La Fin

This blog marks the end of Kristen's Paris escapades, at least for this time.

Sorry to have left you all hanging over the weekend, but there wasn't that much to report. Friday night I went out with a girl from work and some of her friends to see a movie. At 10 PM, they decided they wanted to get food, so we ended getting in one girls, Claire's car... that was the most white-knuckling experience I have ever had. She wasn't a terrible driver, but Paris is a precarious place to drive even with the best driver; the French call cars "poissons," or fish sometimes. Anyway, of course the three girls ordered a huge bottle of white wine and took almost 2 1/2 hours sucking it down... which meant another night of sucking the last three sips of my Coke in and out for my straw for 1 1/2 hours. Nate was freaking out by the time that I got home at almost 1 AM, but the metro was more packed than it usually was when I took it in the morning.

The Friday was a funny day on the metro, actually.

Trip to Work: This African woman was singing to her little kid gospel revival choir style on the metro. She was clapping her hands and singing like she was in her shower.

Trip from Work: I always pick the car with the accordion player in it, who loudly plays his accordion (with varying degrees of actual ability) and then walks around begging money off people. A few times, I just wanted to tell them I would give them 20 euro if they didn't play until the St. Phillip du Roule stop.

Trip to Movie: Another accordion player in my car... and this one was AWFUL. Granted, I know nothing about how to play the accordion, but SERIOUSLY...

Trip Home: A group of very drunken but completely harmless kids started singing like college fight songs or something... and kept it up for 5 stops, and then got off at the same stop as me. La chance!

Saturday, it was mostly a lot of cleaning and packing. It's funny how grungy 18 meters squared can get. I had a fight with the ancient French toilet when one of the hinges on the lid popped off. I am not the most mechanically minded, so I seriously sat there for 45 minutes trying to get it back in. Anyway, my apartment sparkled afterwards and I went down to the area around my house and they had converted it to this gigantic open-air "marche du puce" (flea market). It was crazy to see all of the things that they had. I didn't get anything, mostly because I didn't have need of mannequin heads, billions of ceramic knickknacks, or old chairs (though there were some really cool old chairs!!). I got my last crepe from a street vendor. I will miss those so much!

I got to the airport and on the plane without incident. The flight to Cincinnati was obscenely long, of course, but all right. On the flight from Cincinnati to SLC, I sat next to a Delta engineer who felt it was necessary to tell me all of the ways the plane could fail and we could die, and then show me pictures of planes he has worked on with mechanical failures. I even asked him to stop but he kept chattering away for THREE AND A HALF HOURS!!!! When we got into SLC after that agonizing flight, the airplane couldn't be connect to the jet way because the ramp was broken or something. So we were all packed on the stuffy hot plane for another 30 minutes and about 1/3 of the airplane missed their connections in SLC. FINALLY at long last, I got off the plane and into Nate's arms again.

And that my friends, marks

THE END

Pictures of the Office

I figured today was my next to last day, so I would risk looking silly and take some pictures of what is really a very beautiful law office. Enjoy!
This is just part of the beautiful garden in the central courtyard. Seriously, it's amazingly beautiful.
Part of the marble flooring next to some of the big conference rooms. And my cool shoes...
Sweet little art deco lounge area.
K, you gotta admit that this shot is amazing. The central part of the building is six floors. I had to stand on the landing and try about 8 times because people kept walking past me. They probably thought I was weird.
Velvet carpeting on the marble steps... fancy schmancy...

The Notre Dame

The Notre Dame
Originally uploaded by litchick1027

Soooo... here's a pretty picture of the Notre Dame... that I took two years ago, but who cares! It's the same building I went to go see two years ago and I actually did go see it this time, so there you go. It's an amazing and kind of weird building, having been built over a bunch of centuries with different architects who kept trying to jazz up the architecture and all...

This is kind of silly...

but kind of fun. My sister-in-law Chrissie posted this quiz on her blog, so I took it and here are the results.


You Are Belle!

