First weeks in France

When I found out I had been accepted to come to France for about eight months, I knew it was going to be a great adventure.  I had lived in France before, so I felt confident that everything would just fall into place just like it did when I was here as a missionary.  I knew how to use the train stations, I knew how to figure out the bus system, I knew there would be an immediate base of support and friendship coming from the ward in Perigueux, and I knew French.  I figured that would be enough.  For the most part, everything has been as I expected it to be.  But I believe I did underestimate exactly how much of an adventure this experience really was going to be.
I have been in France now for almost three weeks now and still haven't written a blog post, and I will get to the reason why in just a moment, but I would like to start from the beginning, just so nothing gets left out.  The trip started in Salt Lake City on September 20, 2010.  Everything went smoothly at the airport, all our papers were in order, we hopped in the plane and took off.  The first flight was smooth.  The second flight would be the most difficult of them all, and we knew that getting on the plane.  It was about ten hours long and it was overnight.  Everyone knows that sleeping on a plane is very difficult, but I think it would have been less difficult it the elderly couple with noise cancelling headphones in the seat right behind us would have realized the could have heard each other better if they had taken the noise cancelling headphones off instead of just shouting to each other and if they had turned off their overhead lights during at least some of the flight... none the less we ended up in the Netherlands and finally landed about a half hour late because of extreme fog.  The flight messed with our minds.  We were flying east and the darkness of night was heading west.  We passed through the darkness and back into the light in what felt like no time at all.  We really only had about two to three hours of night.  Shortest night I have ever experiened.  Because of the late landing, we only had fifteen minutes to get to our next gate, we were nearly running.  We showed up at the gate only to find our flight had been delayed a half hour - also because of the fog.  We sat down, extremely tired from not sleeping all night and running to our gate, and waited a half hour.  That half hour turned into an hour which then turned into over two hours before we were finally boarded the plane.  It felt like an eternity because we were so tired and so anxious to finally arrive in France.  We did finally get off the ground and shortly after landed in Bordeaux, France.  Getting a train to Perigueux took another couple of hours of waiting and when we arrived in Perigueux, we had no map (there was a map distributer, but it was broken.), and even if we had found a map, we had struggled getting in contact with the person who was keeping us at his house and didn't know where he lived or how to get there.  Getting in contact with our friend seemed almost impossible!  There were no public phones around, I saw no cyber cafes around (beyond that, he doesn't really use e-mail anyway), and the only pay phones we could find wouldn't take coins, only French credit cards.  It seems illogical to me that the only way to pay for a pay phone is with a French credit card.  Don't most French people already have a phone or some way to contact people in France?  The people most likely to use pay phones are TOURISTS who need to call someone in a city (like us) or call their hotel for directions or something of the sort, meaning they won't have a French credit card.  So we waited at the train station for a while, bought a kebab (not the best I had ever had) and had to borrow some random girl's cell phone to try to get ahold of our friend.  No answer.  We left a message and told him we would be sitting in front of the train station.  An hour later he picked us up.  What a relief it was to finally get to rest in a confortable house and get all cleaned up!  Sadly the first few hours in France for my wife and I were not as enchanting as we might have hoped.  The next day we took a bus into town and tried to get our bearings, which was also hard.  How do you find the interesting parts of a town if you don't know anything about the town at all?  We took the first bus we saw and spent the day walking. 
Our third day was another great experience.  We didn't do much the entire day, we had no plans, nothing to go see... and in essence, that was our cultural experience for the day: it was a day of greve (strike).  No busses, no trains, no planes, nothing of the sort.  We were completely stuck in our little suburb outside Perigueux with our gracious but slightly awkward hosts.  I suppose we now know what it is like to be a French person who is particularly bothered by the nation wide GREVES. 
