Home Sweet Home-ier

So we’re getting to the part of the trip where there won’t be much to post about, and probably even fewer pictures. Today was our first day of orientation at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour. So we sat in a room with no air conditioning and heard the whole USAC spiel again. Apparently, I shouldn’t dress too sexy in order to avoid drawing unwanted attention, and asphalt is hard when you fall down on it. I think I can handle that.

They took us on a tour of the campus. It really reminds me a lot of Sierra College back home. It seems to be about the same size, but is more prestigious and your diploma means more. They have a recreational sports program. I’m considering signing up for rugby while I’m here; it seems I’m likely going to be in need of a hobby during the week after school. Anyway, the rest of the group went on a tour of “new” downtown Pau, but I stayed behind. I don’t really care about being shown the restaurants and shops in Pau, I can figure that out for myself. And besides, I had a lot of laundry to do.

Looks just like home.

 Holy crap, laundromats are expensive here. I paid 4€30 for a 30 minute wash, wish doesn’t seem to have actually rinsed out all of the soap. It would have been 50 cents per 5 minutes in the dryer, so I just packed all of my clothes back into my laundry bag and took it home to hang up. After that I hung out a while to see if anyone coming back from downtown wanted to go over to the local mall/supermarket (it’s called Leclerc, for future reference). When no one wanted to go, I went by myself.

It was actually my second trip over there today, on the first one I bought some power plug adapters, a towel, a trashcan, and some paper plates and cups. My second trip consisted of some spaghetti for tomorrow night, a fan, some speakers for my laptop (because I’m a moron and left the power cord at home for my others) and I took a shot on a random French rock CD. It was filed under “Francophone Hard Rock/Métal,” but it sounds more like an indie/punk/alternative mix. It’s not bad. It’s by a band called Eiffel, which I guess is just about as generic a French name as you can get. But it’s the one that stuck out to me on the shelf, so it’s the one I’ve got.

I took my items back to my room and set off for food. It was getting late, so I missed all of the food places at Leclerc except for McDonalds. So I ended up getting some pizza from the same place I was at last night. I brought it back to my room, but then ended up taking it over to Stephanie’s room because several of the girls got together for some type of vegetable dish which I did not ask about. I sat there and ate my pizza, and could barely get in a word with all the girls going at full speed. But it was fun and I continue to get to know some of the other USACers, which is an ongoing process (especially seeing as we added another 20 or so today).

So I promise that tomorrow I’ll post this on the internet. From here on out, it seems you’ll be getting all of my posts the day after they happen. It probably shouldn’t make too much of a difference to you, but there it is. Á demain mes amis!