25 October 2012

Buses hate me, and I hate them too

It's just coming up to midday and I've already woken up, walked to the town centre, come home, gone to bed, and woken up again. As a result I am feeling a bit disorientated right now. Allow me to tell you about my Thursday so far.

It occured to me a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't yet informed my uni that I'd arrived safe and sound in France and that I had indeed started working at the schools to which I had been assigned. As this 'certificate of arrival' meant that my next Erasmus grant would get sent to me, I thought I better get my act together and sort it out. But because it needs to be signed by my lycée, and I'm only at my lycée once a week, last Thursday was the day I had in mind to get this done. However, other administrative issues and lack of time resulted in an unsigned form at the end of the day. Nevermind, hopefully I can get it done at my collège on Tuesday, I thought to myself, assuming that any official signature and stamp from a French education establishment would suffice. But no, the secretary at the collège told me it had to be done at my main host school. Having a day off this week from the lycée, I realised I would have to make a special journey there and back simply to get this done and sent off to England. I looked at the bus timetable last night (as before I've always got a lift to the lycée) only to see that, due to the stupidly irregular times, the only way I could get there and back without changing other plans for the day was to get the 7:37 bus there, and come back on the 13:20 bus! Oh well, that was my only option. 

At 6:30am 'Surfin' Bird' blasts out of my phone as my alarm, and I get ready to go out, making sure I have all the appropriate documents, and something to kill the time between finishing my task and getting on the bus back to Melle. I walked into the town centre, once again in pitch black and waited at the bus stop. And waited. Ah, there's the bus, I said to myself excitedly as one came along....and drove straight past my signalling arm. Merde. Maybe I'll wait a little longer in case that wasn't the proper one and the actual one's just running really late. At about 7:55 I gave up, and wandered back home. But about halfway back to my flat, the bus drove past me, on it's way to the town centre bus stop! I legged it back up the hill...but it had been and gone. Cue melancholy violins.

However, waking up this early for basically nothing did mean that I got to see the beautiful sunrise that happened this morning, which almost made it all worth it. Just almost.



After my little photography session, I sent an email to my uni to ask if they'll still send me the cheque if I don't send them my form until after the holidays. Then I went back to bed.

3 hours later, I woke up feeling slightly more refreshed, checked my emails, and yay, they will put my cheque aside and save it for until they receive my forms.

Now I can get onto enjoying my day. Weather should be pretty good again, and this evening I'm going into Poitiers for another assistant's 21st which will be my first proper night out in France (I will never be able to call Melle's clubnight a proper night out...). With nowhere to sleep and being too tight to fork out for a hotel room, it looks as if Mike and I are going to have to stay out all night and catch the train back tomorrow morning. Apart from that, it should be a great night!

Oh, and this is the outside of my flat I've been living in for the past month, just after sunset:

My flat is the greyish bit on the left


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