Intelligent and kind. Your beauty goes much further than your apperance. Also, you make judgements of people based on their personality and not their looks. Attaining all the knowledge that you can is one of your major goals in life, but you are also a person who can make things happen.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Is anybody still reading this?

Thank you for all the encouraging comments, prayers, and support that have been shown to me during this month away. As my externship is winding down, I am feeling very grateful to have loving family and friends to come home to. The time has gone quickly and slowly at the same time. I have learned so many new things and it's definitely been a good experience, but I think I am ready to be done. I am sorry if I have IMed you 80 times a day while I have been gone-- my computer has basically been my connection to home. I realize many of my blogs have been long and rambling and if they haven't interested you at all, I'm sorry.

Paris is cold and gray today. The girls at work say that it is NEVER like this, and I think they are right. The other two times I've been in France, I was miserably hot, though I was way further south so maybe that accounts for some of it, too. But! I got to use my adorable green umbrella that's not very good at keeping itself open, but IT'S GREEN! Green, like the way I want to try to be when I come home. Living here has made me very seriously reevaluate some of my consumerism that seems so natural in America. Some of it is unavoidable, given the proximity to places I go to school, can get food, etc. etc. But I have learned that I can live very comfortably on less space, less clothing, less of everything. Except bread... I will probably cry over the bread for at least a week.

All right, I don't have too much to say so I'm going to call it a night.

Polka band playing in my street?

I kid not... there is a polka band playing down my street and slowly walking. There aren't half bad, but I don't want to hear it.

10 Things I Will Desperately Miss About Paris

1. BREAD DUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I only mention it in pretty much every blog I have written while I have been here.

2. Is it crazy to say that I will miss the five flights of stairs? They have gotten to be a snap and it means I am getting at least a little bit of exercise as I am eating baguette and walking up the stairs.

3. I will miss being able to walk or take the Métro everywhere. It's just not really practical to not have a car in the states... I have to drive 3 miles just to go to the grocery store in Lehi, and taking the bus isn't a very viable option. I love the little open air markets and little shops. I wish we had a farmer's market nearby. It's inspiring me to get a bike with a little basket so I can bike to the store. Except... it will be 90billion°F... *sigh*

4. The view from my apartment. I love looking out of the rooftops of Le Marais during sunset. It's beautiful, really, looking at the somewhat grimy old buildings bathed in soft pinkish light.

5. I will miss very kind people here at work who have become my friends, invite me to hang out with them, and have totally accepted me into the work environment. That kind of acceptance is priceless... patience and kindness? Oh, my goodness.

6. I will miss the crêpe stand right by République that I get the most amazing lemon sugar crêpes at least once a week.

7. In general, I will miss exploring this amazing old city, that has a million and one different little side street, shops, tourist traps, types of people... this city is full of centuries worth of culture, history...

8. I will miss my tiny apartment. In some ways, it has been nice having such a small place. I don't have a lot of frilly fancy appliances and kitchen gadgets. My life is simpler and less stressful in that respect, honestly, because I don't have that much to clean... a few dishes, wipe off the counter, fold a few clothes (when they are not draped everywhere drying...).

9. I will miss not having a cell phone. HONESTLY. It has been sooooooooo nice to not be surgically attached to my cell phone. It lays inertly on a shelf, quietly waiting to be back into a country it gets a signal on. I notice how all of the other interns are checking their phones every five minutes when we go out to lunch and I just don't miss that at all. I don't necessarily love people being able to get ahold of me 24/7.

10. I will miss the free hot chocolate available at the touch of a button. Everywhere should have one of these machines. I am considering unplugging it carrying it out in my German Shepard carrier-sized purse.

Basically, I will miss the food, the people, the public transportation, and the way that life is generally healthier and about enjoying life instead of running constantly from one thing to the next.

