Yesterday was an exciting day for me. I put my big girl pants on and took my first solo trip on the tram since the day my leg got stuck in the door. This was to meet Jeremy by his work and go to the mall and supermarket. 
          The mall was very much like an American mall, except it was only one floor. In fact, it had a Footlocker, Sephora, Old Navy, Calvin Klein, Pandora, H&M, and Timberland. They love Timberlands here. Seriously, if you want to make some dough while traveling, fill your suitcase with Levi 501s and Timberlands bought in American and sell them here, you'll make a killing. Besides those stores there were some more clothing stores,a purse store, some jewlery stores, a furniture/deco store, a store for kitchen appliances, and a couple food joints.
          Oh and lingerie stores. There are tons here. I don't know about other parts of America but at least where I live all lingerie stores are these tiny little stores hidden in a run-down strip with overly sexual names, neon signs galore, and purple or red sheer curtains. The mannequins in the front have boas wrapped around their necks. The kind of place that makes you feel like you shouldn't talk about the fact you went there. That's not the case here. Lingerie not only have their own stores (that looks just like any other store and you feel comfortable walking in), they are also found everywhere from the mall to the high-end strip on the street.
          So after we walked around the mall for a bit, we went into the supermarket. The supermarket was the real reason for the visit, as it has things our local grocery store just doesn't carry. I was astounded by the size. Considering most stores are the size of an American convenience store, I was taken aback when I entered something as large as a Walmart! And a Walmart is exactly what I would compare it to, except less furniture and more fresh produce. And much more disorderly. You know how you can walk into any Walmart, Target, or large supermarket and generally know where everything is? There's a over-the-counter drug section, bath and beauty, home and office, entertainment, fresh produce, bagged dry goods, canned dry goods, you get the idea. The items practically flow in a sensible order from one row to the next, with signs saying what is in each isle.
          In this supermarket, not so much. It's like they pulled items out of a hat when determining what isles would have what in them. "Okay, this aisle will be . . ." and the manager rustles his hand around inside a top hat "bouillon cubes and . . . spices and . . . mops! Okay, next!" We spent a long time in there and I couldn't find everything I needed, but I did manage to get a few things on my list that our local grocery store didn't have.
          Speaking of mops! There is no such thing as a sponge-head mop here. In the four stores we've gone so far, not a one has been found. They use rag mops or flat mops that kind of look like a Swiffer dust mop, with no built in wringer. The bucket will have either a round wringer for a rag mop or a slot type press for a flat mop. I loved having a wringer on my mop, to me it's so easy and then you don't have to clean all the grit out of the wringer in the bucket.
          I can't wait to vacuum and mop! Since we've gotten our stuff, I haven't been able to vacuum, there are just too many boxes. If you know how furry our dog is, you can imagine what our apartment looks like right now. I think I mentioned before that our apartment doesn't have closets, which means we have to buy wardrobes which we haven't done yet. We also need a few bookcases. So all the boxes with our clothes, books, movies, and video games are still lying about taking up space. Between my love of books and our love of video games and the fact that we knew clothing in France is ridiculously expensive so we bought a bunch ahead of time, that's a lot of boxes. I just can't find a bookcase I like! I want a wooden book case and the French do not like wooden furniture. I don't know why, they just don't. So it's either cheap particle board that would collapse under the weight of three textbooks, or made well but super expensive because it's so rare they can charge more. I need to make a decision soon, or I will drown in dog fur.
          Tomorrow is my first tutoring appointment with my second tutor. It sounds weird, so let me explain. I have one tutor on Mondays and another on Thursdays. Since I've been so sick, I've only seen the Monday tutor so far. Hopefully this one is better, because so far I don't like my Monday tutor. Wish me well, I have to take the tram!

