settling in

The longer I spend in these halls (and it's been 5 nights now), the more I find them really creepy. I left at midnight on Friday to meet some friends in My Goodness (the local Irish pub; I've already started a tab). At this time, there were one or two girls talking on the stairs, but no noise, music, conversation could be heard from any bedroom. When I returned around 3, the only sign of life in the whole building was the night porter, who grudgingly let me inside when I showed my ID card. When I went downstairs to microwave some chips (the extent of my culinary ventures so far), I felt both very alone, and rather guilty - as if creeping around the building at this time of night were not allowed. At least in Bangor's quietest halls one had the chance of running into another person in the kitchen making hot chocolate at stupid o' clock in the morning.

The Irish pub has quickly become my venue du choix. It's just across the road from the prison/nunnery, the staff are friendly, and the music is excellent. The selection of beer isn't amazing (Stella being their premium lager), but I'm willing to forgive that for the general awesomeness of the place. I first went there on Wednesday, to meet another assistant that I'd spoken to on Facebook, and some ERASMUS friends of his. We've been in there four nights in a row now and the bar staff already know us by name. When he left on Tuesday afternoon, my dad gave his usual "don't spend all your time talking to your friends at home on the internet"/ "make sure you make actual real life friends" spiel; he needn't have worried. Lacking in internet in my room so far, my Wifi spot of choice is in Café Bissap, a West African rum bar. Right now, at 9.30 pm, the cross rhythm reggae is going, and the locals are dancing.... and someone's just left a pile of walnuts by my laptop as a present...

We had our formation on Friday for the language assistantship placements. The first half of the day was information about how the French school system worked, and lots of vital but overly complicated things like social security and CAF (essentially rent reimbursement) forms. I understood the vast majority of it, but if they told us anything like which of the many forms we were meant to fill in first, and who to give them to and when, I missed it. Luckily I've enlisted the help of Simon, who will help me with them tomorrow night in exchange for me cooking him dinner (at his of course, because there's only so much I can do with a microwave, and he wouldn't be allowed in here anyway), and hopefully tell me any good websites to find local houseshares on.