Days of my life: First Day at ESIGELEC

Its almost midnight on sunday and I ve got a whole week of work ahead of me.....but I feel wide awake...so instead of tryin to sleep and keep rolling on my bed, I thought I would rather do somethin else..and this is what my "something else" is :P.....

I wrote bout the first day in my last blog.......the next day was my first day at the college....lemme tell u that it was one of the most eventful and longest days of my soujorn in Rouen......so this blog is gonna be pretty huge :P.....I must say the most difficult part of that day, actually any winter day there in Rouen, was pulling myself out of the cozy blanket and walk upto the wash basin....really it was so cold that I used to spend a good 15-20 minutes sitting up on my bed with the blanket pulled over my head, rubbing my hands together, basically tryin to energize myself to start the day....its pretty analogous to warming up your car before u cld start it :P.....so there I was..... up and ready to go....with my three friends, to ESIGELEC....there was a bus stop outside the residence and as we were told by shehnaz, we had to take bus no 8 to "theatre des arts" bus stop in centre ville(the city centre of Rouen).....actually our residence was located in Mont Saint Aignan, a suburb around Rouen, and ESIGELEC was located at another suburb, "Saint Etienne Du Rouvray" at the other end of the city centre.....so it was a good 12-13 km from our residence...we got down at theatre des arts and looked around for the tram station...we had to take the tram headed towards "technopole" from there....just as we were looking for the tram station, we saw the TCAR office there...it was the office of the transport department...shehnaz had told us that we should make a monthly transport pass as soon as possible....the pass cost 26euros/month and entitled us to unlimited travel...thats pretty cheap consideing a 1hour valid ticket cost 1.4euros and we had to travel almost for 2hours everyday.....so u get the picture....we went inside and asked around bout the pass...we managed to find an english speaking employee there who handed us a form, which was in french, and asked us to fill it up, attach our passport copy and a couple of photos, and pay 33.6 euors......we obviously cldnt fill the form up....so we took it and headed for the college....

When we reached the technopole station, my first impression was....how the hell could some place be so lifeless....the whole suburb seemed too picture perfect....trees lined both sides of the tram track, followed by a single lane road on either side.....there was this beautiful park just before we reached technopole....but during the major part of my journey, I could actually find more people inside the train than outside......thats pretty weird for anybody coming for India I guess....anyway, we reached the college and asked around for Mme Helene Vincent, the international relations assistant, whom we were supposed to meet....we met her at her office and she told us that our profs werent available at the moment and she had to complete some formalities for us....so she took our passport copies, photos, etcetc and asked us to come back around lunch.....which was still 3hrs away....we were all very hungry and wondered where n more importantly, what to eat....the cafeteria at the college apparently was only operational for two hours at lunch time....so we decided to go back to the city centre (we had got our TCAR forms filled up by Mme Helene).....what followed was the most interesting n memorable part of the day :P......

We had run into a weird problem now....none of us had any change with us to pay for the tram...and on trams, unlike the buses, you cant buy tickets from the driver....u either need the TCAR pass or u need to buy tickets from the automatic vending machines located at each station....and the machines accepted only coins....and we didnt have enough of coins considering it was our first day and when u exchange currency, u never get coins..the minimum denomination u get is 5euro banknote.....so we decided that we wld walk along the tram line, find the nearest shop where we cld eat somethin or somehow get some change....and then buy tram tickets.....I think we had to walk three tram stops before we cld find a post office at "Ernest Renan" tram stop, where the employee gave me change for 5euros...he was very reluctant, but he did give me change...then when he saw that three of my other friends wanted it too, he rudely refused....well....it wasnt a very good first impression about the people in france...anyway....so the change I had got still wasnt enough to buy tickets for all four of us..so we walked on...we soon found a bakery shop...it was a boulangerie(thats what they call bakery shops in french)...we bought some croissants and I cld finally feel my stomach giving a sigh of relief.....i remember paying 2.4euros for those 4 croissants...I cant believe I still remember such minute details :P...

So we reached the city centre where my three friends completed all formalities to get their TCAR passes issued....I, unfortunately, had brought photographs just enough for the formalities at ESIGELEC....rest of the photos were in my room back at the residence....I wondered if I should pay 4euros to get new passport photos clicked and printed at the photo machine nearby......well it was just my first day and I didnt have the heart to spend so much money unnecessarily...so we went back to the college...we met our profs there....one of the profs, Monsieur Jeanne Ertaud, showed us our desks......I dont remember what his name spelled like exactly.....thats what's so weird bout the french language.....in english, you just have to know what some word or a name sounds like.....in french, what some word sounds like is sometimes absolutely different from what its spelled like...anyway....so then he offered to drop us at the residence in his car.....we told him that it would be better if he could drop us at centre ville....my friends wanted to roam around the city centre....meanwhile I had told Monsiuer Ertaud about my photograph problem....he said I shldnt think so much bout the money, it was just 4euros after all....while we were having this conversation, I think I may have said something inappropriate...for his attitude towards me suddenly seemed to have turned cold the next day onwards....I wondered for many days after that what I may have said that was so inappropriate...may be it was the way I said something..anyway, at least he wasnt the prof who was gonna supervise my project..I was glad bout that...

So he dropped us at the centre ville....now the mathematical part of me suddenly sprang alive...it was 5pm and the TCAR office would close around 6....if I had to get my pass that day itself, then I would have to go to my room and come back within an hour....the residence was around 25min by bus one way....and a single 1.4euro ticket wld give me an hour of unlimited travel...so I boarded bus no 8, bought a ticket, reached my residence, ran the hell out of myself from the bus stop to the room, took the photographs, took the bus back....and finally managed to get my TCAR pass just before the office closed......god it was such a great feeling when I finaly got that bus pass....actually every little thing that day seemed to be of such great importance.....now I cld roam about anywhere in the city without worrying bout fares or the 1hour validity shit.....it was dark by now and I wondered where my friends were.....

It was christmas, it was a beautiful tuesday evening, and it was Europe......I felt as if I cldnt ask anything more from life....those beautiful rennaisance buidings doting the centre ville....the notre dame church bells tonging...the seine river flowing right through the city centre...it was all so picture perfect, it was all sooooo Europe....it always had been a dream for me to walk through a European city......it was a wonderful feeling.....I stopped at a small shop and bought some croissants n some other stuff for dinner....

It wasnt even 5minutes after I reached my room that Aayush knocked on my door.....he was beaming, and he said they had managed to get a SIM card !!!.....you cant imagine how happy I felt...now I could talk to my parents!!....it was a great feeling....there was only 5euros talktime on the phone....and each minute of call to India was I think more than 1euro....so Aayush called his parents and told them to give this number to our parents.....

So that was about one of my longest n most memorable days in Rouen :)......I realize this blog is horribly huge.....it took me an hour to type this down.....just imagine how long that day must have been......