Yann got up relatively early this morning to visit internet service providers to see who could get him on the net the quickest. By noon he was back and I was still passed out. I was completely deceived though! His windows are covered by huge doors that keep creepy people from wandering into his apartment, but they also block out the sunlight so I thought it was still early.
About an hour later, I was up and about and Yann left for his parents' house on the other side of town. He had just moved into this apartment so he needed to gather the rest of his things. He directed me to an internet cafe just a few doors down and I sat there in a booth completely surrounded by old french men on chat sites. When I finished my work, I went up to the counter to pay with my debit card. The shop owner informed me that he didn't take cards so I pull out my US dollars. He smiled at me, shuffled me out the door so that the next patron could take a seat and said in broken english "Tomorrow! I see you tomorrow."
I walk the 10 seconds back to the apartment and Yann is home a few minutes later with some french bread topped with ham, a cheese that tasted like brie, and spices. We have that for dinner along with some leftover pizza. Once we finished dinner, Yann offered to take me to the university campus so that I would know where to go on Tuesday. Just a 20 minute walk from his apartment through the old part of the city is a huge college campus. It's three universities put merged into one. Université d'Aix Marseille is made of up my school Université Paul Cézanne, Université de Provence, and Université de la Méditerranée. These schools have housed a lot of famous people internationally--mainly politicians and artists.
We got lost on campus so we asked a few people for directions. The first we came across were a pair of Mormon missionaries which reminded me of the time that I was baptised in this church. My parents raised me to believe whatever I thought was right and exposed me to everything by the time I graduated high school. I don't know why I chose to go Mormon other than the fact that the missionaries were super cute. I'm an idiot. I never should have declared anything. If I were to give my faith a name, I'd say I'm agnostic.
We ran into one of Yann's friends shortly after the Elders walked off. This is the first time I witnessed the "bises." French greet their friends with kisses on the cheek. I don't know if I showed it but I was completely horrified because I had forgotten about this custom as well. His friend greeted me and I did this awkward hand wave--hoping that she didn't come anywhere near my face. Ha haha. We followed her directions and finally found the Paul Cézanne administrative building.
At the front desk, Yann is speaking for me and the woman seems confused. She informs us that there is no Institut d' Études Francais pour les Étudiants Étrangers program at her school that she knew of. With that little side note, we journeyed on home and I immediately wrote to the Center for Study Abroad administrators. They assured me that nothing was wrong and that I just needed to check in at the international student office that is off-campus. I went to bed hoping that I didn't spend $5K on a scam...
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