Paris, France.

Alors, 7 1/2 hours later and many days of stress and fear of the French..I arrived in Paris. A few things have been surprising, but it has not been so bad to be honest. School does not begin until next week, and classes the week after next, so I have some more days ahead with not many plans. Yesterday I set out to walk around and see some things, but the St. Germain Des Pres Church (oldest one in Paris, supposedly) was not that exciting, and everything was pretty much closed. But that was alright. I guess today I'm going to go to the Palais de Tokyo. It's hard for me to wake up early (who knew) and I feel like I spend 75% of the day getting ready for other 25% I spend outside before I run back home because of the aches in my feet or a hungry stomach. Because Magali already has classes, I feel pretty lonesome. I do feel lucky though that she's here because if I were by myself I would probably hide away in my apartment until forced out for classes. Large cities tend to do that, sometimes. And it's so easy, too, in a place where no one knows your name. I have blisters the size of Texas. s-i-g-hhh.

Our apartment is located on a street that apparently only sells cheap jewelry and wholesale purses/bags made out of plastic leather -- oh wait, pleather! with rhinestones and other fake gem varieties. IN fact, the store right next to us, the fatou bijoux, sells the bling-est bling i've ever seen imported from the greats of China. The grocery store is pretty amazing, but I still have yet to figure out where the tofu would be if they have tofu (in which I am sure they don't) and/or chicken broth. If I knew how to cook French, I would. I don't now what to eat except pasta. and my glue-y stovetop rice.

Maybe it's good to take things easy. Anyway, no one can yell at me for being lazy since no one I know is here anyway. After Palais de Tokyo I plan on cleaning up any messes I've made and perhaps trying out the 3 hour washing machine. It's very energy efficient.