          We also got all our stuff from America last Tuesday! Poor Jeremy has had to do the majority of the unpacking by himself considering I can hardly stand without a coughing fit, let alone do physical labor. We have two more days to report if anything is missing or broken. So far they have forgotten a part of the guest bed (it is a trundle bed that was packed into 3 boxes) and a couple decorations have been broken. The US packers did a really horrible job packing. They just threw random things together with some paper shoved between them.
          Our situation was a bit unconventional. We still had some things packed in boxes from when we moved from our apartment to Jeremy's parents last year. We also had a storage container considering we downsized from an apartment to one bedroom. We realized we couldn't have packers come to their house and try to pack up two people's belongings from a house of 5 people, and then have them get the boxes stored in the garage, and then have them go to the storage unit. It just wouldn't work.
          Luckily, my dad has a fairly large house with some spare rooms that weren't being used, so we lugged everything over there. All our items that weren't already boxed up were thrown in boxes and brought over there. At one point we ran out of boxes and used trash bags. It was a mess, but it was the easiest way to get everything over there. The guy the shipping company sent over to give an estimate told us that everything would have to be repacked by the packers anyway if it were to be covered by insurance so to just leave everything as is.
          What he didn't tell us was that they would just throw everything into new boxes with no organization whatsoever. If a box we had already used was deemed sturdy enough, they would just throw some packing paper in there and tape it shut. If the box was too beat up, they would use their own boxes, but still just basically dump everything from one box to the next. So opening the boxes has been a nightmare, and the labeling makes no sense. There are probably about 10 boxes marked "Books" and only a few are actually completely filled with books. The rest will have a few books and then literally just anything imaginable. One box simply labeled "Books" will have books, clothes, a vase, kitchen supplies, and one pair of shoes in it.
          Another box had a box we had boxed ourselves placed in their box and taped up. It was a box in a box! And remember how I said we had run out of boxes and used trash bags? They just stuck the trash bags in boxes and taped them up! I'm very surprised no more than a few trinkets so far have been found broken. A better job could have been done if it was just me, Jeremy, and a few friends doing it ourselves. This company is getting payed more than a full-time minimum-wage employee makes in a year, and this is how they go about things.
          There are only a handful of boxes left and I'm very nervous because we haven't come across my jewelry yet. It's a major accusation that I am not yet willing to declare, and I'll have Jeremy's parents look around their home, but it had been one of the things packed up during the apartment-to-house move and I'm fairly confident we got all those boxes over to my father's. Hopefully we'll find it! And hopefully they'll be able to find 1/3 of a trundle bed in the back of their truck!

          So now that I'm well enough to sit up straight without feeling woozy, I have a lot to catch you all up on! As you may or may not know, Jeremy went to Amsterdam for work and brought home the flu. That was almost two weeks ago and I'm finally feeling well enough to do very basic tasks. I feel exhausted and if the scale is right, I have lost 15 pounds in the 32 days I've been here. We went to a doctor on Monday and I have to say, so far I am pretty pleased with their health care.
          We don't have our health care cards, called Carte Vitales, yet. This is proof of our insurance but it can take a long time to get. Luckily, even though we don't have the physical card, our insurance started on the first day Jeremy worked. So we just pay out of pocket as though we don't have health insurance, keep the receipts and then when we do get our cards, we can mail the receipts and get reimbursed. I've read that you get reimbursed for about 60-70% of doctor consultations and prescription costs. It sounds like a bummer but here's the thing: everything is so much cheaper here! Price of the doctor visit: 25€, price of a chest X-Ray: 28€, price of 5 prescriptions: 77€. Could you imagine the price of all that in the US if you didn't have health insurance?! One of the prescriptions, an inhaler, was 55€ so if we hadn't gotten that, it would have been 22€ for four medications without health insurance or a prescription plan. I can't even imagine walking into a radiology suite in the US without insurance and walking out only owing $32.
          The doctor was very nice, too. She was recommended by a coworker because she can speak English. She took her time to listen, she asked tons of questions, and made sure she was giving me every thing she could think of. I feel like in America, you're just roughly examined and given some antibiotics. She gave me antibiotics, an inhaler, a nasal spray, corticosteroids, and a fever reducer/muscle pain reliever (I had strained a few muscles from coughing so much), and sent me for a chest X-Ray to make sure I didn't develop pneumonia. She went over every medication, when to take them, how long to take them for, and if they should be taken with a meal. She also called the radiology clinic to see if they could take me right away.
          I feel bad because I can't use the inhaler and I haven't taken the corticosteroids. The inhaler makes me instantaneously throw up, it's disgusting, and the corticosteroids I'm just really apprehensive about taking. I know they can cause bad nausea, and I already have bad nausea from the antibiotics, so I'm just nervous to take them. I feel like at this point I've already lost so much weight being sick that it's more important to keep the little food I can stomach down. I already feel quite a bit better in the couple days I've been on the rest of the medicine, so I'm hopeful I won't need to use them.

