getting stuff done

i honestly can't believe i have already been here for three days. yesterday i checked into the residence around 2 p.m. and learned and got to meet my roommate, kirstin, who it turns out is also from the sacramento area, but attends uc davis. we have gotten along great, and she even let me borrow shower stuff and a shirt to sleep in since my luggage didnt feel like showing up when it was supposed to.
sidenote: my luggage arrived today! well most of it that is. but i was super excited to get to shower with my own shampoo and put on my own clean clothes again finally :)
but back to describing the residence and my past two days. it honestly feels like a hotel/dorm here. i actually really like it, and was sad to learn that i will moving out saturday morning when host families come to pick us up. dont get me wrong, im super excited to meet my host family, but its been fun living around other eap students and getting to know them, and i was kind of hoping it would last at least until the intensive language program started, or perhaps throughout. but anyways. ive made some friends here and weve wandered around the city, taking tons of public transportation - which is super easy to take, but because it is me we're talking about here, i still have no idea how to get around by myself.
so the last two days have been super hectic. the food at the residence is terrible, which is unfortunate, but then maybe it makes me happier that my host family is picking me up so soon, because then i can get good food sooner! yesterday we had orientation, mostly just making sure everybody showed up as well as giving us some pointers for living in lyon. turns out there are more rules for girls than for guys - to keep us safe of course - who woulda thunk it! then we had dinner, which as i've just mentioned was terrible. i chose the beef option, which i actually learned this morning was cow tongue - i'm thinking it was a good thing i didn't find this out till much later. and the bread was very hard. trying to break it sent pieces flying. but it was rather amusing, and a bit of a bonding experience of course. then some of us went out for the night to wander around the city.
this morning we had to wake up early. breakfast ends by nine - it was also terrible, but perhaps not as bad as dinner. this cafeteria food could really use some work. and then we had to be at the university by 10 a.m. for orientation and other matters that needed to be dealt with. afterwords, if we already had our housing figured out, we were free to go to lunch and do whatever until 2 p.m. when we would figure out cell phones, and then 4 p.m. when we would figure out banking. my friends and i went to a cafe and all of our meals were delicious. definitely a step up from the past two cafeteria meals. and then we decided to do the cell phone thing on our own because we would look at different places for the best deal. turns out this was a pretty good idea on our part, because our plan seems a little better than everybody else's. this of course took forever, but at least its done.
we then had to go deal with opening bank accounts, which in this case was better to do with the group because they got us some kind of deal. who knows. i signed where i was told and decided i'd figure it out later because i was so tired me and the french language just wasn't working out. but after that taking forever i finally headed back to the residence, ready to go to my room to at least wash my face or something before dinner.
so that didn't get to happen. by the time i got back people were heading out to dinner, so i got to turn around immediately. but tonight at least the whole group was going out to a restaurant, none of this gross cafeteria business again. and this food was actually good :) though i didn't finish all of my lamb and the waiter asked if i liked it... i felt really bad, but was just super tired for the ridiculously long day to be in the mood for much of it, but promised him i did like it and hoped he believed me. afterwards a few of us went to vieux lyon for a bit and walked around and then finally headed back where i discovered my bags had showed up! (as i mentioned before i was super excited about this. two outfits for five days just isn't all that enjoyable.

but overall i love it here so far, and still don't think its really hit me that i'm here. i need to get a little better about speaking french instead of english. but we throw it in there sometimes, so i figure that's good enough for the first couple days.
anyways, that's about all i got for now, so stay tuned :)