On Thursday, I went shopping, close to my apartment. Yay! There is a supermarket two blocks from here, and the best part, they sell Old El Paso Mexican food spice packets. Fajita mix! And cheddar cheese. There are just some things I need for comfort’s sake. However, every thing is too good to be true, and they don’t sell tortillas. The lady I asked didn’t even know what they were. Tomorrow, my quest is to find tortillas. Someone told me that the Monoprix by Paris III has a Mexican section. I cannot wait to go check that out.

I was supposed to go to the Erasmus party, and since I wasn’t supposed to babysit, we were going meet up beforehand, and doing a little partying before. So after shopping, I went back to my apartment, and took a nap.

After my nap, just as I was going to jump into the shower, Christopher called me to tell me he was going to be late. I told him that I wasn’t supposed to babysit him today, his mom was going to be home (at least that was what she told me last week). He told me that she got her times mixed up, and she was coming in at 11 at night, and not in the morning. So I told him I would be there as soon as I could get there (the trip takes about 40 minutes).

So much for the Erasmus party. By the time I would get back, get a shower and get up to Amanda’s, it would be too late. Next week I guess.

I think I mentioned earlier the amazing view from the babysitee(?)'s house:


The babysitting works out pretty nice. Christopher is a good kid. He has a tendency to try to not do his homework, but then again, so do I.

His mom explained to me that when he was little, he had some ear infections that went undetected, and as a result, he was mostly deaf when he was little. But he had learned to read lips, so nobody noticed. He had to get eardrum transplants, and now he can hear fine. But he has to go to the Doctor’s each week for treatments; I am not sure exactly what they do. On Wednesdays I babysit him from 1-8, and his appointments are Wednesdays at 3, so I go with him.

I thought we would take a bus, his mom had told me that it was a little bit away. But Christopher decided he wanted to take his scooter, and he happened to have an extra one. It was about a 15 minute ride each way. It was fun, except for the whole uneven sidewalks things. Thank god I didn’t fall, that would have been embarrassing.

I didn’t really have any homework, so going home, I decided to take the bus. There is one that runs pretty much from where I babysit to somewhat close to my apartment. It was a cool ride. Sure it took more time that normal, but it was far more interesting. It went through some of the suburbs, through Paris, a little along the Champs Elysees, and ended at Invalides.

I took the Metro the rest of the way back to my apartment, and just decided to catch some sleep. I was just about to fall asleep when it started pouring rain, and a thunder and lightning storm started, right over my building it seemed. Half of me was expecting a lightning bolt to come in through my window. Other than that, it was pretty cool, I actually like storms like that, as long as I am inside and dry.

Friday was my last day of grammar class. Hooray! Not that it was horrible, but it was. But I am done. Mme. Anrig took no exception to being mean and long winded. Oh well.

I talked with my babysitting job, and she wasn’t going to need me to babysit Friday, so I went to the bank, I need to get an account set up. Since there was so much uncertainty with my paperwork earlier, it wasn’t exactly a priority. MICEFA has an agreement set up with one of the banks in the area, and they are super helpful with getting students set up with accounts. (Once I have a bank account, I can finally get the internet set up at my apartment.)

I also found a store that sold tortillas, and so I decided to go back to my apartment and make fajitas. Cooking is somewhat of a challenge, I have a microwave and a cook-top with two hotplates, and not enough counter-space to use them at the same time. But I got the chicken cooked, and got it going with the spices. And someone had left a sponge ruiner here (I guess I should call it by its positive name, cheese grater), so I didn’t have to buy one of those.

Finally, my fajitas were ready.

No wonder the French hate Mexican food. The “fajitas” tasted more like chicken with cheap barbeque sauce. But I still ate them. Indeed, I will be buying my own spices on my trip home.

Speaking of my trip home, my parents are taking me to a baseball game after they pick me up from the airport. Yay!

I ended up going to Sylvana and Amanda’s apartment; we drank wine, and watched cornball American movies. Nobody has a DVD player that will play movies from different regions, and we are all scared of messing up the ones on our computers.

Walking to their apartment, I got some ok pictures. I didn't have the right camera with me...


