the first week!

bonjour tout le monde!

i decided to do this blog after my hectic first week! To be honest, i wish i had started the blog earlier, in order to fill in every shitty, depressing, mind numbing thing that happened in this first week!

I arrived on the Wednesday, mum and dad in tow! In typical Fitzpatrick style, we were like the clampets...with five bags amoungst three of us. These bags contained such stupid things, like super noodles (mama's idea of course) and Friends dvd's. (mines) We checked into out hotel and set up camp for a week with Amy Dreszler, my partner in crime for the next seven months!

We thought all we had to do on the thursday was go to an estate agents and take an appartment! Man, were we wrong! Our journey from the thursday to the saturday contained a lot of tears, tantrums and stress. We went from an ideal, but unfurnished and bogin flat on the main st of Lille, to the actual Bronx! In fact, my dad, a chief inspector of Strathclyde police and well known man for you not to be messing with very often or he'll "stiffen you"...actually shoved his wallet, containing all our money down his pants...yes my friends, this place was that bad! It wasn't so much the skanky area, with people's skanky yellow y fronts drying out the (very dirty, as noticed by ge) windows, but the fact there were many young arab men, standing in door ways staring at us and generally intimidating us! The flats were glorious, but the area was not!

The Saturday was more productive; Amy's mum had to leave, and it was becoming increasingly obvious as the days went on that were not gonna have it easy with many of the French. Don't get me wrong, one colleague of mine has been more than helpful and shown us kindness that is unknown at home by helping us set up our bank account and social security. However many times, no matter how much i tried my best french, i was hitting a wall! Eventually on the saturday we came across an Appart'hotel. This was, as in the name, housing for students that also could turn into a hotel! Finally, we had found something! It was trop cher, but at this point money was not an issue...whether i was going to be able to get my degree was the main focus point, thats how bad things were getting! Alors, for 600euro a month, Amy and I found ourselves our own wee self contained flat...but again we were faced with a problem...it wasnt available til the 8th, three days after we checked out our hotel and i said au revoir to mama and daddy!

Many suggestions were thrown about, and the most cost effetive was to stay at Amy's school, where i was going to be "snuck" in! Ahh us scots always find an illegal way somehow! Donc, on Monday we decided to drag our cases up in time for check out the next day! We arrived, and someone elses things were in amys room! Merde, what to do now? Today, tuesday, was a hassle! What shouldve been a delightful day with my parents turned into hell. We needed a place to stay tonight and Lille was fully booked...bitch that she is!After much begging and phoning and, quelle suprise, me speaking french we found a b&b for one night and a hotel for the other nights! Better than living on the streets, or as was even suggested by daddy, coming home for three days! Donc, now we could rest right? WRONG!

During all the stress, i forget the important fact that mama and daddy were getting on a plane to go home, as they had three other, slightly less talented, children eagerly awaiting their return! Feck! Now im not the most emotional person, and probably saying my goodbyes to chris last week were probably the worst ive ever been in my life...but today i realised..man i can cry! some might call my reaction almost hysterical :( was sad but i knew it had to come! I phoned chris after they left, totally sobbing! The poor soul has had to listen to my moans all week when i know he cant do anything to help as hes in Scotland and he's been truly amazing, which makes me miss him even more! thank god for bbm :)

So, here i am, in the hotel with Amy and im ready for bed as its 23.41 here and im up at seven for more moving and then a stupid orientation meeting! i hope it will be fun but who knows!

i hope to keep everyone updated on a regular basis, though hopefully after this week it wont be as stressful and moany!

bisous!