Things I Won't Miss about France

1. The Munchkin sized bathtub. Seriously, a mini-Munchkin would struggle with this bathtub. Furthermore, it's not so much a bath tub as a shower hose connected to the faucet that I sit and awkwardly spray myself with. I am generally cold and displeased after taking a shower. And also, I am paranoid about the electricity that my tiny water heater uses, so I want to use as little water as possible to get my body clean.

2. The Rain in Spain. Well, I am upset because I just bought an adorable green umbrella because I got tired of getting doused every time I came home. And NOOOOOOOOOOW it never rains when I come home. This sounds ridiculous, but walking in the rain under a green umbrella sounds completely amazing to me. No cigar.

3. Standing in the metro in heels. OUCH.

4. Weird people at the places I like to go. Who are always there. The creepy guy who works at Fanprix who will randomly start conversations with me and follow me around while I try to cheapskately purchase my food and other necessities. I am slightly afraid to go to the amazing kebab place again because I know 48-year-old Sebastian will hit on me again. My favorite crepe stand is manned by forward guys who like to strike up conversations and ask me all about the U.S.

5. The bathroom at Baker&Mckenzie. The bathroom lights at Baker&Mckenzie are motion sensitive. Now, the closest bathroom has 2 stalls, and they are their own hermetically sealed little rooms. The stall on the right always smells weird. The stall on the left smells fine, but the motion sensor light doesn't work properly, so in the middle of doing my business EVERY SINGLE TIME the light goes out. It is extremely vulnerable to be half-naked, sitting on a toilet, in a hermetically sealed bathroom stall IN THE DARK. I have discovered that banging on the wall will make the light come back on.

6. The third floor in my apartment building smells different than every other floor. My floor smells old and clean and nice. The third floor... smells they they are running a meth lab on it.

7. No washing machine. It's probably a good experience to go all pioneer in my clothing washing at least once in my life, but I will be fine to never do it again.

8. Websites that won't work outside of the U.S. What??? I can't catch up on my House, M.D. episodes on fox.com because WHAT??? It is not supported internationally? Copyright issues? WHAT???

9. Being asked if I have heard of "Tadsflkjewlkj Sljelfdslkjds," or seen "Rgfhjekjfg" or listened to "Naahgljerlkj" which are supposedly all American and yet I have NO idea what these French people with crazy accents are saying. Then people think I am stupid because I don't understand my own language.

10. Not being able to express the SIMPLEST of concepts or thoughts that I cannot because I don't know the word in French. Instead, I have to just say "oublie-le" (forget it), and go back to talking baby French (which isn't even an accurate statement because babies speak French much better than I do).

To balance this out, tomorrow I will write a list of 10 things I will miss about France.

Cheapskate Survival Tactics in the City of Lights

Problem #1: Laundry
Description of the problem: My whole stay in France is 30 days. As much as I would have liked, I could not bring 30 days of clean clothes with me. Unfortunately, doing laundry at a laverie, or laundry mat, is absolutely ridiculously obscenely expensive. For the price of drying one load of laundry properly, I could eat SEVEN baguettes. That is A LOT of bread to get some stupid clothes dry.
Solution #1: The Old College Days Standby- Febreeze. This product alone was probably responsible for my EVER smelling decent my senior year of college. It was liberally sprayed on individual clothing items, and when truly lazy was just sprayed on the whole dang pile. Since most of my shirts are dry-clean only anyway, a gentle spritz of Febreeze in the general pit area keeps me from smelling too awful. My only consolation in France is that everybody else stinks, too.
Solution #2: Fact- you CAN wash a load of garments in your bath tub. Using dishsoap. Fact- it gets them clean. Fact- it is hard work... but SEVEN baguettes??? It is probably worth seven baguettes of effort. Fact- they take FOREVER to dry, so don't wait until you're down to your last solitary pair.

Problem #2: Food
Description of the problem: Food, and everything else for that matter, is not cheap in Paris.
Solution: Baguette! In France, bread is the one food that I KNOW everyone, even the homeless and the unemployed and the unpaid slave labor legal interns, can afford. I have found a bakery where a mere .80 euro will procure me over three feet of glorious crusty chewy baguette goodness.