 Sorry I haven't posted in while. You see, Jeremy went to Amsterdam for work and brought me home some things; chocolate, peanut butter, and the flu. Today is the first day I've been able to stand without assistance but I can already feel myself getting dizzy so this will be a short post. It's not surprising, really. We don't catch colds 24/7 because our immune systems recognize the strains from previous years and are ready to fight. However, Europe has different strains of everything than we do so my body is catching everything since it's never seen it before and doesn't have memory cells. It's like when the states were colonized and we killed tons of Native Americans because of the common cold, except now we have the wonders of modern day medicine.
We're supposedly getting half of our shipment tomorrow, we'll see. I'll make sure to post plenty as soon as I'm well.

          Well, we got an e-mail yesterday saying our shipment will not be arriving today. No explanation as to why, and no new expected arrival date, just an e-mail crushing all our hopes. So both Jeremy and his boss sent them e-mails basically exploding at the ridiculousness of this whole ordeal and demanding an explanation.
          They responded with an essay of an e-mail this morning with the first 5 paragraphs blaming it on us. They said they normally research where they are delivering beforehand to determine where they can park such a large truck. However, we had not given them our address in a timely fashion so they could not do that. Now, I'm skimming this down to couple sentences, but keep in mind this is actually 5 paragraphs of them saying that we were the irresponsible party in this matter.
          The only problem with that is it's utter bull. The application for the apartment was accepted on November 10th so we've known our address since then. I can't remember when we first told them of our address, but I know we told the US shipping side when we set up the appointment for shipping in the first week of December, and again on all the papers during shipping days. which were December 22nd and 23rd. It is not our fault that the French company decided to hire a third party shipper on the US side, who hired third party packers, and no one was communicating with one another. But both the US shippers and US packers had our French address, which should have been sent to the French company. If the French side wanted us to directly tell them our address, it should have been said. They could have called or e-mailed at any point in time, instead of just saying "Oh well we don't have the address and we don't feel like talking to the people we hired out or the people who are paying us, so we'll just wait until all the paperwork gets here with the shipment in the middle of January."
          Then they go on to say once they finally got the address, the looked it up on google maps and "at a glance" everything looked good. So they waited until the 30th of January to contact the City Council of Besancon to reserve parking on the street for a truck that big for February 6th. Ever trying to make themselves look good, they assured us that this is "in the normal timing for authorization". On Monday the 2nd, the Council got back to them saying that since the tram station is on that street, they needed to have requested this a month in advance. This is somewhat understandable, as the google maps image is 4 years old and the tram system was built about 1 1/2 years ago. But I just don't understand the concept of "If it takes two weeks to do, only give yourself two weeks to do it." I'm more in the mindset of "I should do this as far in advance as possible because I know mess ups will happen." But I guess that's French mentality for you.
          So then they go on to say how they drove out to the site to see how they could park the truck and maybe get around having to get a permit so that we won't have to wait another month. Meanwhile, they decide not to tell us any of this and let us assume we are still getting our delivery February 6th until they email us on February 5th saying, basically, "Syke! Lol".
          They end the essay telling us that they will inform us of the new time once they have it, "Best regards, and good day". So, who knows when this will be happening. Maybe two weeks from now we'll get another email saying that they tried their best to do it without a permit but it didn't work and now we'll have to wait another month since they didn't bother trying to request a permit. All I know is I am so tempted to rent a hotel for a couple days just to sleep on a real bed.
          I'd like to end this post on a different note. Right now, this blog is sounding pretty miserable. I want to say that even though all this is happening, I'm enjoying my time here so far. The people we've met are all so nice, and I love the city. It's just going to take a few months of getting the big stuff out of the way until I can fully express that. An international move accompanied by a language barrier is a huge adjustment. If you can, think about the last time you moved to a completely different area you had no knowledge of, or even going off to college, and then try to multiply that feeling times, like, 10. That is what we are dealing with right now. When things start settling down and Spring starts coming around, I'll make sure to post more pictures and you can see what I get to see every day, a beautiful city full of awesome people.

