I have a home! The apartment is right in centre ville, about a 2 minute walk to the arena & a 10 minute to the train station.
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| home is in the bottom left hand corner! |
There are 3 of us, M from Rhode Island & R from Jamaica, & we’re renting from a delightful 90 year old lady who I will call Madame. Friday morning I walked down from the hostel & arrived an hour early to have a café in the small square, or “place”, and observe the goings-on of the area where I would perhaps live. I met R at 10 & the tour began! Madame is a character and such a nice person. She doesn’t speak a lick of English, only French & some Spanish. So all of our conversations with her thus far have been in French! My comprehension is improving already, though it was already better than my speaking level. She has lived in Nîmes for 50 years, and before that lived about 60 kilometers from here. Anyways, we chatted for a bit in her living/dining room & then she showed us the apartment. It’s all the way at the top of the building & there are 3 bedrooms, 2 toilets, 2 showers, and a kitchen/dining room with a big table. It’s furnished & everything: bed, linens, desk, pots, pans, plates, cups, oven/stove, microwave, coffee maker, fridge (& a big one in France standards!), etc. After that, she made R & I a big lunch: salad, scalloped potatoes, chicken with a mustard spread, bread…& then a cheese course with fruit. All with wine or water! It was delicious J We separated for the afternoon, I picked up one of my bags & unpacked, hung out with some assistants, and then returned to Madame’s for dinner with R & M (who had just arrived). Dinner was another delightful feast & the conversation was great!
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| the 4 windows at the top of the middle apartment are ours, and mine are the two on the left! |
My room is blue, my favorite color, and has two large windows that overlook the place.
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| i'll add more of the rest of the apartment soon :) |
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Above is the place at night! It's kind of loud, but I like the hum of people talking. I am completely unpacked with my two huge bags (thank you Aunt M, they made it all the way!) in a big closet where I won’t have to look at them for another 7 months. The 2 week trip on the way here was exhausting with my bags & from it I’ve found my breaking point for living out of a suitcase, ha. |
Although I had doubts on my first day here, with each day I love this place & my fellow assistants more. H (from Cali) & A (from England) met me at the train station when I arrived, helped with luggage & then we ate together! C (from Iowa) joined us for dinner that night. The next day M (from Washington) & I met at the hostel, then I brought him to dinner with Cali H, England A & Iowa C. [Hm. I’m going to have to figure out this letter thing, it’s starting to get a bit confusing…] While I do that we’ll skip names. We’ve done several dinners, a lovely brunch at A’s apartment (only a minute walk from mine) with crêpes, croissants, pain au chocolate, Nutella, jelly, bananas, mimosas, coffee..mmmm. A & I each bought air mattresses for visitors since we have no couches. Oh, and we did a big assistant dinner last night at a Lebanese restaurant! There were 18 of us that showed up & we have SUCH a great group of people!! But really, lots of love for the group (which makes moving to a foreign country even better!)
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| du Calanques (not my own picture) Asia & I finally met yesterday, she came down to Nîmes to visit me, stay the night & today we are off to Cassis & du Calanques! We’re meeting C there, who I met in Chicago & is working in Montpellier with Asia. Expecting a gorgeous day at the beach, hiking, taking pictures, reading & relaxing! She came to the assistant dinner & everyone was very amused by the fact that we were such good friends for having never met until yesterday J |
Versailles post will come soon, as will more about Nîmes when I have more pictures!
bises
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