Problem #3: Dry-Clean Only Items
Solution: Febreeze and eat carefully and you, too, will not have to dry clean when you are across the ocean. Or ever, for that matter.

Problem #4: Entertainment
Description of the Problem: So... movies are ridiculously expensive here. And in French, so I won't understand them anyway. And I swear, only the worst of American cinema gets here ever.
Solution #1: Spindly used bookstore in Saint-Denis where I can get kids books that I read in English when I was little in French (so I feel like I actually understand something) for under 3 euros.
Solution #2: Feet and a camera. Feet and a camera provide endless hours of entertainment.
Solution #3: YouTube videos, BABY!

Problem #5: Electricity
Description of the Problem: So, in addition to my obscene amount of rent, I am also responsible for paying the electricity bill. Trouble is, I don't know how much electricity costs here, so I am paranoid about turning any lights on or using electronic appliances.
Solution: Sit in the absolute dark. Unplug every appliance after using it, in case some residual energy gets sucked into the appliance while it sits. Read by the light of the laptop (when it is NOT plugged into the wall, of course). Charge laptop when it has only 14.5 minutes left of battery.

I should make my own TV show.

What a Masse!

So, I decided to explore my local area more yesterday. I left my apartment, only to run smack-dab into the middle of a protest/strike sort of thing. My, the French love their protests. Anyway, I walked around Republique and of course it started pouring, so I ducked into the first place I found and it happened to be the most amazing French used bookstore . It was in this spindly old building with scary spindly staircases, but it was FOUR STORIES PACKED full of every kind of book I could ever imagine. The place smelled like drowned rat from everybody evaporating in the tiny enclosed space and was as humid as North Carolina in July, but still!!! COOL! I went to this tiny Turkish deli run by a guy from Istanbul... I kid you not, the man is 48 and he looks like he's 35... no wrinkles, totally dark hair. Anyway, he was totally hitting on me, this Sebastian fellow was, but it was funny. The food was amazing and very reasonably priced, so despite the overly-gregarious Sebastian, I will be back again soon.

Today, church was relatively uneventful. It was French Mother's Day, and it's pretty much exactly the same as in the States (at least the church part)... little kids sing, multiple talks with references to the mothers of the stripling warriors, flowers getting passed out. It was nice, though. It just made me miss my own mom and want to be there to support her right now.

Tonight, I walked to the Notre-Dame and went to Mass... THAT was an interesting experience. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to be rude. I figured I wouldn't want people taking pictures during the middle of sacrament meeting, right? It was a lot of standing and mumbling phrases I didn't know, and I left when they started passing out communion. It is a little strange watching herds of people walk up to guys in white nightgowns passing out crackers. I kind of got lost on the way home... I pretty much started walking towards the big spires without paying attention to the buildings I was walking past or the road names. I whipped out the handy map, and fortunately, I recognized the main drag that I had taken to the Notre-Dame and realized I was walking in wrong direction. Crisis deferred! I got home fine but now I am porting some studly blisters again... ouch!

Anyway, gotta enjoy the evening before work again tomorrow.

Everybody congratulate Nate!

He got sworn into lawyerdom a few hours ago. I am so proud of him. Since I can't be there for him, please everybody give him a hug for me and tell him congratulations in person. I miss him so much.

La nuit avec une ami a Paris

Okay, so yesterday totally stunk. Today was a lot better. I managed to be able to get my mentor to at least sign stuff that I needed to, I learned a few cool colloquial phrases, and my new friend at work invited me out with she and her friends. Actually, she and I went shopping for her Mother's Day present, which is this weekend in France. Anyway, tonight I actually understood a lot of our conversations!!!! It was so great, and she is the best about explaining stuff to me. It was a nice night. I know we have stepped outside of our work relationship because we did "les bises" at the end of the night.

Anyway, here is a picture of my shirt after the button skilling spree. Observe. The staple had fallen out since then. I gave up.

