I am feeling better. There has been this lingering cold, and lack of energy. But it’s on its way out. Hooray!

I finally fell victim to a French metro strike. It happened Friday, when I was supposed to be coming home from work. Bah. It was friggin cold, there was a cold wind blowing, and I was mad. I had to wait for almost an hour in order to catch a train into Paris. Thank goodness it wasn’t raining.

Because now the weather doesn’t care about me. It likes to rain. It does show a little compassion, and I do get some sunshine every now and then. Which I appreciate, I have learned there is a huge psychological factor that the sun plays.

On Saturday the weather forecast said rain all day, and snow in the night. Except there were no clouds to be seen on Saturday. But it was cold. Cold enough to snow had there been clouds it felt.

Sylvana and I decided we were gonna go shopping again, I really wanted to try to find another jacket or two, and some more warm clothes. And I wanted to go to the sports store and get some free weights. I have lost almost all of the muscle tone in my arms that I worked so hard for. I really want it back.

Because of all the fun stuff that goes along with having roommates, Sylvana is going to move out of the apartment she shares with Amanda. So I went with Sylvana in the morning to go look at an apartment that is owned by one of the teachers at a school where she is teaching. The teacher was super nice, and took us to a café afterwards.

Then we were off to shop. We went to Le Forum des Halles. It’s interesting to note that Zola once referred to Les Halles as the belly of Paris. It’s now a giant shopping mall. I won’t bore you with history, but Les Halles has been a shopping center in Paris since the 12th century. Wow.

In the mall, there were some Christmas characters dressed up and just wandering around. There was a giant teddy bear, and so I asked if I could take a picture. While we were taking the picture, Pere Noel came over and tried to get in the action. He was really interested in knowing if I was on the “naughty” list. It was quite funny.

Sunday was my homework/ lesson plan/ continue to recover day. Not a fun day.

And we have now decided that Paris contains “Asianese” food stores. I thought I ate Vietnamese food one night, and then we went to a Japanese restaurant, and had the same food there. Chinese food too. So it’s Asianese. The only real Chinese food restaurants are in the Chinese quarter, and those are some real fucking Chinese places.

My brother is coming in 9 days. I can’t wait. It is going to be so fun.