My first adventure

OK. So today was the first day of orientation. And as if that wasn't an adventure in and of itself, my morning proved to be even more adventure-filled. The Centre de Californie told me (and all the other participants) that a "parrain" aka a French student or year student was to pick up me up at my house to accompany me to the school for orientation between 10h30-11h00. 11h00 rolled around and my parrain had not shown up. My host mom, Kareen, called her even though she had an appointment that started at 11. The girl forgot that she was supposed to pick me up! And she lived about 30 mins away and orientation started at 11h45. Sooo, since Kareen had an appointment, and my parrain wasn't going to come, I had to find the school by myself. Frantically, Kareen showed me a map of the bus and tram. Luckily she had shown me where the bus stop was a day before and had already explained that I needed to take a bus and a tram to get to the campus. Off I went, down the street to take the bus for the first time, alone, in France, on my first full day in Bordeaux.
     I looked at the bus schedule and the bus that I was supposed to take wasn't going to come until the afternoon. There was another bus that came though, so I asked the driver if it would take me where I needed to go. He said yes and told me when to get off. A super cute old French lady then insisted on taking me to the tram stop and made sure I was on the right one. First stereotype of French people broken. Everyone I've talked to so far are SO nice!
    Anyways, I got the the campus and asked 5 different people for directions to the room I was supposed to be at, and got 5 different directions. Eventually I found the place and assimilated into the 40 something other UC students.
    Orientation was good but kind of boring. Afterwards was more fun because me and a few others went into the city for the first time. Oh my gosh, I already love this city. The architecture is beautiful, there is so much history and there are students everywhere. I met a very nice master student on the tram who was giving me Bordeaux Fun Facts along the 15 minute tram ride. A few other students and I got our French cell phones (19 euros for a SIM card and a phone!) and then went to a year-long student's apartment. Such a cute apartment. It was on the top story of an old building, with slanted roofs and a lofted bed. It was pretty much the epitome of French.

Yes, that is the key to my house. Ridiculously cool. I want to take it back to the US and wear it.
     Yup so that was my first full day here and it did not disappoint. I am looking forward to meeting more people and learning the city better. Tomorrow is the first day of the Intensive Language Program from 8h30 to 5h30. Urggg.. Tomorrow will be more tiresome but I'm pumped.

A bientôt!