What I currently don't know, but feel that I should:
1. How to pay my rent, which I've been told should be paid by the end of the week.
2. How to access the Internet, something I apparently should have been able to do by last night.
3. How to sign up for my classes, if I'm actually taking classes, if I need a student ID card to do this, how I convince the man that has the relevant paperwork to process it and when might that happen….
4. How to get a Student Cultural Pass, which I think I need an ID card to get.
5. If the bank account they insisted I get was a major mistake. (I don't think so on this one because I think it's the only way I can receive the CAF, a government subsidy to help pay for my rent. But honestly, who knows.)
6. What the heck is going on with my Carte de Sejour (green card), and if I need to do anything else, or just wait. When I need to go in to sign papers at the Pôle and so on… or I should just wait to get deported.
In addition, I went to the post office yesterday to get the equivalent for a money order to pay for my Sécurité Sociale (French Health Care) so I can get my Carte d'Étudiant. Turns out I misread the accountant's handwriting because they make their nines funny here and I had the check made for €10 less than I was supposed to. What a hassle; I eventually paid one of my grammar teachers to write a personal check to make up the difference. How embarrassing, but I guess that's just how it goes. A classmate of mine had her apartment robbed two days and she lost her passport, computer, ipod and jewelry, so I guess things are going just fine!
This morning I finally got up early to check out the Wednesday morning Farmer's Market here. It was just getting started, but maybe I'll be able to check it out later in the morning next week with my new schedule. It looks very promising and this morning I still managed to buy: apples, peaches, nectarines, green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, baby red potatoes, and cheese! One of the venders also insisted on giving me a whole bunch of cilantro just because. And the cheese was, of course, the best part. The father and son running the booth spent at least 20 minutes letting me taste cheese and giving me the life story of each kind while teaching me cheese-purchasing vocabulary. It was really interesting and we got into a big discussion about the differences between American and French cheeses. I ended up buying three kinds of cheese from them, a bit of aged Chevre, Elemmental for my sandwiches, and they convinced me to have some of an expensive cow cheese that tastes like a slightly softer, but stronger parmesan. It was incredible, and totally worth the cost. They even instructed me on how to properly eat it, as it is best after sitting out of the fridge for about 30 minutes to let the flavor develop. I let a bit sit out while I went running at lunch today. Amazing!!!!
Not to mention our civilization course today consisted of a wine tasting class at a local wine house. We learned about the history of local wines and importance of wine in French culture and how it has changed. We tasted three wines, a white and one new and one slightly aged red. We looked, we smelled and of course we tasted. Smelling a wine, I learned, is the most important part of wine tasting, and it should tell you whether or not you will like the wine before you even taste it. I learned how to look for "tears" of wine on the side of the glass when you swirl it to judge the sugar content. Also you are supposed to actually slurp the wine while you taste it, so that you can smell and taste at the same time. The best part of the afternoon was watching our rather animated "teacher" pretend to be the nerve cord of an olfactory cell to demonstrate the transmission of smell to the brain where, in the words of our translator, "The brain says, Mmmm that's going to be tasty!"
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