Today I met French bureaucracy for the first time. After queuing at the prefecture for my carte de sejour (residency permit), I was told that I first needed a certificate of enrolment at my university. Of course, enroling at the university requires me to have social security, and social security requires a carte de sejour, and a carte de sejour requires enrolment, and... Out of memory error. I'm assured it will all work itself out. I hope so, for the sake of my sanity - on the way back to work from the prefecture, I was pretty depressed everything: the bureaucracy, not knowing anyone, not eating well, and everything else.

People keep asking me what I'm going to do on the weekend, and I just don't know. I probably should look for an appartment or something, but I just don't know where to start. To be honest, I'm quite happy to be fleeced on rent if I can just find somewhere with a bed, a desk, and a fridge, with access to uni.