Home sweet home

So today we didn’t do much. We left Tours at nine o’clock after a brief breakfast at the hotel. We visited Château d’Azay-le-Rideau late in the morning for about an hour and a half. It was a nice little chateau, but it wasn’t a castle like everyone else here seems to believe. It may have been a castle at one point, but not any longer. It’s just a fancy mansion now. Again, I don’t mean to sound like I didn’t appreciate it. I did, it was a beautiful chateau with a fantastic garden. Sadly, my camera died halfway through the visit, so not a whole lot of pictures today. But then the visit was over and we were on the bus again, this time for the remainder of the distance to Pau, which was about five hours.

Again, not so much castle as giant mansion.

 I spoke to Stephanie a lot on the bus. We swapped music and did our best to make a five hour bus ride seem a little less boring. Everybody in this group has been very good about introducing themselves to me, more so than would be usual in regular school. It almost seems a little weird that everyone is so interested in getting to know everyone else. But I guess that we are all suddenly the minority at this new school, so we’ve got to stick together.

So this guy was the most popular guy of the day with all of the girls on the bus. Yesterday it was the tour guide.

 We finally made it to Pau and I almost immediately got my dorm room. It’s not quite what I expected it to be, but it’s pretty nice for a dorm room. There are a lot of items left over in the room from past USAC students. I have most of the necessities for my kitchen, including soap, salt, pepper, cooking oil, and a pot. I have a bowl or two, but no plates. I’ll have to see if anyone else has some plates they’d like to swap.

Starting to feel at home, I guess.

 I guess the really interesting stuff is in the closet, however. It seems some of the past students here had at least a decent taste in music as I have a Rolling Stones and a Pink Floyd poster. Some of the students did me the favor of leaving me an alarm clock and extra clothes hangers. But the “exciting” items include a soccer ball (yes, I know, it’s futbol here), a traffic cone, and an oar. I don’t really know why someone would leave an oar, but they did. So now I’m a proud oar owner for at least 4 months.

We were shown the location of our orientation meeting tomorrow, and then we split up. I, Stephanie, Allejandra (I don’t know how she spells her name yet), and Emily went over to the supermarket and then went for pizza before heading back to our rooms. I’ve made my bed, kind of, and now I’m typing this under the blaring heat of my ceiling lamp. This lamp is the kind of lamp you see in old good-cop-bad-cop routines on TV… the kind that instantly makes you sweat when it’s pointed at you. I need to see if I can find a cheap fan somewhere in Pau.

And as for my fellow USAC students, I plan on starting introductions in the next day or two. Or whenever I get access to the internet.