I left the apartment at 11:00 this morning so I could wander around the city a bit before my appointment at the Inspection de Circonscription.I paid a visit to to the musée du vieux Nîmes--one room devoted to old methods of transportation, one room to bullfighting, three rooms to the history of denim, one enormous room to various kinds of pots, and two rooms to armoires. It was not an enormously popular museum. I also spent some time looking for postcards, but most of the Nîmes postcards were kind of ugly. There were some very beautiful postcards showing scenes from the Provence countryside, but I felt that sending them would be dishonest, because I have not yet seen any of the Provence countryside, except perhaps out the train window through a jet-lagged haze. I finally gave up wandering after an hour and a half, and got some quiche at a cafe across the street from the Inspection.

The meeting was a much more relaxed experience than I was expecting it to be; when I arrived, everyone was about to go on break, so I sat in a little outside terrace in the back with some of the women who worked there, and had coffee with them. Then I went inside with conseiller pedagogique and tried to figure out which bus I should take in order to get to my school (which is located well outside of Nîmes in a town called Milhaud). Afterwards she drove me to the school, where I spoke to the principal along with some other members of the administration and tried to work out my hours and responsibilities. I will be starting on Tuesday morning, taking the bus from Nîmes at about 8:20 in order to get there for 9:00. I did not get to meet the students today, or any of the English teachers I think, but I'll get to do that all in a nice big rush on Tuesday morning. Next week promises to be exciting.


The conseiller (I'm not putting names on here deliberately, trying to respect people who don't know I'm writing about them) drove me back to Avenue Jean-Jaurès and I took a long, winding way back to the apartment, stopping in les Halles to stare at all the home decor I still hesitate to buy. It's so exciting to have an apartment, and I want nothing more than to fill it with stuff, but I know I should save my money for traveling, rather than building myself a colorful nest that I will never want to leave. We did put a huge map of France up in the kitchen (free decoration). My room, though, is definitely starting to bore me. I think I might need to put some pictures up soon.

I spent most of the rest of the night sitting in the kitchen either talking on skype (with Danielle, which was awesome), or making/eating dinner. I went and read in bed for a bit, because the kitchen benches are not exactly comfortable, and then made my way back into the kitchen to update this and to search for a bike (I think I might have found one! but we'll see).

Tomorrow: meeting with all the primary school assistants!