Immigration class #1

Yesterday I had to attend a class titled "La vie en France" (Life in France), one part of the immigration requirements. This class started at 9:15 and was to end at 5:30. That's a whole lot of life in France for 1 day!  I tried to go into the class with an open mind and hoping to take some new information away.

I arrived to the class and was greeted by a woman who ended up being my own personal translator for the class. She quickly told me that she has a difficult time with American accents and that her English isn't great but she was the person available for the day and would do her best.

There was a total of 10 of us in attendance. The majority of participants were from different countries in Africa, one woman from Turkey and the other from Russia (who also had her own personal translator). Everyone was really friendly and pretty engaged in the class.

The format of the class was very relaxed and interactive. The topics covered were: school, medical care in France, employment, housing, and the general set up of the government and their functions (city hall versus the others offices).

We took a break for lunch and everyone chatted about what traditional food was in their country. Of course they asked what was the most common for the US but also answered their own question stating that they thought it was hamburgers. That really is the image of the US, we all eat hamburgers everyday.

The class didn't provide any earth shattering information for me but did give me some resources and ideas of where to go if I needed to further navigate one of the systems. The woman who translated for me was really friendly and nice and assured me that the next class I have to take (on the 27th) there will be a "real" translator for me, even though I thought she did alright.

The class ended 2 hours early and we were given our certificates to prove that we attended. The reported to us that this is a mighty big deal since we signed contracts upon entering the immigration process here and agreed to do what they asked of us (including these classes, learning French, etc).  We were reminded to guard these certificates with our lives as all of this paperwork I am amassing will be needed when I go to renew my visa.

Tomorrow I embark on the next adventure as I attend my first French class here in France. It starts at 9am and it includes 6 hours of French, with a break for lunch. Others started class last Thursday but I am only attending Mondays due to having a job (the others take class 3 days a week for 6 hours a day). At this point I will be attending every Monday indefinitely; until I exceed my 250 hours, am ready to take the exam, or have to change class days for some reason.

I am not sure how I will survive 6 whole hours but I really am excited to get better at this language and hope the class is good and fun too! A bonus if there is a fellow American or English speaker in the class that could be potential friend material. It would be nice to say I have at least 1 friend in this country, at this point I got zilch (since I am not counting family members)!