brazillians and baguettes

a friend once told me that in college you had to pick two out of the following; schoolwork, sleep, and having a social life. it has become quite evident that "sleep" is the one that gets left out... especially seeing as paris opens at about 11pm. these late nights are followed by early morning and the occasional few hours of sleep. these late nights do, however, put you on the metro at the best time of day/night...right before closing. at about 1 or 2 you see some very interesting things on the metro, some of which i could do without but others that are just plain funny. the other night a very drunken couple tried to discreetly "hook up" underneath a jacket, while everyone was staring and laughing. they never noticed that they were being watched and weren't alone seeing as they were completely plastered.

the morning on the other hand is the worst time of day to ride the parisian metro. it is the time (apparently) that the homeless men of paris come out from their niches (yes i just threw an AP Bio word in there) and relieve themselves. at 7am pretty much the last thing i want to see is a homeless man unzipping his pants. you know the myth that the paris metro smells like piss? well here is the explanation.

the only thing possibly more unpleasant than the sight of penises a la metro, is an 8h (8am to you americans) phonetics class. although i think that when we go to the phonetics lab and wear the crazy microphone things, i look like a cute pilot. after that and a nice walk across jardins du luxembourg it is time for french. 2 hours of it. at 9 30h. it is slightly too early to understand all of the accents in our class (swedish, mexican, brazillian, iranian, turkish....etc.) it is like french with a twist.

our teacher is quite lovely, although she did get quite upset with us one day. the french are very picky about their boulangeries and she had said that she did not particularly like the one closest to our class. one day at lunch we all went over there because we were hungry and it was close (logical). she happened to be having a smoke in the square right near the boulangerie and saw us all. she was offended that we went to the "bad" boulangerie.

the good life

traveling is annoying enough without having to switch rooms once at your final destination (for the month at least). when i was told i had to move, then i didnt, then i did, then i didnt, then i did you can imagine how happy i was :) and yes there were actually that many switches, im not kidding. as i begrudgingly went to the front desk i talked to the man (who didnt speak english. at all.) and confused him with the whole situation i dropped hints as to how i like my corner room and bathroom (which compared to the others is relatively clean). after calling two other supervisors over the director said to come with him to his office and he would see what he could do. i know this sounds like the part that involves me getting drugged raped and sold into some sex trade. i brought friends no worries, and no funny buisness. after a stressful thirty minutes, we got it figured out! no moving for me (or my friend). i happily hugged the director of the dorm. which looking back is a little awkward, but he is cute so its okay. i am now back in my exceptionally large corner room with my clean (ish) bathroom.

paris is truly the city of love. whether it be love locks on bridges or very in love couples, if you are in love paris is the place to be. normally metro make out sessions are reserved for kids attempting to have some privacy (from parents at least). here it is all too common to see old/young/middleaged couples getting it on, on the metro. the sad thing is that for the paris metro this is quite normal compared to other events. events such as performances, drugged animals, rhubarb stalks on the ground, just to name a few.

we went on a walking tour today. despite knowing most of the places on the tour it was nice. the best part was either that our tour guide was a huge harry potter fan or the phone call from my dad (who since i havent been on social networking sites a lot in the last 24h thought i was dead). speaking of harry potter, let the countdown begin. 11 more days... 13 for all of you in the states HA. we have begun to plan the midnight excursion which will deffinetly be one of the highlights of the summer. other good news - jeff halpern is back on the caps. we needed a local and a jew.

we deffinetly fit into the poor student category seeing as we are buying three meals a day. paris purchases to date include my navigo, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, shaving cream, toothbrush, and towel. no chanel yet, unfortunately. today we did splurge on some 10 dollar chocolat chaud hot chocolate for you americans. it was pretty much the best thing ever, i feel many more trips to angelina for morning drinks in the near future.