A new beginning

Now that we had made it to Montpellier, our first task was to find our hotel. The hotel was located very close to the train station, so we did not have far to go. We checked in and found ourselves in a small, but inexpensive room where the walls around the bed were lined with a three foot strip of scratchy, seafoam green, commercial loop style carpet. Andy explained to me that this was to help block any noise pollution, though I really don't think it helped any. Furthermore, our bed had a broken leg, but this did not affect our first night's sleep as we were throughly exhausted.

The next day, we went to the tourist's office and walked around town a bit. Since the prefecture was closed, we retired early to our hotel for a nap. That night we contacted our one and only apartment prospect. Though, we still couldn't speak French very well, we managed to set up a rendezvous for the following afternoon.

The next day we headed out to the Comedie for lunch and ate at "Creperie le Kreisker". For our first crepes in Montpellier, they were all we had dreamed of! It was also my first time having crepes made with buckwheat. We were not too familiar with the tram system yet, so we left the town center about an hour before our rendezvous. However, as is bound to happen, we got lost along the way. We spent about an hour out in the hot sun wandering through residential zones. When we finally found our way to the meeting place, we were an hour too late, and all we had to show for it was a sunburn. We asked the girl at the counter of a copy shop if we could use the phone there, but alas we were denied, and with no hope of meeting the landlords that day, we decided to check into Andy's work.

When we arrived at LIRMM, we met with the director's secretary, Cecile. Cecile was very friendly and an enormous help with our apartment search and opening a bank account. We spent a long time looking up apartment listings and calling various agencies. We also attempted contacting our previous appointment with no luck. After much time, we finally found a promising prospect and scheduled an appointment for the next day. Unfortunately, the apartment would not be ready until two weeks after Andy's job started. So, with the future looking bleak, I urged Andy to try to call our missed appointment again. This time we got through!

Cecile was able to explain the situation to the landlords, and they wanted to meet with us, but only if we could get to the apartment very soon. So, the three of us sped over to the apartment with high hopes. I think that it must have been fate that we did miss our appointment earlier. Without Cecile's accompaniment, we may not have been able to rent the apartment. There were various French laws that we were unaware of, and the landlords were a little skeptical of us since we had missed our rendezvous earlier.

We were able to put their worries to rest, and due to our urgency to find an apartment and the fact that they were leaving town that night to move into their new place, we were able to sign all of the paperwork that night and move in the next day. Because we wanted to move in as soon as possible, we agreed to take the apartment "as is" and finish cleaning it. We were filled with relief and excited about starting our life together. So, with our first big task completed, we made our last move in Montpellier.