Oh, and this is what my desk looked like when I left today. I SWEAR I did not stage this. My desk is really, truly this bad. Every single day. My piles of research continue to grow.

Tonight, we walked along the Seine and we snapped a few pics. Pretty, huh?

I can't tell you how much this scene made me want to go get a bottle of wine and walk along the Seine. Obviously, I never would. It was just so nice and relaxed, so contrary to the Paris that I see most says on my way to and from work that I just wanted to be part of it in every way that I could.

Weird dream

So, I had the strangest dream last night. It was very distressing. I dreamed that I left for work without pants on, but for some reason the law firm was located in the mall that I worked in when I lived in Portland. So my friend Sierra from Portland was in this dream and oddly enough, she wasn't wearing pants, either, but didn't seem at all distressed by it. Anyway, I was FREAKING out and she and I frantically started running from store to store to find me a pair of pants. We went into a Fashion Bug, that for some reason turned into watch store and was going out of business as I was inside.

When we were in Express, Nate suddenly showed up. So Nate, Sierra, and I were frantically running around Express trying to find me pants but NOTHING was fitting and the clothes were in fact SHRINKING as I was trying them on. There was this big red digital clock that was ticking down how much time I had to find pants like on a crazy gameshow or something and still I could not find any pants. At some point I noticed that the prices were all in Euros. The three of us could NOT find pants... and the big red clock went BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUZZZZZZ and it was my alarm clock.

I woke up exhausted.

So... what does this all mean? Feel free one and all to give me your hippie dippie dream analyzes.

You know you need to lay off the pain au chocolats...

When FOUR buttons pop off your shirt in one day. FOUR, count them, that is ONE TWO THREE FOUR BUTTONS came off my shirt at various points today. I have various hypotheses for why this happened:

1. The fashion gods hate me for trying to wear a business suit and are punishing me.
2. The pain au chocolat has had some adverse effects on my figure.
3. There was a reason this beautiful shirt was on the clearance rack.
4. Feel free to chime in on your vote for why this shirt-tastrophe stuck today.

I stapled one opening shut but after that I gave up. Thank goodness I was wearing a camisole today.

What's more,I had a meeting planned with my supervising attorney and another attorney who is involved in the project I am working on. They both didn't show, and after I had finally wandered outside this guy's office for twenty minutes, not knowing whether to sit down or go try to find them, I went back to my desk and called my supervisor. My supervisor was sitting in his office and had not forgotten, but mentioned that the other attorney told him he might not be in the office and wanted to wait for me to call him to see he was there. Cute. When I told him he obviously was not there, he asked me to call and leave a voicemail on the other attorney's phone. Apparently, I now function as the courier/stander arounder/telephone message sender.

This is all exacerbated by the fact that the metro union declared today a strike day, so I left my house super early so I could catch a metro, which to my knowledge may or may not be running regularly. Of course, the trains were running as they normally do and I got to work an hour before everyone else came. Did I mention the fact that all the other interns work ten hour days? TEN HOURS. I don't understand. BYU Law told us to work comparable hours to our equals, so I too, work TEN HOUR days.

Ugh... I am in ill spirits.

This picture is fitting

Totally expresses exactly how I feel... only I am not tiny and green.

Not Much

Not much is
how much French I speak.
Un peu... peu peu peu.
Not much is
how much French legalese I can read in an hour.
Les implots? Une association sans but lucratif?
Not much is
how much I can fit in my fridge,
dans un frigo pour une.
Not much is
not how much bread I eat every day,
le pain de la vie.
Not much is
pretty much what I say each day when people ask what I am doing,
"Pas grands choses."
How is it such
that the out of touch "not much"
ce n'est pas juste un peu?

Saturday at the Louvre

I have to say that looking at art is much more pleasant tout seule (all alone). I meandered at my own pace and flew through places I didn't find interesting, and when I was tired, I decided to leave. Fancy that! I know that sounds so basic, but in some ways it is great to be a solo tourist. Not that I would replace it for my life with Nate, but it is interesting for a change.

