Patiently Waiting

School in Grenoble started on the 7th January after a two week break for Christmas. Having arrived in Grenoble on the 30th December we thought that we'd be able to sort school enrolments out in the intervening week, unfortunately with the public holidays this didn't happen.

Firstly we were required to submit several document at the local town hall to prove who we are and where we are staying. As proof of our residence, we asked Yves to write us a letter. The letter arrived on Friday so finally were able to we make the much anticipated trek to the town hall only to be directed to the Maison des habitants some 800m away.

After an animated and slightly awkward conversation -  us doing our best French and the lady doing her best English, we managed to submit the forms and understand that we should hear from someone within 7-10 days. More waiting. A visit to Lyon kept us busy on the weekend.

During the next week we explored Grenoble figuring where things were and how to get from A to B! Mostly our days were filled with a long sleep in (which is easy when it is so dark) combined with reading and eventually getting up around 9.30 am, followed by breakfast. Usually we made it out of the apartment by 11.30am to do a job followed by a visit to the flying fox and finally a detour past a bakery and supermarket before returning back to the apartment by 3.30 / 4pm. The rest of the afternoon we spent writing in journals, listening to podcasts, baking, playing xbox, knitting, reading or watching TV.

Notably we had a trip to Ikea to obtain a few items which involved negotiating a bus trip . A trip to the 'mall' (not as we would know it!) with a tad of shopping at H&M involved lots of walking - twice as we discovered they forgot to take off a security tag from the jumper Katy purchased! We explored the Jardin de Dauphins a few times.

Friday arrived and there was still no news on school. A trip to the snow kept us busy on Saturday (more on that trip later)  and thus requiring a quiet recovery day on Sunday. A trip to the local pool on  Sunday afternoon seemed like a great idea.

The nearest pool, Piscine Bulle d'O was a 20 min walk away. A search during the week showed the pool had restricted opening times and limited availability of lane space during these periods. Sunday though looked relatively free. As with our previous European pool excursion, shoes were removed prior to entering the change room. Once shoes were off, we entered a cubicle to change into our swimmers then exited on the other side to find a locker to stash our things. Next we showered, walked through a foot bath and entered the swimming area. The indoor pool has two parts - a 25m with 6 lanes which was busy with swimmers (probably 5 - 7 people per lane) and a 12m long 'free' swimming area containing a seated spa area.

Andy was happy to swim laps amongst the masses while us girls decided not to. Expecting a warm bath, we were slightly shocked to discover how cold the water was. I'm sure Katy's lips went instantly blue! We played around trying to warm up while Andy did his required minimum 1km swim! There are a few other pools in Grenoble but I'm not sure we'll be rushing out to test them. I think we may leave swimming off our European activity list!

On returning to the apartment we were surprised to find a letter in our mailbox! Opening it, we saw that the letter was related with the school application and had a large highlighted section. Of course it was all in French but Andy and I had the suspicion that there was a problem with our application. Thanks once again to google translate, we determined that we hadn't linked us to our place of residence well enough. We texted Yves to ask for his help. He was quick to reply and said he could call them tomorrow to clarify the situation.

Monday morning dawned. Andy had a plan to ask the secretary at work to re-issue his work contract with our French address on top. This was done quickly and Yves returned his call verifying what we had suspected. Another trip to the Maison des habitants to drop this additional document off and we were back to waiting again.