Busy Week

      This week has been really busy for us. We finished getting settled into our new apartment, and Jess has somewhat started school. Meanwhile, I 'm getting the bank accounts settled; in addition to figuring out this whole French language. Our main priority this week has been getting Jessica's school schedule figured out. It's nothing like the system back home, and because of this there is a lot of confusion. For instance, here the schedules are not made in advance, so when the first day of class starts, you walk into your department look at the schedule on the wall and pick your classes and start attending. To make this more difficult some professors write hand written notes that they will start a week later, some classes do not start until March, and finally some classes are just full. This makes it harder for Jess to choose her classes because not only does she have to find classes that make a schedule, but she also has to choose classes UCO will approve to crossover and count towards her graduation. Therefore, we've made lots of trips to the school. She took an exam on Thursday to help place her in the right proficiency class, so two of her classes are already set in stone. Next week she'll start attending class to make sure that they're what she needs to graduate in July.
     Another thing that has been occupying our week is getting the final things necessary for our apartment. This included some practical things like a dish drying rack, clothes drying rack, and a housse de couette for our bed. In France you have to buy a couette, which is a duvet then buy a cover to put over it. When we first purchased all of our bedding stuff it was quite exciting because we only had thirty minutes to find everything we needed. It doesn't help when you have to purchase the fitted sheet and top sheet separately, so we had fun trying to figure out what was what. We also made sure that all this happened on a very limited budget, so we have more money for food and a little bit of travel!
    Good news arrived at the end of this week when we went out with some friends we met here in Amiens. We had a great time and met some very interesting people at an Irish pub called My Goodness. I'm looking forward to going out again and I really need to practice my French, so I can participate a little a more in the conversations. Jessica's language skills are improving but she had to speak some Franglais at times. As one of our friends noted, it's interesting to see how much the French are into Americans and how Americans enjoy the French culture. While at the pub we had various conversations with complete strangers who were asking some crazy questions about America. One guy tried to argue with me that there are 52 states. We ended up agreeing on 50 states and multiple common wealths (the fact a city can be a capital of a country but not within a state blew his mind). Another conversation I had was with a guy who acted as a translator. We got on the topic of when the French learn English it's in the UK dialect, not American. After he gave some examples of words that were different from the UK to America, I gave the example of Chips and French Fries. He had no idea we called them "French Fries" and was astounded why an entire country, and all the restaurants/fast food chains would all agree to call the potato cuts "French Fries." I enjoyed blowing his mind for a bit over that, but the conversation quickly turned five more times before we left in the search for food.
     Finally, tonight I went and picked up our debit card from the bank, you have to physically pick them up form your branch. Afterwards, I met Jess at the laundry mat so we could clean our sheets and towels all in one load. Once we were done we went next door and ordered two pizzas and two drinks. It only costed 16 Euros which is pretty cheap for the amount of food we got. Note: Europeans eat their pizza with a knife and fork. Another one of our friends invited us out tonight, but we have decided to just stay in and relax and plan out our week. There's still a ton of stuff for us to see in Amiens, and I really do not want to travel to the surrounding cities without first getting to know more about the city we live in. I'll have more pictures of the city and more adventures to share later this weekend. Until then safe travels!