Un petit peu de photojournalism

Bonjour tout le monde!

My semi-successful shopping trip for a laptop adapter plug means that I am once again online. Time to recap.

Let's begin with some visuals of my accommodations.

C'est ma chambre! Note Tilo on my bed. The poster above the bed says "Affiches Americaines" (American posters). Intentional? Je ne sais pas.

A better picture of Tilo. It's 1am here, and while I was uploading this picture Tilo was out in the hall, busy having the loudest catfight on earth with the new tabby. My host dad came out and whispered "Qu'est-ce que tu fais? Shh!" ("What are you doing??")

I took a picture of my breakfast because it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. This is what they put out for me in the morning, since I get up a little later than the rest of the family. The bottle on the right is some tri-fruit version of orange juice, the white one is milk, and the little jars on the left are "confitures" (jam) for my daily toast and/or rice cakes. Note the cloth napkin in the metal ring-- I'm not sure what to do with it if I actually get it dirty. They always just roll theirs back up and put it in the bread basket.

The French version of Mr. Clean is a little bit hilarious. He's Mr. Propre, here to disinfect your "cuisine"! I'm glad no one came back home while I was taking pictures of their under-the-sink chemicals.

Now for the rest of the apartment:

My bathroom. You will notice that the toilet is in its own room on the right, whereas the shower, sink, trash can, and a hidden washing machine are in the room on the left.

The kitchen. The oven is the small, square appliance under the microwave at the right of the picture. Space is at a premium in Parisian apartments, so everything is very creatively arranged.

The living room. Looks really formal, so I don't go in there.

An inexplicable product apparently called wombat? What does that girl have to do with wombats though?

The view out the window. The other beige buildings across the street are apartments, and there are shops on the street level.

I've been in Paris for three days now, and it's amazing how much more confident I already am. Yesterday I walked into an Orange (ore-onj) shop, which is basically the equivalent of a Verizon store, and explained to the employee that I needed their cheapest available cell phone with pay-per-minute credit and "le texto," all in French. Considering that my American cell is part of our family's plan and I've never needed to deal with anything phone-related, I doubt I could've even done it in English. I also navigated the metro for the first time today and used the electronic kiosk to purchase a carnet (car-nay), or a pack of 10 tickets, using the all-French instructions. It wasn't until later in the day that someone told me that I could've selected the little British flag on the menu screen to switch the process to English, but I'm pretty proud of myself that I managed in French anyway.

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is called Paris By Site, which focuses on monuments, landmarks, and other features of the city. Today our program director, Paul, who is also the prof for the class, took us on an abbreviated walking tour of Paris. The pictures will have to wait until tomorrow though, because getting those ones of the apartment posted was trial enough. We have a free day tomorrow, so some of the other girls and I are planning to go to the Eiffel Tower in the morning and then do some more walking around (I feel like I could walk around Paris for the next four months and never know where everything is). Also, one of the girls in our group is having a birthday tomorrow, so we're going to take her out for dessert or something, assuming we can locate a restaurant that offers cake for less than 7 euros. I spent the equivalent of $8 on a coffee today when we all sat down for a drink after our walking tour-- Paris is not, apparently, for the faint of wallet. But at least you don't have to tip.

Bonsoir for now.