On this day, I learned a little more about the neighborhood I’m living in. After my forever walk last night (2 miles!), I took a much shorter one today, around the block, and saw all kinds of neat things. A little bar, a chinese place, a little grocery minimart, a little church, and the like. It was all very nice. I also found the other bus stop I can take to go home.

Here is a picture I couldn’t actually see when I took it:

On this day, I learned about the future simple and the conditional tenses in french. I also learned that I was the only person in my class that hadn’t been formally informed of them before. I kinda got upset and the instructor stopped me after class and I really couldn’t avoid crying, so he gave me a hug and said he’d give me his e-mail and I could e-mail him if I ever needed help, and he was so sweet about it I couldn’t help but feel better.

um, I also learned that it’s not too bad walking down from the house to the center of town, but walking back is a nightmare at dark alone.

I also had reaffirmed that most alcoholic drinks taste terrible, but it’s still fun to be out with congenial people. I made sure and took pictures since it was really the first time I’d ever “gone out”.

On this day, I learned that printer paper is very expensive in Besançon. A reem (500 sheets) costs 8,40€, a sheath of 100 feuilles costs 5,10€.

dear Munty referred me to a rather european supplies store, but sadly they don’t have the small amounts of paper (wtf am I going to do with 490 sheets of A4 paper in the US? I can only make so many airplanes!). Office Depot france does, but sadly they don’t have a store in Besançon. and if I got a train ride to another city in another department that does have one, then snap, I just spent way more than I would’ve for the full price paper!

I guess I’ll go pick up some paper this week-end. I get to start using my bus pass on sunday. I’m really excited about it.

On this day, I learned that one of the arkansas girls here with me is a Douglas Adams fan, and she listens to a bit of Muse and has read Vonnegut.

One of the Penn state guys has a vonnegut book with him, adores muse and rage against the machine and ’90s rock. He wants to teach Besançon to speak l33t.

We exchanged lolcats before class this morning.

several people want to go to Paris on our last week-end in France. A couple of them are looking up hostel rates and TGV tickets tonight.

On this day, I learned that homework could seriously give me a big kicking if we get a bunch of it.

I learned about the French business letter, met a brasilien boy (isn’t it neat that you can communicate with people through a mutual second language? I don’t know portugese, he doesn’t know english. But for our studies in french, we would be inaccessable to one another. )

I also properly learned where more bus stops were today, that there is a large outdoors market in the morning at the marche des beaux arts, and the word “radin(e)”, which means stingy. Expect to see it used on stu sometime ;)

On this day, I learned that the buses in Besançon do not run into a circuit. Instead, they go back and forth in loops, and if you stay on past the Terminus, you will find yourself in the bus barn.

I also finally learned a lot of the names of the people I am here with xD Johnathan, Jaquelyn, Eriha, Jeff, Michael, Ben, l’autre Jeff, two katies, and a kellilla. And I had always thought that this kell was the only one.

Oh yeah:
La tournée Ricard S.A Live Music
Des concerts gratuits en Live
Avec Martin Solveig et Maroon 5
Du 26 Mai au 12 Juin 2008
à 20h30

en Besançon, no less 8)

[edit- apparently she is a kalila, but it's still pretty close.]

On this day, I learned that I can’t speak or comprehend french worth a flip.

Also that my host family is amazing. Even if they don’t speak english xD

luckily learning to speak and hear french is why I’m here 8)

On this day, I learned that you don’t need anything but your name and passport to check in with american airlines on an international flight.

Mom and I got to Little Rock National Airport a little before 9 and then we realized neither of us had grabbed my backpack.
(hurray!).

I went inside to check in, mom stayed outside to call dad to have him drive it, thinking they might try to send it on an express flight, I don’t know, that’s what she said.

Anyways, what ended up happening is that the plane was actually in dallas undergoing repairs. For an hour. Which happens to be about exactly the length of time it takes to get to little rock from home! Providence, non?

As it happens, I did have my record locator letters memorized, but when I couldn’t get the check in kiosk to type an l, I gave up and worked with the agent. He was very sympathetic, and when I was hurrying back into the airport with my bags, he smiled and asked if I had got it.

While we waited for dad, we put several quarters in the meter. I asked mom about twenty minutes in how much time she’d put on and she said she’d put two quarters in, and I remarked that it was empty. when I went to fill it, I noticed a small line that said ‘15 minute maximum’, i.e. one quarter.

Of all the cars that parked next to us while we waited, only two of them didn’t get fooled by this. One because the last person had left time on it, the other because she was a prudent woman who carefully reads everyng.

so now you know, always read everything about a parking meter.

(bonsoir from france)

On this day, I learned that when you have reservations for international flights through american airlines, you can’t do the on-line check-in one day before your flight.  Unless your international leg of the flight is more than 24 hours away and you’re checking in for another flight.

So I get to deal with an agent tomorrow!  YAY.  On MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND.  DOUBLE YAY!

Warning:  in the days to come you will probably learn a lot about france from this blog.

On this day, I learned how you can import .eml files to Thunderbird. I had a bunch of these saved on a cd from before january 1, 2003 and I wanted to consolidate my Thunderbird inbox on the laptop. Anyways, some google searching and jason searching, I found this handy little extension: mboximport. The name is a little deceitful because you’re really importing to an mbox file, but whatev~. I guess you can import mbox files also. I could’ve used that when I imported from my desktop e-mails! (and I wish I had done that before I reinstalled windows on that box xD I’m kinda missing six months of mail now)

This baby is really simple to use. You can use it on thunderbird 2.whatever I have. You simply install it, restart thunderbird, click the tools menu, click import, and choose a folder. The process went very quickly too! Well, maybe I just didn’t have as many e-mails from August 2002 to December 2002. (I saved all these to cd because I happened to get a virus and didn’t know about exporting e-mails. But I did know how to find the outlook express e-mails folder! I think that was the only bad virus I ever got, too.)

I also learned that you cannot have two users with access to the same account on cpanel. Or so Jason sadly tells me.