Bonjour!

It occurs to me that I have not properly announced my arrival in France. So here I am, sitting at my brown wooden desk in my cosy little room in a proper French maison on a street not 5 minutes walk from campus, nursing a big bowl of instant expresso mixed with fresh milk, and nibbling on chunks of a baguette bought from a local boulangerie, slatered with Monoprix butter (gourmet! with Guerande salt!) and wild strawberry jam. I can see the sunrise from the single window in my room, and it's gorgeous. Shiny, peachy new sky streaking across a dusky morning blue. Boulevard Andre Maginot leads directly from the A6 expressway from Paris to rue Grande, the main shopping street in Fontainebleau, so I can already hear a constant stream of traffic outside. No singing of birds or the bustle of morning activity from neighbourhood shopkeepers - it's not exactly the French morning Belle wakes up to in Beauty and the Beast, but it's mine and it's good.

I don't have much time as I have to be on campus in 45 minutes. Registration for last names beginning with 'C' begins at 9.30 a.m., and already I have been warned that this will probably be the latest start for me in the first 2 months. So instead of a prolonged recount of my first weekend in France, I leave you with a list of new experiences I will have to get used to, in no particular order, and to be continued:

1. Waking up starving and craving breakfast.
2. Jogging in the cold with nothing more than a sweatshirt and track pants on, hands tucked into pockets to avoid the same frozen fate as my exposed ears.
3. Not being able to find baking necessities in the local supermarket.
4. Taking an hour to find everything else, since labels come in every European language except English.
5. Friendly service from the French. (I forgot to get my apples weighed, and the checkout counter guy simply waved me through. I've been told it's not a sure thing though, since the odds are that I will be served by a crusty French grandmere at some point.)
5. Hiking up and down 4 flights of stairs to get from the basement, where the kitchen and laundry facilities are, to the 3rd floor, where the rest of the apartment is.
6. Sticker shock. Shelling out close to €5 for a pair of tweezers (a bargain compared to €8 everywhere else) really drives this home.
7. Being social.
8. Not being able to relieve myself before a bath without running down the hallway. I will never understand the French habit of building their WCs separate from their bathrooms.
9. Addressing everyone as 'madame' because that's the polite thing to do. I always thought that 'miss' would be a safer bet than 'aunty'.
10. Reminding myself that I don't have to scarf down 3 macarons everytime I pass a patisserie, because there will be another one right around the corner.

Alrighty, it's off to school I go. Wish me luck!