A few days later we took a train to Bayonne.  I suppose that is when the truly enchanting part of our voyage really took place.  Visiting Bayonne was heaven.  I knew the city because I had been there on a mission, I knew members who were excited to see us and very excited to meet my lovely wife, I knew what was worth visiting... really it was the epitomy of a perfect vacation.  We spent little money because people kept us at their houses and fed us.  We made the most of every day.  We got some good exercise.  Everything was good.  We attended church in Bayonne and everyone was so happy to see us.  People I knew from my mission and even many that I didn't know from my mission were so kind to us.  Probably seven different families offered to let us stay at their house if we ever wanted to visit Bayonne again.  Even people I had never met before were offering us their homes!  The kindness was almost overwhelming.  I couldn't help but think to myself that if the whole world were more like the members of the church in Bayonne, well... I suppose we would all be translated already!  The highlights of the trip were the beaches of Biarritz (even though it was a bit cold and rainy), the open air markets, driving down to Espelette where they hang piments from every Basque looking building, the cathedral in Bayonne city center, visiting people I had met on their mission, and of course, the U2 concert in Spain.  We were worried about how we would get to the concert, but even more worried about coming back because I realized that there were no trains scheduled that late in the evening.  We were very blessed because a family that was inactive when I was on my mission -but still invited me and my companion over for Christmas dinner my last mission Christmas- had started coming back to church the week before we arrived and they were going to the concert as well.  They drove us and we considered it a miracle.
Getting back to Perigueux and finally moving into our apartment was like jumping into a cold swimming pool after sitting in a relaxing hot tub for hours.  Because of French policies, we were NOT allowed to move into our apartment until October 1st, even though there was no one in the apt.  Not too big of a problem for use because we had a generous host, but how are all the assistants in the past and future supposed to deal with that situation if they can't move into the apartment until their first day of training?  It seems unreasonable to me.  We moved in on a Friday and started getting settled.  Later that evening, around seven or eight at night, I realized we had no hot water because the water heater was not plugged in.  Obviously an attempt to save energy when no one is living in the apartment.  I plugged it in and immediately heard a small explosion of water.  I looked in the toilet room where the water heater was and water was spraying all over the floor and walls.  I quickly unplugged it again and turned off all water that was passing through it but nothing would stop the leak.  It wasn't as bad anymore, but it never stopped.  Drip, drip, drip, drip... We had no phones.  We had no internet.  I had no phone numbers of people to call except one of the English teachers who was my "Contact person" from the school.  I went to all the offices where I had been introduced earlier that day and everyone had gone home.  We managed to get a bucket in place to catch the falling water and decided to try to find a phone in the morning to get ahold of my contact person.  We walked to the chapel and were lucky enough to find the missionaries holding a sports activity with some members and investigators and we used the church phone to call Ginette.  She ended up completely unable to help us because she didn't have anyone's phone number either.  She said to just keep an eye out for anyone at the school and tell them.  We did end up seeing someone at the school and told them about our problem.  By this time the leak was getting worse and we had to drain the bucket every couple hours.  "Sorry, there is nothing I can do during the weekend, it will have to wait until Monday."  That was the response every time we managed to find someone and tell them about our problem.  Weekend = we don't care.  On Monday, though, everyone started really worrying about the situation and the problem was quickly solved.  An easy solution that could have been done on Friday night if anyone had bothered enough to care.  I recognize that it was the weekend and everyone needs their personal time, but there are also situations that require a little extra effort than the minimum.
Things have calmed down now that the leak is fixed and we have hot water again, but it still seems like we have been struggling with many minor things that are never too much of a problem in the United States.  Maybe we just aren't as accostumed to the French culture as I thought I was, or maybe Perigueux is particular in its nature, but things have been difficult.  The stove top was broken and the school refused to fix it because they fixed it last year.  It was obvious no one had cleaned the apartment before moving out and we spent an entire day throwing away boxes and trash that had been shoved in the closets probably for years.  Ariel, my wife, was particularly worried about the cleanliness of the beds and such and spent several days cleaning everything to perfection with bleach and any other cleaning agent she could get her hand on.  If only I could demand they take all that labor out of the cost of my rent, as well as the price of a new stove top thing and a small convection oven... but I'm sure that wouldn't go over well.  Little by little we have taken care of all the major problems and are finally starting to get confortable not only in the apartment but in the city as well.  We are starting to know where things are, how to best get around, etc.  Once we both feel more confortable in this city, I'm sure it will be the paradise that we were hoping it would be and we will enjoy Perigueux as much as if not more than we did Bayonne.  Now all that is left is to start my assistantship, the actual reason we came to France.