Am I still in France?

So much has happened today! All of a sudden. How could this be a Friday in France? Normally Fridays are just the hors-d'oeuvres of the weekend... my bank doesn't even handle cash on Fridays.

I dropped off reimbursement papers at two different places. Only had minor troubles. At the CAF office (France provides partial reimbursement of rent--everyone here gets it) the woman was looking over my papers. This is the part where they normally nitpick to find something wrong and send you home. All she found was one place where I hadn't written in my roommates' names in a margin where there was no indication that they should be written. With triumph in her eyes, she said, oh, maybe come back another day. I looked at her and said, " I can do right now. No problem. All is okay." She reluctantly gave the stack of papers back to be fixed. And that was that. In 8 months I will probably have some money put directly in to my French account. No telling when or how much.

It's the same case with the papers for a partial reimbursement of work-induced travel costs. They make you fill out a stupid amount of forms, make copies of every paper with both your name and a few stamps on it, and then send these documents through a mysterious chain of hands. But apparently, the money arrives.

Also, a man came and fixed our internet... He had to change our phone jack and rearrange a few things outside. And TA-DA we have a telephone and *gasp* cable television. Now I don't want to leave on the weekend trip Sarah and I had planned to Nancy. It's too good to be true. We haven't had this for a month and a half! Do you think an earthquake will strike?

Tomorrow, one of my schools is having a Christmas show. The kids are going to sing some English carols. Also a song about rabbits and robots. The cafeteria has been morphed into a Christmas village. The windows are covered with holiday pictures, and paper icicles hang from the ceiling. Two very colorful (gaudy?) Christmas trees stand in the corner, and a disco ball dangles from the ceiling.