So here are a few of the pictures. There were a basquilion and one tourist groups because it was a Saturday, so they got in the way and they were irritating, so if you see a corner of someone's elbow or a patch of hair at the bottom of cropped pictures, don't be too surprised.

Tu veux aller avec nous pour une verre?

I think those words are the most terrifying things I have ever heard. As if it's not bad enough that I work with seven chain smokers (all except for lone Herve, the token male, smoke) and they invite me to gather round the coffeemaker with them, but they invited me to go get a drink tonight. I realize that this is NOT A BIG DEAL, but mentally I went berserk. I know in America it is not big deal... order a Coke, pour it in a class, and pretend it is a double-malt something or other. But wine is such a huge cultural thing here and alcohol in general, much like the whole smoking thing. Anyway, I tried to make excuses but really, I do like my fellow interns so I went along.

I got a mediocre, overpriced, tiny bottle of some kind of apple juice. And apparently there is an unspoken rule that everybody has to finish their drinks at the same time... so being with four alcohol drinkers, I sat there playing with my straw and sucking the same three sips in and out of the straw for twenty minutes. It was nice to be with people, but a little awkward. Ever polite, nobody said a thing about my not drinking alcohol. The place we went to was called Charlie Birdie (I am guessing for Charles Parker, but I don't know), a brewpub of sorts, and they had this terrible French pop music blasting. Understanding French is difficult enough when people are talking slowly, clearly and without extraneous noise. As you can imagine, I was leaning halfway onto everybody's laps to just to hear them talk. It was an amusing experience, if nothing else.

As a side note, I am fascinated by a few things with French food. I didn't realize I was being a smidge vulgar when I popped the tab of my Coke Zero and started drinking straight from the can. Here, you are supposed to gingerly pour a bit of a time into a flimsy plastic cup they give you, probably considering it a small concession to give me a cup after getting TWO EUROS for a can of Coke Zero. Also, a fruit cup is considered "a dessert," and is priced as such (at least at the places I have eaten lunch here by the Champs). Also, said fruit is consumed with a tiny spoon utterly ill-suited to pick up anything but the most airy of sorbets. I watch my co-workers struggling to scoop up the fruit, outrageously huge in proportion to what's really a coffee spoon, and I want to say, "JUST STAB IT HONEY!"

Let's see... other than that, I am neck-deep in French tax code and have to use a dictionary every other word just to understand what the stupid thing means. It's a good thing that I am free labor and they cannot complain too much, because I know I would never be able to do this "for real." I am not making very fast progress with my project, and I am barely getting over my major insecurities about asking the simplest of questions. I don't understand anything about the French legal system, and I seriously spent two hours on WikiFrance trying to figure out how the heck this monster works.

But trying to be positive, here is a brief list of things I have learned:
1. Good support staff is quite literally the only way I am going to not completely fail in this internship. To be able to walk into a room of kind, intelligent, experienced document specialists with a chicken-scratched list of search terms and to get help to find something that remotely resembles something usable is well... about the biggest feeling of relief I have ever felt.
2. My mentor here at B&M isn't going to pay any attention to me because it isn't his job. If I need help, there is a very well-organized support structure to keep me from toppling over.
3. I now know how to say "tax exempt non-profit agency" in French. Pretty cool, huh?
4. I have kick-butt co-workers (the other interns) who don't mind if I yell for the translation of a word or two from the other room. They come to me and ask for help with their English skills and very generously return the favor.
5. I have access to an unlimited quantity of free hot chocolate, available at the press of a button. This is a life-saver when we are gathered around said machine and I am the only one not drinking a double macchiato.

All right, till next time!

Comments

So... I am not getting any comments, which is majorly bumming me out. Everybody is allowed to make comments and I would like to know if anybody is actually reading this so I can decide whether to keep posting daily or not.

So here's the deal. Please post a comment on this blog with just your first name and what you have liked seeing and what you would like to see more of. Or stuff I shouldn't do anymore. If enough people comment, I will feel motivated to keep on bloggin'.

