Oh my God. I really hope today was the most stressful day of the trip. There were several times that I thought I was going to go crazy or cry. There were several things on the to-do list today:
1. Go to the Maison des Echanges Internationaux et de la Francophonie, the international office.
2. Go to my residence hall, La Bourgenière, and get my room.
3. Go talk to my IRFFLE program's, my French language learning program, representative.
4. Open a French bank account.
5. Get a French SIM card for my phone.
You'd think that these five things would be simple and easily accomplished in a day. This is maybe true in the United States, but definitely not in France. Everything I tried to do was impossible. I had to get forms signed across the city from people who were not even there to accomplish almost all of these tasks. To summarize, the day was very complicated, to say the least.
On the bright side, I did get a good feel for the city, and I did get my dorm room (eventually). It's small, but there is a lot of storage. The bathroom is hilarious, like one you'd see on a cruise! Here are some pictures of my room, and one picture (just for you, mom) of a Three Kings Cake that I ate today.