CLUB MED…DAY 2! august 2, 2008

CLUB MED…DAY 2!

August 2, 2008

~The Med is my neighbour, but I haven’t met him yet! Apparently there’s a massive nudist beach in the neighbourhood…stay tuned!

~Day 2 shopping at Inno, le supermarché près de moi, and I discovered what was missed on day 1’s investigation…Smirnoff Ice…so I’ve decided I’ll stay in Montpellier!

~Had to buy a Virgin today…a new phone…NB a French user manual is somewhat easier to figure out, even without pictures, than the Spanish one I still can’t completely read!

~Here’s my new #:

From Canada:
(011) (33) 645638385

Local:
0645638385

~Today I walked the periphery of the old, central and “c’est COOL” section of Montpellier. It took over an hour…a tad bigger than Jaca, and I only got temporarily displaced once and that was in the shopping centre looking for the grocery store!

~Carb and Gas update…not much to report. I think they’ve got the hang of this moving thing I do to them. They only spoke for the 1st hour of the 8ish hour car journey. They approve of our air-conditioned hotel room with the glass walled balcony, although gas’ fur is confused by the cool air and growing thicker as we speak, and he has only dived into the glass wall once…that I noticed!

~I, too, seem to have the hang of moving cities, cultures and languages! It just isn’t as scary here…have more confidence in my French education than I did in my Spanish pocket dictionary! Plus, now I have experience and just know what I need to do.

~So if you’ve got the notion to do what I’m doing…definitely read the following…

8 simple steps to sorting out your new life when moving to France:

1 Get there, somehow…trickier with cats…I can give you Anna and Phil’s
phone #.
2 Find a temporary place to stay…that likes cats.
3 Find a phone store that employs a Canadian guy named Xavier to help you pick out a new cell phone that suits your purposes, no frills. Then Xavier becomes your first and only friend and throws in a phone case for free!
4 Ask your new and only friend if all stores in France are closed on Sundays.
5 Learn how to say “carton” in French so you can buy cigarettes.
6 Spend hours in the local grocery store until you find Smirnoff Ice, Canada
Dry Ginger Ale and Werther’s candies. (Don’t even look for peanut butter
if you’ve brought residual gifts.)
7 Find a real place to live for a year…that likes cats.
8 Find a job.

Easy as pie and your sorted!

~Day 3 is reserved for reading French newspapers! Emma, can you google who invented the French-English dictionary…I really want to thank them!

~That’s all I know for now…and now the real work begins…finding my sanctuary and a job to pay for the sanctuary…it is exciting!

Je t’embrasse,
Dana, carb et essence xox