Comment je suis arrive en France et mon confusion suivant...OR How I arrived in France and my confusion following.

And so it came to pass that I and my three pieces of luggage arrived on the doorstep of the high school (lycee) in France, bruised, tired, sweaty (me) and stained, lumpy, and heavy (the luggage). We took two planes, three trains, two taxis, and two buses. And now there were two sets of three stairs ahead of us, all that remained of the journey from Boulder, CO USA to Vesoul, France. Naturally, seeing as it was lunchtime, there was a gaggle of students outside the school, gawping at Luggage and me. Naturally, they stared, fascinated, as i heaved all three bags, one after the other up the first set of stairs, rolled them individually to the foot of the second stairs and heaved them up.
Eventually, I was able to talk to the head english professor and meet a couple of the other english teachers, all of whom are very nice. Everything is very disorganized so far, and i have found that you have to go talk to several people in order to accomplish one simple task. Such as: refilling the large bottle of gas that attaches to the two burners that form the stove in our little kitchen, which  found was totally empty when  tried to make pasta last night. Or procuring for me a set of the three different keys it takes to get into out apartment and also the 6 or more keys one needs for the school buildings and cafeteria...whew!
As it stands currently, communication with the outside world is rather limited. There is no phone, tv, or internet in the apartment and internet access is available only in the teachers lounge during school hours, on weekdays. Apparently last years bunch of assistants never really bothered to make the bureacratic push for these items, and they made a very bad impression, having trashed the apartment, all of which we now have to rectify.
I think that convincing the administration that the Internet should be `right up there with 'Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite° will be the first battle i pick.
Aside from these frustrations, I think I am fairly lucky. Rent at the school is very very cheap, I believe, and the school is large, with a great arts program (they specialize in dance) and a friendly staff. Both of the english teachers helping me so far have waxed lyrical about how great the students are--it seems a lot less formal than i had thought--they joke around with the students, who are very polite.
I have not gotten to see much of Vesoul yet, I have been so busy with all of the administrative stuff on the campus complex, but tomorrow there is a big outdoor market and I am looking forward to buying some fresh fruit and looking around the Old Town (the veille ville, which dates from the 14th century or so!) as well as sticking my fingers in the hornets nest that is the french cell phone system.
On Sunday, the spanish language assistant and i have been invited to have lunch with one of the spanish teachers at her home, and take a little trip to a small local vineyard to taste some wine (now is the time when they bring in the grapes). I am super excited about this, this lady has been like a surrogate mom so far to the spanish assistant and has been very kind to include me in things, too (its all a bit political, i have noticed, but basically the teacher in charge of me is too busy to really look out for me the way the other assistants are being looked after; fortunately, there are maybe 8 english teachers, most of whom i havent even met yet, so maybe i will bond with one of them and they can help me!!!!!).

My current plan is to buy a french sim card and then use prepaid phone cards to pay for minutes. It might be possible for you folks to use skype to call my french cell phone number--you would have to pay a couple of cents a minute, but i think it is far, far cheaper that way than for me to use a regular pay phone or the cell phone, but i will keep you posted! In the meanwhile, here is my address at the school:

Attention Mlle Lindsay Roberts
Lycee Edouard Belin
18 rue Edouard Belin
BP 50289
70006 Vesoul Cedex
France

Just like that.
And I think I will sign off for now. I love and miss you all! Ill try to have more updates soon!