A few random oddities of the day

So being a legal intern so far... stinks... Seriously, I have received zero direction and when I ask for clarification, people seem irritated. I'm having a French keyboard, not a QWERTY, so it takes me forever to type at work. The list goes on.

Paris, on the other hand, is lovely. I was walking to the metro after work and on the corner of Ave. FDR (yes, like the president) and the Champs, there were these drunks sitting on the corner. Strangely, there was a man sitting with them who from the waist up looked like a billionaire lawyer and from the waist down looked like, well... a drunk bum on the street corner. He had this gorgeous pin-striped coat on and was carrying a briefcase, but his pants were covered in dirt and grossness. I was very confused. Either he is off his meds or he robbed a billionaire lawyer.

Another joy of living in Paris is the metro. It is actually pretty nice, but today I literally had somebody fall into my lap. It gets pretty crowded (like ridiculously crowded). He was a young guy, probably 19 and just a little thing at that (as Sally on Flight of the Conchords said to her Australian fiance, "Pick him up! He's just a little guy, he's a pixie!") and totally got knocked over by this huge lady trying to eject herself from the metro. He was super embarrassed and very apologetic, as if it were his fault for getting barged into by Large Marge.

Hahaha... also, in the Metro station, I watched this French businessman try to discreetly pick his nose. It was about the funniest thing I've ever seen. He kind of looked towards the wall, then around to see if anybody was watching, and very slowly did the dirty deed. If you're doing to pick in public, pick flick and be done with it.

All right, time for bed.


I got soaked in the rain (see previous blog)

The Rain in Spain... erm... France

I am completely and thoroughly soaked. Seriously, soaked. It wasn't so bad initially and I thought I would go wander around Place de le Republique, but I was oh-so-wrong. After finding a few fabulous restaurants I will have to go visit later, it started POOOOOOURING... rain I often didn't even see in Portland. Huge, fat, wet drops... it was hopeless and I was already soaked, so instead of trying to wait it out, I went and bought a baguette from the most amazing bakery, shoved half of it in my bag, and started gnawing on the other half as I trudged through the rain.

Anyway, here's the aftermath. I don't think you can tell too well from the pictures, but trust me, I was very wet.




If you think I look dry, you are wrong. Some of the true effect of this picture wore off because I had to take six flights of stairs before taking this picture.

Anyway, here is the gorgeous baguette that I enjoyed probably a bit too much.





Which of course I ate with this magnificent orange-mold rinded cheese:

.

LIES! ALL LIES!

After a not-so-daring two full days of working in Paris proper, I feel like I've been wearing these:



Remember Carrie Bradshaw and the four-inch heels she would fluffily traipse around Manhattan on? All day? Like, ALL DAY? And never winced in pain? Fluttered a little? Tripped? I think the worst thing that ever happened to her feet was getting a gallon of amniotic fluid dropped on her Christian Louboutains.



LIIIIIIIIIIIES I TELL YOU!!!!!!!! ALLLLLLLLLLLL LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIES!

This is what running around in a big city in high heels does to you!!!!!

Ladies and Gentleman... I give you...

THE KEBAB!




This sexy little number comes with some terrible, tasteless yet somehow over-salted fries. The kebab is the Turkish cousin of the Greek gyro and the German doner. The mystery meat is roasted on a vertical spit like a gyro, and is served with copious amounts of delicious mystery white sauce on mystery bread that has been roasting under a mystery heat lamp for 12 hours; the only non-mystery parts of this sandwich are the negligible amounts of tomato, lettuce, and parsley.

And all was silent as the world bowed to the magnificence of the kebab.

Sunday Sunset

Today was a good and largely uneventful day. I walked about a kilometer to church and enjoyed meeting with French and American saints. I came home and crashed out, and woke up in enough time to enjoy a simple dinner and a beautiful sunset.

I cant't help

but think of this as I walk down the streets of Le Marais. Enjoy!