On Saturday, the day was mine. No obligations, meetings or classes. It felt kind of strange, that has only happened a couple of times since arriving.

So I decided that I would wander the Marais, which is the area across the river from me, and a little to the west. I decided not to take the Metro at all, I just wanted to walk around, and enjoy the journey. My goal was to eventually hit the Church of St. Chapelle, Victor Hugo’s house, and the Picasso museum.

I should pause here and say that this weekend was the Jours de Patrimonie. I don’t quite understand the whole thing (this would be an awesome time to have internet access), but from what I understand, different museums and landmarks do special events, and government buildings that are not normally open to the public allow visitors. I think the point is to encourage the natives to get out and be tourists. But I could be wrong. Nobody ever goes into much detail about it.

I made my way to St. Chapelle, which is near Notre Dame, and it is closed due to the special weekend. Blah. So onto my next destination, Victor Hugo’s house.

I start walking towards there, and encounter a protest. People were protesting the low wages in Paris, but the high cost of rent. There was a heavy police presence, but it seemed to be peaceful.


I continued walking, and came across an area where they were working on restoring a tower. It was really something, they had an exhibition set up, showing how they were doing each part, and how they were working to replace some of the carvings. I even got to watch somebody carve a stone for a little bit.



I then walked on, and I was getting closer to where the Victor Hugo house was, I heard loud music. I decided to check out what that was about. It ended up being the beginning of the Techno Parade.

Wow. It was literally a parade celebrating Techno Music. It was so very interesting to watch. There were trucks going by with different DJs, playing their music, and people walking along, dancing. I fast-forwarded the parade, and ended up at the Place de la Bastille, which is where the infamous prison used to stand. There is a monument erected there, but commemorating the victims of the July Revolution of 1830. (I’m sorry, I’m really trying not to turn this into a history lesson, but come on, it’s Paris…) People were all over the monument dancing. It was insane. Someone was passing out booklets, and it said that the Techno Parade is recognized by the police of Paris as a political event. It was very cool to watch, and I participated a little bit in it.



I then finally got to the Victor Hugo house. It is located in the Place des Vosges, which is where I had gone the weekend before with MICEFA. This is where he wrote, among other works, Les Miserables. It was beautifully decorated, and again, the awe of the history overwhelmed me.



After that, it was off to the Picasso museum. The Picasso museum is in the biggest house in the Marais, known as the Salt House, because it belonged to a guy who got rich off of the salt trade.

The Picasso Museum was really cool. It outlined his work in historical progression. Some of his work, which resembled “typical” artwork wasn’t anything fascinating, although was waaaaaaaaaay better thank anything I could produce.

However, the artwork that is of his signature style was amazing. He did more than painting though, he did sculptures and models and other forms of artwork. It’s little wonder his work is so popular, it really is art, and creative.



After the Picasso museum, I really felt like I had a day. My legs felt it too. But I decided to stick to my decision and just walk. It was really nice. I went straight for the river, and then walked along the banks of the river until I got to my bridge.

I am starting to really take ownership of parts of Paris. It’s my street, my arrondisment, my bridge. Soon it will be my city.

I got back home, and just wanted to rest. I stopped off at the boulangerie, got some bread, and went up to my apartment and made some dinner. Chicken and potatoes and corn and bread. Mmmmmmm.

The rest of the night I just took it easy, put my legs up so they could recover, and contemplated what I would do the next day. Thank god I bought the Frommer’s book before I left, it has been a great starting point and idea giver.

On Sunday, I kind of just decided that I wanted to take it easy. With the whole Jours de Patrimonie thing, I ran the risk of not being able to do what I wanted, and Monday will be another free day for me, so I decided to just wait until then. And Sylvana called me and told me that their plumbing went coo-coo, and asked if she could come over here and use my shower. So at least I don’t feel so bad about deciding to be a bum.

Besides, I needed to really spend time working on making my apartment more like a home. Every time I’ve thought about doing it before, I decided sleep was more interesting.

I know you’ve been waiting… here are pictures of my apartment.



And at night, I get to see this


So I am having fun... getting to know things better, exploring and settling in.