Insead, Fontainebleau and a parking ticket

We have now been in Fontainebleau for exactly one week, and so far it has been good. Living (for some days just with the two of us) in a large house with 10 rooms, a garden so big that a herd of cows can graze in it, a large terrace to enjoy the sun and a soccer and basketball terrain next door has been a nice start of our year.

I must admit, some months ago my impression of how easy the preparation would go was too naïve. There were so many things to arrange (insurance, loan, work in Singapore etc etc) and at some moments I walked around with 3 lists of to do's. I lost a lot of sleep and hair about it and I know that I will still have to get used to not waking up early to go to work each day and sharing a house with 10 other people instead of one. But I realized that this would be the moment for me to relax, do things I have dreamt about and make new friends. And then the car broke down.....
But this is all over now as Omar has already written and it was an excellent opportunity for Omar to drag some extra stuff with him to decorate our rooms. When we will move back home in December, we will probably need a U-Haul truck☺

Insead was more or less closed this week because they were redecorating the restaurant and the bookshop Footnote. And with no internet in the house (our very technical housemate Wim later discovered that we only had to press a button…) we decided to explore Fontainebleau and the surrounding villages, including Paris. The forest with its boulders (large stones) is beautiful and we have bought a book with VTT (Velo Tout Terraine) mountainbike routes. Paris was as good as always and we have a mall with a large Carrefour closeby (maybe some American influence accepted by France?) All in all our first week was good. We have been eating French cheeses and buying French bread at the Boulangeries. The only small culture shock we experienced was when we noticed our first French parking ticket!!!!
Our crime was not participating with the rest of the French people and moving our car from the left side of the street to the right side. In France (and according to Wim also in Belgium) there is a rule that states that from day 1 until the 15th all cars are parked on the left side and from the 16th until the end of the month all cars must be parked on the right side of the street. And we did not know about this. The Fontainebleau Municipal Police was so kind to explain the rule and everything was ok after we paid our ticket (EUR 11) by buying a stamp from the Fontainebleau Treasury.

Tomorrow is the start of the Foundations program for Omar and housemate Irina. I have some other plans, including testing my new soccerball and investigating the SNCF (French train) site to find out how I could get a discount when traveling by train. Au revoir et a bientôt!