Waouh, Waouh, Waouh, Waouh

That's the sound I've been hearing in my apartment for the past 20 minutes. The Lycee that we share our courtyard with is having a fire drill, and the alarm hasn't been turned off yet. And this is a picture of what I see out my bedroom window. Not zoomed in or anything. This is really how close they are. Can you imagine the dull roar that wakes me up every morning?

Today is the first day that I don't have to get up early and do something scheduled. Not to say that I don't have things to do. I have a million of little oh-yeah-i-need-to-do-that-one-of-these-days types of tasks on my list, so today is a good day to check some of them off.

Well, we've adapted pretty well to our new little apartment. Still finding funny quirks about it almost everyday. For example, our blessed washing machine takes about 4 hours per load, maybe more. How is that possible? And then, if you do a cotton or synthetic load, you can't open it until exactly 3 minutes after the spin cycle is completed. Seriously, there's a sign stating this fact and everything. Up until yesterday we had only 1 mirror in the whole place, but we remedied that by buying a cheap full length gilded framed one from Tati (french version of the dollar store), only to truck it home and realize that a) we have no place to put it b)we have no materials - nails, hammer etc - to hang it and c) even if we did have the stuff to hang it with, our housing contract says we can't put holes in the walls. Soooo, its just sort of resting near the couch for now. It works okay, except its too low, so we can only see about chest down. But that's fine 'cause the bathroom mirror is chest up. Haha! Like I said, getting to know (and love) the quirks.

Yesterday I had my orientation meeting for the all the English Language Assistants in Hauts-de-Seine area (a subdivision of L'Academie de Versailles). There was about 60 of us. About half American, a quarter British and the other quarter was South African, Australian, New Zealandian, Irish, Scottish, Caribean, etc. Fun to meet other kids our age who are going through the same stuff. We exchanged numbers and plan to hang out. There's just something about being an anglophone in France that helps you naturally bond. Something having to do with being totally out of your element, I think, even though a lot of us had been here before for extended periods of time. Eh voila!