Internat at Lycée Marie Curie

Most likely, you will be living in the school's dorm, called the Internat. The internat at the high school houses approximately 300 students, and there are also the assistants, a few teachers, and some administration. However, the assistants are the only ones that stay in the school over the weekends and vacations.

The dorm has 2 sections which are approximately identical in size. One section has 3 levels (floors 0-2). The other section, where the assistants stay, has 4 levels (floors 0-3) and the 4th level (floor 3) is almost exclusively for the assistants. The hallway is also shared by a professor who stays during the weeknights and a group of BTS students who live there only on Monday nights. The assistants rooms all tend to be grouped together at the end of the hallway. There is a wide section at the end of the hallway that quickly becomes the hang-out area for the assistants. There is a computer with internet and a printer, some chairs, a phone (can't call out of the school though), and a white board (installed this year, very handy). The rooms themselves are a decent size. The way they come arranged at the beginning of the year I found to be a bit non-logical, and in the way that leaves the least open space possible. None of the furniture is glued to the floor - go ahead and move it how you wish. Each room comes with 2 (or 1) armoir closet, a desk, a bed, a shelving unit that's meant to go behind the bed, and usually some variation of chairs and tables. There is also a bathroom that consists of a shower and a sink. There are 2 toilets at the end of the hallway (by the entrance). Also near the toilet there are cleaning supplies/mops/brooms for cleaning your room. The cleaning ladies clean the toilets.

When you arrive you will be given 4 keys. When I arrived I was so jet lagged, and Madame Elizabeth (who i will talk about more later) was yapping away in really fast French and I was understanding approximately 1% of it. She gave me the keys, and I just said "I'll figure them out later." The keys serve the following function:
-Room Key
-Gate Key (will be silver)
-School Door Key (will be a large key)
-Interior key that separates the dorm and the school.

The first 3 keys are pretty self explanatory. The 4th key is for a special set of doors. On every floor there are doors which separate the dorm and the school. They all lock via a feature on top of the door. You have to put the key into the little key slot that's next to the door (under the "emergency-open-the-freaking-door button) and turn it to the right... or left, one will make the door "click." After you open the door, the feature on top re-locks, and it slams on the closed lock, causing the tops of all these doors to be damaged. It is quite a bad design. During the weekends and vacations, they ask that you keep the gate and the school door locked.