What's Up (Pre-Paris)

Today and yesterday were my last two days to use the library, so I used them to my full advantage (by going to the library and reading of course!). Yesterday I also traveled to La Paillade (by bike) which was tiring and interesting. I rode through the whole neighborhood and saw that it was certainly worse than my first visit had indicated (in terms of the quality of buildings, etc.). I was too scared (seriously) to talk to anyone in particular, so I resorted to businesses.

I went to the branch of the Montpellier Agglo only to find that it was entirely useless as it did nothing to cater to the residents of Mosson (or La Paillade) and was simply a branch that marketed silly Agglo things (I did get tickets to a soccer game). Feeling inspired, I walked into the bank one of the commercial centers (St. Paul) and asked outright if people came to the bank to transfer money, aka send remittances. The response was what I expected, and fairly obvious; yes. Not wanting to hold up the line, I said thanks and left to drink some coffee in a café (the only white person) and write a draft questionnaire/survey.

I'm going to Paris this weekend. I'll try to stop by the Ministry of Immigration, the Agence française du développement and maybe a few awesome clubs (also to the University of Chicago send-off party Thursday night). Although I'll miss the end of the Tour on Sunday, I'll at least experience some of the frenzy (hopefully) beforehand on Sunday morning (we'll see).

Lots of work left, more neighborhoods to explore. I should also stop by the Prefecture and the office of Immigration here in Montpellier (why haven't I done this yet?) and try to talk to someone about why co-development/envoidargent.fr doesn't seem to be advertised anywhere.

In other news, I use far too many parentheses.