          I discovered a new website to get cheap airline tickets. It's called skyscanner and it's a pretty good deal. If you know me, I'm usually a huge advocate for tripadvisor not only because they're cheap, but because you can view flights up to 6 months ahead of time. However, I find tripadvisor to be a little confusing when selecting flights while skyscanner is a little more user-friendly. Now, there are some issues with skyscanner as well, so I use both to cover my tookus and make sure I'm getting the best deal.
          First, I go to skyscanner. I select a flight from New York to Paris. I chose New York instead of Philadelphia because it is generally much cheaper. Don't forget to check the box "Prefer non stop flights" under Paris.

          Then, I go to the picture of the calendar at the departure date and click on it (left click, dad). This will bring up date options. I chose "whole year".

          That will bring you to a graph chart where you can look at every day of the year. I switched from chart to calendar for a better view. On the left is the departure date and on the right is the return.

          You will notice that when you select a departure date, the return date prices will change, so play around with it to find the best deal. Even though one departure date may be a few bucks cheaper than the other, the return dates can be the same way. The sum of the departure date and the return date will be your estimated ticket price. I say estimated because like many flight finders, the price is based on when someone last searched for those dates. In the meantime, airlines could have changed their price. For example, in the picture below the estimated price is $999, but when I select "show flights" the price changes to $1023.

          The further away your date is, the more likely it will be cheaper on tripadvisor. This is why I use both websites. Skyscanner is easier to find flights on, but tripadvisor can be cheaper. For example for a round-trip flight from May 12th to May 17th, skyscanner quotes $813, but if you go on tripadvisor, and enter the same dates, the same exact flight will show up for $709. However, for the February dates shown above, skyscanner is cheaper by about $200!
          Well, there you have it! Now you have no excuse to not come see us! Don't forget to check my blog's Calendar page beforehand. Any dates that are already spoken for will be blocked out, and there's a form you can fill out so I can know when you're coming and update it.

          Benjamin invited us over to watch our first French film, Le Couperet, translated to The Ax. It had English subtitles so we could follow along well enough. It was about a man who lost his job when his company downsized. Two years later, he still had no job. He decided he would make up a fake company so he could see his competitor's resumes and compare them to his own to see how his is lacking. This resulted in him decided to go on a killing spree and kill the competitors who he thought had better resumes than him.
          It is a comedy, but definitely a darker one. It probably hits home with a lot of French people, considering their unemployment rate is the highest it's been since 1995 at 10.4%. That's why it is so difficult for a foreigner to get a job in France, and why Jeremy's company had to work as hard as they did to get him over here. From 1995 to 2008, the unemployment rate steadily declined to about 7%, before increasing again. It has stayed in the 10% range for the past 2 1/2 years.
          On a lighter note, the main actor, Jose Garcia, looks a lot like Tony Shalhoub, the main actor from the tv show Monk. Jose is a well known Franco-Spanish comedian who acts in many movies and performs in many skit shows, and was also the (French) voice of Mushu from Mulan and Alex the lion from Madagascar.

