apartment hunting in FRANCE

OK so what I am about to write may be a but confusing since it's hard to describe the layout of this city, but i will try my best. My high school , although called "the St. Tropz high school", is not actually in St. Tropez, nor anywhere else near the beach. It is in a remote town called Cogolin/Gassin. Yesterday, after taking one train and THREE buses from nice to this tiny city called Cogolin, our contact person takes us to see our "potential apartment". It was really cheap, so we were excited at first .It's near the pharmacie and the supermarket... but seeing as that Cogolin is not very big, there just wasn't a lot around (strike 1). When we got there, this sweet old lady starts talking about everything that was broken but that "her son would fix it".. which to me, sounded fine but apparently in France, when someone says that , that means MAYBE they will fix it in like FOUR MONTHS (strike 2). Finally, we aske her about the internet and cable, and she says that it is an "undeclared" apartment (meaning that she hasnt told the gment she rents this place out in order to not pay taxes on it) and because of that, we CANNOT get internet and CANNOT receive money from the government to help us with rent ( which the rent was already cheap so that would have be OK, but no internet? i think not)(strike 3- and it was OUT-** some baseball innuendos for Erin). So, our contact person wasnt exceptionally happy that we didnt want to take the place. In her opinion, it was cheap and it was easy to get to the high school, so there was no question whether or not we should take it. She said that if we lived anywhere else other than Cogolin, it would be really hard to get to school everyday.
So- Back to square one. Before I even left the states, she told me there was an apartment available in Ste. Maxime... which is a relatively large city right on the beach!!! So, i asked her if that apartment was no longer available, and she said it WAS but that 1) she was just trying to save us money (But, what she kept forgetting was that, if we got a "DECLARED" apt, we would get money from the gment, and the rent would pretty much be the same) and 2) getting to school could be a problem. SOOO... we went to go see this apartment today and fell in love. It 's practically right on the beach and it is "declared" so we can get internet/ money from the gment etc. Our contact lady was still a little skeptical about the transportation situation. She said it MAY be possible to take the school bus ( who hoo!! lol) but she wasnt sure if it was legal. SO, she gave us the number of one of her colleages and told us to ask her. So , after a couple of phone calls back and forth with her Colleage, she agreed it would be much better for our sanity to live in Ste. Maxime and that we would just have to figure something out about the transportation(whether we take the bus or have a teacher come get us and pay her gas money). Apparently, this lady was friends with the language assistant from last year who was MISERABLE when she lived in Cogolin cause it's so disconnected from everything. (Its hard to get out just to travel and see things.) so she didnt want us to have to experience the same thing the old assistant did.
Anyways, so I am bout to go back to some lady's house where I am staying for the time being ( currently, we are at a McDonalds using their internet) and call the landlord of the apt in Ste. Maxime and tell him we want it. Wish me luck because speaking in French on the phone isnt the easiest thing to do. I dont think he can be out until next week sometime, but that's fine. We can stay at this lady's house until then.

BTW i did get a cell phone here is France. Apparently, you can pay 30$ for a phone and then just put money on a card to use it.. that way, there are no contracts.. just "pay as you go". However, it is VERY expensive to call people... even in France. BUT it is aABSOLUTELY FREE to receive calls and texts.. so if you want, feel free to call ME! If you want my number, Ill give it to you.. i don't want to post it on here lol.

Ok well love to all!!!