Metz-Week 1

My first week in Metz has been an eventful one. I arrived on Monday in the early afternoon. It was a very simple voyage and communicating with the taxi driver was simple enough (I pretty much just gave him the sheet of where I was going and he entered it into his GPS) After arriving, I checked in, a simple enough process. I got all my stuff sorted and folded and went to set up my internet, this is where the story got interesting. I had the group that runs the internet in the dorms (who all are majoring in computer science) set up my computer and they checked it downstairs and it worked fine. I went up to my room and alas it didn't work. After trying many different ideas, I returned, humbly assuming I had made some silly mistake. Another check and sure enough it worked fine downstairs, was it my cable? Nope we checked that. Ok this is when 3 of them follow me to my room. They run a series of tests on my computer, then on my outlet and ask eachother who was in my room last semester, aye now there's the rub, apparently this person had violated their internet code of conduct and they had physically disconnected the room from the internet (IE unplugged a cable) so they plug the cable back in, I try connecting the computer again and sure enough it works just fine. By that point I was too tired to deal with anything other than a quick e-mail and I went off to bed.

Day 2: Orientation: we had our orientation in the morning and then afternoon classes started. The first class was circuits and electronics. Taught by a "very french" teacher (think of any french person you have seen in a movie and thats the guy). A very nice guy but he underestimates our intelligence I think so the class will be "hard" but he plans on going really slow. The second class was history of rocketry, pretty much what it sounds like: the history of rockets around the world , the class was originally scheduled for tues/thurs 4-6pm but as most of our weekends start friday our teacher didn't want us to miss out on precious travel time thursday evening so we moved the thursday meetings to wednesday! That night we went to downtown Metz to take a tour and have a group pizza dinner. The city is gorgeous, lots of old buildings built in the same style stone (pictures to come soon, I have been way over my upload limit so I will upload those at GTL on monday) It is interesting to think of cathedrals built in the 14th century, before people knew the world was round! It is truly fascinating. The town itself has very little night life and everything closes at about 7! The restaurants stay open a little later (about 10) very interesting considering that most french people don't eat until 8.

Wednesday was the first full day of classes, they will be a significant amount of work but they all seem understanding of travel and travel plans, they aren't going to test us or have large assignments due on monday or tuesday when we have just arrived back in town! They are serious about attendance since we have so few classes it is important to attend class but this shouldn't be a problem since in Metz there isn't much to do other than study and go to class. The network limit should prevent the internet from taking up too much of my time.

Thursday I only had my 9:15 class so I had lunch and then went to Metz with some friends. We went to the train station and asked about reservations on the trains we were going to take that weekend, since we didn't have much time to plan, we decided on day trips out of Metz to Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Nancy, all less than 2 hours by train from metz. I was able to communicate in French to the people at the train station, it was very successful. After that we walked around Metz and got some dinner. We were taking some pictures of the cathedral when I tripped on the cobbles, as I went down I heard (and felt) a pop in my knee and realized I had sublexed it (a minor dislocation) this happens to me about every 6 months due to an abnormal knee and typically is no big deal. I got up and rested for a few minutes, trying to walk it off. Walked around for awhile more and then took the bus back. I figured everything would be fine the next morning but to my dismay I woke up and it was still swollen and stiff. I decided not to go to strasbourg and let my knee heal and potentially go to the doctor. I went back to bed and woke up at 4pm that day!! I guess I was tired. My knee seemed to have improved drastically so I opted out of the doctor that day (not really thinking about it) After walking around the dorm that night I realized my knee wasn't as good as it looked. Realizing that I had no hope in getting to a doctor until monday I took the weekend off. Doing homework and going to the grocery store to buy some food for my meals. It was a very restful weekend. Hopefully tomorrow I can get to a doctor. The swelling has gone down significantly but it is still not back to even 90% so I am pretty sure I need to go to the doctor after class tomorrow.