Step by step.

I just remembered that this show existed... throw back!

Things are slowly starting to come together. 

Things I have:

• an apartment
• a bed
• a couch and chair
• a go phone
• a bank account
• cool roommates
• metro card

Things I don't have:

• internet
• hot water (the guy shoulddd be coming today)
• teaching schedule
• phone plan
• bank card
• fridge
• bed sheets/pillows/blankets
• bath towels

Obviously some of these things take priority over others. Hopefully I can convince Brian to take me to the super market later to pick up some of the smaller items. We've been finding furniture at www.leboncoin.com and stuffing Brian's little car full of couches and mattresses. The next priority is a fridge, but I wouldn't mind a washing machine either. Or a microwave. I think I need my bank card in order to get internet and I should get my bank card sometime this week. Hopefully. But, Tori, you say, you're blogging right now, so you must have internet! Oh no, my friends. 

 McDonad's has free wifi. Which means I'm spending way too much time at McDonald's and therefor eating way too much of it. I will stand by the fact that the quality of food in French McDonald's is much better than what I've experienced in the states, so I don't feel quite as bad about it. I've also been sitting in the hallway by Christophe's apartment where I can pick up his wifi. Yes, we have literally been sitting in a dark hallway outside of his door just to get some wifi. Christophe tells us we're more than welcome to come in and use it, but we don't want to take advantage, so we try to give him his space. He has been letting us take showers at his place since we haven't had hot water, which we have completely taken advantage of. Cold showers are just not for me. 

What else can I tell you? Friday night a lot of the assistants got together in Toulouse and we went to a couple different bars (I can't remember if I told you this already or not, so if I did, feel free to skip ahead.) It was so amazing meeting people from so many different cultures, all here to do the same thing. The last bar we went to was...

10 points if you figure out what it means and you don't giggle.

 We went to a bar last night called Cafe Populaire (or Cafe Pop). On Mondays they have really good deals, so it was a great night to try it out. It was awesome talking to people and experiencing the bars here instead of just the states.  The music was really loud, so it was difficult to hold and deep, meaningful conversations, but I'm just glad people were willing (and able) to talk to me in French without too much confusion. 

This morning I took the bus to the metro to another bus in order to get to one of my schools. I took bus 39 because it was going to l'Union, but it wasn't quite the right line. I got off at the last stopped and walked around for a while. I was able to find the school pretty easily though. I handed in some paperwork and talked the seretoriat for a few minutes. He's taking care of a lot of paperwork for me, which is awesome. He showed me a much easier way of leaving the school and getting to a bus stop instead of walking all the way around. It was a successful morning and now I know it is in fact line 43 that I need to take to get to both of the schools in that direction. Though, I still need to figure out the route to the 3rd school. And my teaching schedule. 

We have orientation tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll be completely overwhelmed with information then. I'll be sure to update you as soon as I can! Wish me luck that we'll have hot water when I get home!