One full week in Rouen

Well, it's been 9 days since I left home (is that it?  I feel like I left years ago, in a lot of ways...) and a full week since I've arrived in Rouen.  I can't believe that lugging those heavy bags was so recently -- my body has finally recovered from the memory my traveling backpack and my rolling suitcase, of my big carry on and my purse, of how sweaty and gross I was that first day here.  Phew.

I now have 3 fulltime roommates, with another one arriving Saturday, I guess.  So, in grand total, there is a girl from Mexico, a girl from Costa Rica, a girl from China (Xiao Lu, whom I mentioned earlier), and Florence, the older woman (aka my late night tv watching partner) is still here.  She's leaving tomorrow, and I'm sad about that.  Though, I had a bit of an exciting time when she first re-arrived.  See, when I got here, she had left for a few days to wrap up business in her hometown, and she left her bedroom door open.  I noticed that she had a little plastic drawer unit that I did not, but I figured she brought it herself.  But once I realized that some of the other rooms had such units as well, creating valuable storage space that I did not have, I borrowed hers.  She was gone for an indeterminable amount of time and no one quite knew when she was coming back or when she was leaving for good.  So, anyways, I borrowed hers.  Less than five minutes after I placed it in my room, she returned, and noticed it was gone.  So I have now stealthily (pure stealth) placed that unit in the bathroom, and I am planning on sneaking it back after she leaves, I guess.  How silly it all is, really.

Anyways, I have now successfully obtained a cell phone (and received exactly one (1) call on it!), and mostly opened a bank account.  We're going back at 2 today to finish signing papers, etc, so assuming all goes well, which it very well might not, I should be able to be paid toward the end of October, which will be very welcome.  Yesterday, we opened an internet account for wifi in our apartment, and that should be set up "within the next two weeks."  Cross your fingers, folks, because I'm really craving me some wireless.  Also, I really want to put up pictures that I've been taking.  I've taken over 90 since I've been here, and I even have selected which ones I want to put up on my blog for you all to see. 

But for now, I wait in patience.

In other news, last night I stayed up late (til 11:30 pm!) watching a documentary in German, dubbed over/subtitled in French, about the history of sex and sexuality in Germany in the 40s through the 70s.  It was very interesting, actually, and they talked about the pill's debut and the Christian resistance to it, and there was some stuff about Communism.  And they kept mentioning Marx but I don't know exactly what he had to do with anything, really.  Oh well.

And this morning, like yesterday morning, I watched 7th Heaven in French.  Life is good.

Until the next time,