          We had no clue when the washing machine would actually get here, which of course means that we went to the laundromat the day before it got here and washed all our clothes. So even though I've had the washing machine for a week now, I've really just started playing with it. There are tons of washing options; cotton, linens, synthetics, mix, hygiene, ultra silence, babycare, comforter, sport, darks, quick wash, delicate, and extra dirty. On top of that there are also functions for each option; turbo wash, soak, extra rinse, extra soiled (I wonder how clean things would look if I used option extra dirty with function extra soiled!), extra rinse with soak, anti-wrinkle, and delayed start. Phew!
          We got an 8 kg (17.5 lb) drum to fit plenty of clothes in, but have since found out that only cotton and linens allow you to use it up to 8 kgs. The rest are anywhere from only 1.5 kgs to 4.5 kgs. Delicate are 1.5 which is troublesome. I wash all our sweaters and a lot of my shirts in delicate which means I can only fit about 4 or 5 sweaters in at a time. Yesterday I tried the delicate mode and it unfortunately didn't get the deodorant marks out, maybe next time I'll try it with a soak or extra rinse, or both.
          Besides the one load of delicates, I had tried cotton for everything else but it took 96 minutes! So today I tried linens instead, and it's 221 minutes! That's almost 4 hours! Upon looking it up, the linen option boasts less energy consumption by using less water and less kWh at 35L of water and 0.43 kWh. I don't understand how they can get away with saying it is less consumptive considering the cotton option is 0.72 kWh but at 96 minutes, actually costs 43 cents less per load! Maybe in some areas of France water consumption is monitored and limited, similar to when the US has droughts? I don't know, but needless to say I won't be using the linen option anymore. I had hoped to do the wash early enough to get two loads today, but obviously that won't happen now!
          I'm trying to get everything washed now because on Friday our crate from America is arriving! Yay a real bed and couch! And a million other important things, but those are definitely the two things I miss most. So I wanted to wash all the clothes, pack them back into the suitcases, and put the suitcases in our storage room in the basement. That way, the bedroom floor, which is currently being used as a wardrobe, will be clear for all the furniture to come in. I'm so excited!
          I'll try to post extra the next few days because you probably won't here from us all weekend while we set everything up the way we want. But then I'll finally take pictures of the apartment!

          We went to our first party thanks to Jeremy's coworker Louis and his wife Marianne this past Saturday. Louis and Marianne are originally from Montreal, Canada. They then lived in Boston in the US, and now they live in a town called Ornans about 30 minutes away from Besancon.
          A bus leaves from right outside our apartment building and for 3 euros each, brings us to Ornans. Ornans is southwest of Besancon and is surrounded by mountains. I found it funny that a town only 30 minutes away had a couple inches of snow on the ground while we have none! At one point on the bus you could see houses going uphill. The lower houses had no snow on the roofs while the higher ones were covered.
          The town itself is gorgeous. It is very historic looking, and has a river running through it. The water was so clear you could see the riverbed and fish swimming. There were also ducks. Mallards, in fact! Besides pigeons, mallards are the first comparable bird species I have seen. I'm sure that will change come Spring, though.
          The only buses heading that way were at noon or six. While noon was very early, six would be too late so our idea was to grab lunch at a local cafe and wander around town until it was about time for the party. Well, not only was it snowing and cold, but we forgot that most stores close from noon to two. Evidently in a small town like Ornans, even the cafes close. So we walked to Louis and Marianne's and they graciously let us in much earlier than the intended time and even made us lunch.
          I'm really glad we got there early because it gave us time to talk from one expat couple to another. They gave us advice, places to shop, and joked about French customs and ways of life. They are really nice people, and huge Halloween fans! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I was super bummed to find out it is not celebrated here, so this was happy news for me! They turn their whole basement into a haunted house!
          The party was wonderful, everyone was very nice and trying their best to include us in their conversations. There were 19 adults and 10 kids!  The food was Quebecois, that is to say recipes from Quebec. Marianne went a little pale upon finding out that I'm vegetarian, as all her entries were meat. I assured her it was fine and I'd make do with appetizers and such.
          I never know what to do in those kinds of situations. Upon finding out about the party should I have told Jeremy to tell Louis about my vegetarianism? Or should I just keep my mouth shut? If I tell people beforehand, I feel like I'm making a big deal out of it and am afraid they will feel like they have to go out of their way for me. On the other hand, I can embarrass the hosts of the party who, upon finding out, realize they have nothing to feed me.
          But when I say anything is fine and not to cook something special for me, I really do mean it. I had no problem eating the vegetables from the appetizer platter and mashed potatoes. I like vegetables, it would be hard to be vegetarian otherwise, and the mashed potatoes were awesome. Plus, it saves more room for the dessert!
          Jeremy said the meat dishes were delicious. There was some kind of sausage, a meat pie, and a meat stew. There might have been one more thing. I'm not very descriptive with meat dishes considering. There was also homemade ketchup that Jeremy said tasted sweet and spicy. As a side note, it seems the French eat ketchup as a side, not as a dressing. When the girl next to Jeremy, Natasha, asked him if he wanted some he asked "Sure, but what do I put it on?", gathering odd looks from the people around him. He then noticed that people just put it on the side of the dish and eat it like one would eat mashed potatoes or peas.
          The desserts were amazing. Maple syrup pie, maple syrup cupcakes, and apple pie. The maple syrup pie had a consistency of pumpkin pie, except thicker, and the maple taste was very strong. The cupcakes had a more mild maple taste with an almost cinnabon-esque icing. When you walked into Marianne's kitchen, I swear there were at least 6 empty jars of maple syrup. But let's forget about how many carbs I consumed.
          We were driven home by a friend of Louis and Marianne names Emanuel but affectionately called Crab by his friends. It was very nice of him, otherwise we would have had to stay the night and catch a bus the next day. We were exhausted from trying to speak and comprehend all night, which Louis and Marianne understood from both Boston and France.
          As an interesting side note, Marianne said she would have thought moving to Boston would be harder than moving to France because she could speak French, but it was actually the opposite. Canada and America have a similar way of life while France is a lot different. For example the fact that everything is closed from noon to two Monday-Saturday, and closed all day Sunday. Life is more relaxed here, which is nice but can be a con as well. People being more laid back means things like us getting our washer 30 days after it was supposed to be delivered is a more common occurrence. Customer service is practically non-existent here as well, though Marianne said it's better than it was 5 years ago. People also tend to be more easily offended here. They take pride in how they look but at the same time want to make sure they look like everyone else and take offense very easily to anything regarding themselves, their region, or their country. Marianne said many times if she mentions she misses something from America or Canada she gets something along the lines of a haughty, "Well, why don't you just move back, then!"
          It's a lot to get used to, that's for sure. I often wonder how many times I have screwed up or offended someone simply because I'm not sure what the cultural norm is here. It is very nice having people who can relate, and exciting that hopefully I can call them my friends.

