Homeless

What a frustrating day... and just the beginning of a series of frustrating days, I'm sure.

All the assistants met up for dinner at the Relais de Jeunesse last night. Then, this morning we were all escorted to the Rectorat de Nice to have an orientation of sorts. First of all, there are 187 language assistants in the Nice region, but hardly any are actually placed in Nice, as I was. 111 of the assistants are English language from the US, England, Ireland, etc. etc. I've made friends of several american girls/english girls, and a spanish girl.

Anyways, we met up and sat in a room all morning while some people introduced themselves. Then, they proceeded to list all the hoops we will have to jump through in the first couple weeks to get everything we need including: bank account, carte de sejour, housing refund, health insurance/security. And, all of these are quite impossible without housing. Well, some other people have secured housing and I'm feeling desperate since I don't even have any leads. I will probably be living with one of the british girls, but I just want to have housing like yesterday. I was also stressed all day because I don't have a cellphone, which is essential to call landlords to see apts. Luckily, after everything I ran down to Jean Medecin and got a prepaid phone from Orange. The woman was clearly unhappy b/c they were supposed to close in 3 minutes, but I was desperate. So, yay cellphone. The afternoon portion was a little more relaxed as we talked about our actual role in the schools, it should be fun.

Emily left today, and the first day and a half I was a pretty good host, but today had to suck for her since I was gone all day. Sorry Em! We hope to look for housing tomorrow (although we don't have much as far as leads) and maybe not be homeless by this weekend. I'm hardly optimistic.

Prayers and good thoughts are appreciated. I knew this was going to be stressful at first, but that doesn't make it any easier.