Not All Crêpes and Croissants

I have been having the time of my life during study abroad so far.  However, there have been a few downsides:

First of all, every single class has been assigning group projects at the same time.  Group projects are great for splitting up the work and all, but scheduling and communication (especially when there are language barriers) make them a lot more work than anticipated.

For my Strategic Management class my group can't seem to do better than our OK grades on the case studies.  We worked even harder on the last one than the first.  But it appears our professor doesn't like critical thinking or anything that isn't explicitly in the text.  What little feedback he gives is in handwriting so atrocious I wouldn't understand it even if it were in English.

My Mergers&Acquisitions and Private Equity class is the most uncertain I've ever felt about an upcoming final (a week from Thursday).  We've been doing the same two things all semester (company valuations and leveraged buy-outs) and yet every time we review the homework in class she tells us "the correct way" to find the answer that either completely contradicts what she told us the previous week or is based on corporate finance and accounting concepts that are not covered in those previous classes (all the students from the Western Hemisphere in this class are as lost as I am so the learning gap is not just with USC).  When we ask her why her response is usually, "You must revise accounting and finance!"  I did revise.  I've gotten A's in all my accounting and finance classes so far.  It hasn't helped.  At least this class is taught in English and almost over.

A downside of not school, but living here in France is Sundays and public holidays.  Nothing is open.  I've lost track of the number of times I've realized I was out of food in my apartment and the grocery store was closed.  Plenty of cafes in Paris are open on Sundays (they're technically categorized as tourist attractions) but those are an hour away and I need to save money.  And if you need to get something printed, work something out with your French bank, or go to the cell phone boutique to up or downgrade your plan on a day that just happens to be one of the many, many, MANY public holidays, may whatever deity to which you pray have mercy on your soul.

This past Sunday, my friend and I wanted to go to Giverny to see Monet's gardens.  My train ticket was just under fifteen euros because I had the fifty euro Carte Jeune discount card...or so I thought.  I bought the card online from the railway company's website, but it turns out I have to have it printed from the boutique to show to the train conductors when they check tickets.  AND there's only a two month window to get them printed.  No one told me this and I couldn't find it in any of the fine print.  Therefore, on the train to Giverny I got charged an extra 35 euros for not having my card with me.  When we got back to Paris I went to the information desk and they were able to refund the fee for me.  However, since it was past the two month window by like a week, it cost me 10 euros to print a duplicate card and another 15 in random fees.  To quote the woman helping me, "It's ridiculous how they take money from people like this and they shouldn't be allowed to do it.  I'm really sorry.  Welcome to France."  THANKFULLY, the desk was open in this particular Sunday.

Monet's gardens were beautiful, at least I think they were.  Cameron and I didn't really get to see them.  The line to get in was about a quarter mile long and there was only one ticket window.  Consequently, it took two hours to get into the gardens.  Once in the gardens, the paths were narrow and there were people in every bit of walk-able space.  We eventually shoved our way to the water garden where the crowd was even worse.  Instead of still trying to see things, we sat down on the first bench we could find and ate our picnic of cheese, baguette, duck pâté, and dried fruit.  The endless line of tourists were amused and jealous at our spread.

A fair warning to anything looking into studying abroad at ESSEC or France in general:

Don't take Mergers&Acquisitions and Private Equity.
Don't go to Monet's gardens on a weekend or holiday unless it's raining.
Don't even bother trying to run errands on Sundays.
And finally, don't buy your discount rail cards online.  Buy them at an official desk or store (anywhere with the SNCF logo) so they can print them for you and tell you all the little rules that aren't listed anywhere but apparently can cost you lots of money for not following.