          The supermarket we go to, Monoprix, is much like any American supermarket but in a smaller scale. It's probably about 3/4 to 1/2 the size of a Walgreen's or CVS. The smaller markets, called casinos, are probably 3/4 to 1/2 the size of a Wawa. The Monoprix is slightly more costly, but right down the street which makes the price comparable since I would have to pay to take a tram to get to a different supermarket. 
          The produce section is very nice with a wide variety, and every week they have different produce on sale for cheaper in the center. I'm not sure if it's closer to spoiling, they got more than they needed, or it's just from a cheaper source. Whether on sale or full price, fresh produce is at least half the price here than it is in America.
          Their cheese section is a whole wall, and then all other dairies are another wall. They have a lot of yogurt, but it's mostly plain. Their meat section seemed nice, but I don't have much experience in that department. The prices vary widely but are generally more expensive here.
          Most of the other items are slim pickings. They'll have one or two major brands and the store brand, that's it. No entire aisle of bread or cereal, no four shelves of tea or coffee, the only exception seems to be wine and hair products. The wine and liquor takes up two whole aisles of the store which is astronomical considering how small the store is.
          Monoprix and a couple other supermarkets are adapting the "loyalty card" approach, but that's about it. My key chain seems quite bare now compared to when it had a card from every store I have ever entered on it.
          Another thing that is quite rare are coupons. Every store releases it's ad and some things are on sale, but it's no where near to the extent of what you could do in America. If I had enough coupons, I could bring down my bill by at least 50%. There are probably as many coupon web-sites in America as there are mosquitoes. I have found two for France. And let me tell you, they are slim pickings. I have had a coupon app for about 4 days now, and the same 20 items or so have been on it. You select the coupon you're interested in, you have 14 days to buy it, and instead of it being discounted at the register, you are refunded directly into your bank account. It sounds weird, but like I said in another post, everything is done with your bank account here.
          Out of the 20 or so items, I found 7 to my liking. Unfortunately, since I don't know the normal prices of things here, I don't know if I'll ever use them. For example, there's a coupon for 80 cents off a dry sausage (which are eaten as a snack or light meal here) but I have no clue how much dry sausage usually costs. Am I getting 80 cents off $2? Or do they normally cost $5, in which case I feel like it wouldn't be worth it to buy. Who knows!
           Maybe I should start spending my whole day in the supermarket, memorizing prices and creeping out the workers.