La Vie de Deux Mademoiselles a France

Hello Everyone!

Well this week has been full of nice things and not so nice things. The Place we are staying at with the three girls is nice, but one of the girls seems quite cold to us, so we have been made to feel very uncomfortable at times :s . But the other 2 girls are super nice.

On Monday we went to the school and the prefecture and discovered we need a heck of a lot of documents for our long stay visa (or permanent residency). We also had to pay 200 euros for insurance from the school and fill out our course selection, student card applications, and get the paperwork for our housing subsidies.

The previous night we went over to our new appartment to meet our other roomate and to go over details. Much to our delight we are now sharing the master bedroom…complete with a balcony, 2 closets, and fireplace (not to be used of course) at no extra costs. Our flat is so prime, it is ridic! And the living area, mon dieu! it’s so massive! Our new roomates are lovely and their friends are very nice too. We have already been invited to a Gala at one of the other universities at the end of January. We had some wine with them as well.

Practically everyday this week we have been out shopping dans le centre ville as it is “les Soldes” in Grenoble right now. Les soldes are the sales in France that happen twice a year….when all the stores have great sales all at the same time. It’s pretty awesome! We heard about them from the women who gave us manicures (we figured we’d treat ourselves after a long week and a half of house hunting without success). Over the past week Megan and I have gotten some awesome deals!!! The stuff here is so nice and such high quality!

Finally my wire transfer went through and I got an exchange rate of about 1.3, which I am very happy with. Megan is still waiting. We also picked up our bank cards and chequebooks today, but cannot use them yet as we still have not received our PINs in the mail….so who knows when that will be. On one of our shopping days, Megan kept trying to take money out of atms with her Northshore credit union debit card. Eventually one of them swallowed it up….so after a couple hours of anxiety for megan, we got it back. Ayiyiyiah! Turns out her debit card won’t work here because it does not have chip.

Yesterday we had welcome day at the IEPG and met some other students from UBC. Many of them only just arrived and are still jetlagged and flat searching. We are so glad to have came early! Also the entire thing was in French…but it was good practice.

Today we had a great day filled with shopping, our usual trips to the school and bank, and a fantastic lunch at a local cafe. Also, I finally found a great store on cours Berriat with lactose free cow’s milk and yogurt! Enfin! So stoked for when we get our new place to go stock up!

We are still not sure whether we are staying at our current couchsurfing location tonight or not (possibility of heading to another couch in Notre Dame, or to a hotel avec Jacuzzi and sauna). It really depends on one of the girl’s mood swings…she’s also on a diet which might be contributing to her crabbiness. We are not opposed to the idea of a hotel though as we are sooo sore, and saunas and hottubs do not exist in grenoble except for at a few rare hotels.

Next time I post we will likely be in our new place…Sunday night! Can’t wait. First day of school is Monday. We have been counting down the days until we get to move in somewhere permanently! So that we can unpack our bags and buy a proper grocery list!

Bonne journee!!