Monday, February 02, 2009

Hello again!

This is my second night here in Paris and at the moment, my feelings are a bit… well… confused, perhaps? These first two days have been quite hard. Ok, it started pretty well. I had a nice last morning at home before going to the airport. Everything went fine there too and the plane arrived on time in Paris. I even found my hostel almost directly! I shared a room with two other girls, one from Bresil, who was only spending the weekend in Paris, and the other one from Germany who also were an Erasmus-student. She’s not going to study at the same university as I am, though.

But I was right. I did feel very homesick the first night. Or maybe not exactly homesick, but more like pain of going away from all the people at home. Half a year without them. That seems like a very, very long time.

I didn’t sleep so well that night either. The walls weren’t that thick so I woke up every time someone walked in the staircase or walked through a door. And it was actually freezing in the room. I was really happy about the thick pyjama-trousers made of fleece that my parents gave me for Christmas. The german girl had been staying at the hostel for the whole weekend and she said it was usually very hot during the night when 3 people slept in the same small room. So she opened the window. Perhaps not such a good idea after all :)

When we woke up, we understood why it had felt so cold. The snow had started to fall during the night! Actually pretty much of it. We were all like “What?! Snow?! It can’t be!” and the two other girls accused me of bringing the snow with me form Finland. “This is your fault! You brought this here!” they said :D

But still, so far so good... I left my luggage at the hostel and went to Sorbonne to get my studentcard. There I also met Sophie (my friend who also studies history and came to Sorbonne the same time) and we went through the “paperwork” together. It all went much easier than I thought. Too easy. It was when I went to get my keys for the room at the university residence, that the first real problem came along. The coordinator at Sorbonne had the same morning erased my name from the list and given my room to somebody else. Why?! I was confused and so where they at the secretary. They told me I had been on the list last Wednesday but not anymore... At first they tried to call the coordinator, but since it was lunch time, he was out. So they sent me, with my bad French skills to talk to him when he got back at 2pm. He was very confused too and only murmured things I couldn’t understand. He had apparently forgot to send me the confirmation request in December and since I never got it, I wasn’t able to confirm it either. But half an hour later, he had found me another room at the same residence! Thank god! There was actually another name written for the room, but they just wrote my name there in stead. I really hope I didn’t take somebody elses room.

When I had signed one paper at the secretary, they told me I had 45 min to get to the residence to sign the real contract, pay the rent + guarantee and get my keys before they close.
45 min? No problem, I thought. But I ended up running from Gare de Lyon to the residence to make it in time. And once I got there they told me that they didn’t take a card for payment (even though I had specifically asked at the secretary if they take Visa Electon!!) so then I had to run and find a place to take out that “small” amount of money... And that place was in the post office... Very odd... You can imagine how relieved I felt when I went to the hostel and found my luggage still there after all these hours.

Anyway, now I’m finally, happily here in my room. I can’t say it’s pretty, nor clean. But it’s somewhere to sleep the nights. And I can also make my own food here. But the bathroom and toilets are shared with everyone on my floor. And I think that’s the thing I will miss the most this spring: nice, clean and hygienic bathrooms!

But enough for now. Don’t you worry, I wont write as long as this text every time :)

Take good care of yourselves up there. Miss you all!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bra att du kom fram och har överlevt :) Du får tydligen en ny hobby: tvätta wc:n (för att en våga använda den).

Ööh, va störande! Tänk om de int alls sku ha funnits rum!!!

/Marie

Anonymous said...

Bra att du kom säkert fram och att allt ordnade sig till slut!
Visste inte att du har en blogg, ska lägga till den till mina bokmärken och hoppas att du tar massor av bilder i Paris! Jag saknar den staden så otroligt mycket...

(Linda)

Nuuskis said...

Nå, int fanns de ju heller någo rum, dom bara strök över nån annan! Ööh... ja förstår mig int på fransmän... int sen alls... :)

och Linda, ja vill också gärna läsa din blogg om jag får! :)

Anonymous said...

...byråkrati. Skoj, always! Men herrans tur att du nu har tak över huvudet åtminstone!

Tänkte på dej när jag läste om snön i morse - det är ganska typiskt! :D

Skall börja (halv elva på kvällen) tota ihop nåt slags guidning nu, men tänker *så* fortsätta stalka dej här! =P

/ Anna

Anonymous said...

Oj vad kiva att du har en blogg! Jag tänkte just idag att hur har du det där i Paris. :) Vi hade förresten månadsmöte på måndagen o det märktes nog att du var borta. Jag föreslog att vi skall ha en sitz snart, men ingen var riktigt med på noterna att ordna den. "Du kan ju ordna den" sa dom bara. Nå, får se hur det går... :)
/Nina