took us to a look-off point of the city: here is a picture of moi et un etudient from Morocco:

I was then dropped off at my residence and was given my key and taken to Le Chateau (no..not the store, the administrative building which happens to be a castle!!). I got registered and then hopped on a shuttle to Carrefour (the France equivalent to Walmart) to buy food and dishes for my room. I had only been in my room for 2 minutes so I wasn't sure what it was equipped with so I just bought the bear minimum. I then headed back to residence and guess what..my luggage hadn't arrived yet...and apparently ALL of the luggage had been delivered (Uh oh!!!!). The French students helping us move in were still there so they called around and my luggage was dropped off at the wrong residence, so it was brought to me (yay!!). I spent the night unpacking and went to bed at 9pm, and woke up at 10:30am the next morning (je suis fatigue then..forget passive tense right now hahaha)

Le Chateau

Day 2: Woke up and got ready to head to Carrefour again. Apparently we're not supplied with pillows so yet again another pillowless night (I think pillows must hate me). I walked about half way to campus (whole walk is about 10min), then realized I forgot my Carrefour bags (they don't give you bags at Carrefour, you need to buy the environmentally friendly ones). So I walked back (I should mention it's pouring rain right now), got my bags, walked halfway back to campus again realizing I needed my passport in order to get a cell phone at Carrefour, so back to res I walked. FINALLY having everything I needed (and a change of socks later) I headed back to campus, and of course made one wrong turn and ended up lost. I walked about twenty minutes one way (I don't know what I was thinking, I knew it was only a 10min walk), then decided to back track, and I finally found the castle. I hopped on a shuttle and was the only one so I had my own personal driver named Constantine (he's a student at my school and plays rugby for RBS...I've now been roped into watching every rugby game every Thursday..what is rugby again?). He was very nice and told me the ropes of Rouen and he watches How I Met Your Mother (I told him I was from Canada and he asked me if I knew who Robin was...but of course!!). I told him I was going to buy a cell phone and he said no one at the cell phone place speaks English so he came in with me but the line was so long so I didn't even bother.

After shopping I came back to res and my neighbor Julie had just moved in. She's from York Uni in Ontario and she came with her friend Rasha so back to Carrefour we went! We then met our neighbours Roxie from England, Elina from Finland, Shumin from China, and Mikael from Finland. We had a little potluck of food for supper and then got ready for the welcome party. We all met in the common room of my res where everyone turned up and then we bused to downtown where we went to La Luna nightclub. There we met so many people from all over the world...and of course more Canadians!

Here's a picture of Rasha, me, Elina and Julie waiting outside the club:

Thumbs up for being Canadian:


Blurry picture of the disco. Fun fact: discos in Rouen are open until 5:30am or 6:30am. We left at 2:30am...and we were the first to leave. I think Halifax has some competition.

Day 3: Orientation at 10am (blah blah blah describes that), then lunch, then the forum where I bought insurance, bus cards, and opened up bank accounts. Then headed to Carrefour (yet again) and got cell phones...then internet! Bought some more stuff for my room, then headed back to res and just lounged around for a bit, then nighty night.

Day 4 (Today): Woke up (with no voice!!), headed to French lessons for 9:00. I am in the very beginner level (A1-1). I was in a class with 9 other students who most had NEVER spoken a word of French before (a lot of them from Singapore) and here I was with 9 years of French background in school. Because I had no voice I couldn't answer any of the questions, and the first question my teacher asked us was "What words do you know in French?". Oh mon dieu, I wanted to speak so bad but I couldn't!! Then we learned the alphabet (AHHH get me out of here). Then finally after lunch (side note: we went to a market and got baguettes and ate outside on benches, with pigeons...had to add that last part because it sounds European, ci?) Then after lunch I finally got fed up and tried whispering the answers whenever they were asked and the teacher finally asked me if I wanted to move up to the next level (Merci!!!!!!)...but there was only one hour left of lessons so I didn't want to have to explain my no voice situation to another professor so I just stuck out the rest, and learned how to count to 100.

After lessons we went out to supper in downtown Rouen. We explored for a bit then found a little whole in the wall and ate delicious pasta and pizza! Then we went to a pub and got a glass of wine. Got home at about 12 and there was a res party going on a floor below me so we decided to go check it out. Here are some pictures!