Brainwashed and Breathless

">"
"
I say I'm brainwashed because the first thing I thought before I got dressed was, "OH! I'd better put my sunscreen on!" Dad, what have you done to me? I guess among the many hazards of life, skin cancer should be fairly low on my list of possible causes of death.

So, I didn't lose money to the ATM machine, thankfully. Trouble is, a lot of machines don't take American cards anyway, so I'm forced to rely on my meager stash of cash until I can determine where I can safely and reliably find $$.

With very carefully written directions for each and every step of my journey (and I still managed to get lost, of course), I ventured beyond Le Marais, the beautiful district I am living in. I found the Metro, and once I was there, to my horror I found that everything had changed about getting a ticket. The Carte Orange that you could buy from a machine has been changed to a Passe Navigo, and nobody was terribly helpful in directing me how to purchase such a thing. Some irritated people behind me in line tried to show me how to use the machine to no avail. I got run around the Metro Bureaucracy from one counter to another, and finally out of desperation I bought a one-way ticket. At my next station, I asked a man at the information desk for help and he seriously walked outside of the office, went to the machine with me, and helped me buy a ticket for the weekend. Apparently, everything changes as of Monday, so I guess I'll deal with it then.

Anyway, I walked to the place I'm going to be working. It's a pretty building in a quiet area just beyond the Champs-Elysees. I just wanted to make sure I could find it before I go. I'm a dork, so I took pictures of the sign, but figured it was better to do so during non-business hours at peril of looking absurd. After that, I wandered around the Champs-Elysees, went to a little park, watched a puppet show. I was trying to find the metro station, and I think I walked around the Rond de le Champs-Elysees about eight times. Actually, it was four... because some French gentlemen who had been standing talking finally told me that they had been timing me how long it took to get back to them each time. My average was 8 minutes, apparently. Luckily, they were good natured and gave me directions to the metro, arguing over which of them gave better directions.

Anyway, I'll run out and buy some food for dinner and tomorrow soon, but here are a few pictures to enjoy.

Fodder for a Heart Attack

So, I went down to the nearest ATM to withdraw money for the deposit for my apartment, which is due Monday. The machine happily ate my card, told me that I could withdraw money, and after I pressed "accept," it promptly gave me neither a receipt or the money I asked for. In a panic, I ran up the six flights of stairs to my apartment, got quickly on my computer, and saw that money had indeed not been withdrawn from my account. I am still utterly distressed that a huge withdrawal that I have no proof of will go through, so I'm on the lookout for that. Ugh... not everything about being in this beautiful place is perfect...

Okay, now that my panic attack is over, I really do have to try to figure out the rest of this city.

Do computers get cold feet?

I'm in the Cincinnati airport. My flight takes off in about an hour and a half. I'm sitting here sucking away my battery with overpriced internet, my computer randomly and repeatedly restarting itself and causing me no insignificant amount of anxiety. This computer and I have been virtually inseparable for the last eight months; I practically see more of it than I do my own husband. I cry when it gets sick; my computer is an overworked, dirty baby with sticky traces of Diet Dr. Pepper and innumerable unreachable crumbs mucking up its keyboard.

So I have decided that my computer has cold feet. It's not totally sure that it's actually up to the task of not getting zapped by foreign voltages, of being transported across thousands of miles of ocean. My computer most likely wonders, for instance, what it is expected to do if it ends up falling into the Atlantic Ocean. It is not the it's fault that it is less than water resistant; blame its creators for that. What if it can't pick up the internet when it gets to France, and it left all to its lonesome and unconnected with the outside world? My computer worries that its mommy will forget to lock the door and it will be snatched away and have its organs sold on the Black Market. It is afraid of a hundred million different half-formed fears of what could go wrong to it, of being cold and alone on warm Paris nights and not knowing where to find a laundromat to wash its laptop case. In short, it is quite a pitiable piece of twisted electronic dendrites and grated virtual nerves.

I, on the other hand... am doing great...