Explanations of French Things

Still jet lagging. My roommate can nap instantly, like Ashley Moore watching a movie. This morning we put together a map of Paris par arrondisement and then found various landmarks around the city and discussed. The French major who was my partner was clueless as to where anything was or what words meant. Another UNCW success story.

Then we were told for 45 minutes how to use the metro. I just irritably stared into space, mainly, thinking about cooking and how no one here has a damn chef knife.

Here's some stuff to amuse yourselves with:

#1 temperatures are in Celsius. Meaning that when you're sweating your ass off (i.e. today), it's going to be about 30 degrees. Which makes no sense. Also, in the shade it's about 20 degrees (like 3 degrees Celsius) colder, so you'll go from sweating to freezing instantly. Bring a cardigan, folks.

#2 cell phones don't make sense.

#3 don't go to any bar with an English name. Under no circumstances should one have to pay 8 Euro for 50cl (a little less than a pint) of Heineken. Plus, at the next bar we went to, tons of French people wanted to buy us shots of dieu-knows-what-but-we-certainly-got-lost-en-route-home.

#4 doors here almost all open by pushing, not pulling. It's confusing, but pourrer is push and firer is pull, as far as I can tell. I'm still struggling with that. Makes one look quite stupid to do it at every door you come to.

#5 shit is metric, meaning that you buy things by the centiliter. Beer is sold in weird tiny bottles measured in cl. I bought Hoegaarden in cans at the supermarket or whatever it's called here. Bought a cute 20 cl 5 Euro bottle of Label 5 whiskey for my people watching excursion I have planned later. Also I apparently bought 250 grams of Camembert.

Mission for after more orientation: watch people. Write abt it.

Going to go exchange my American ca$h for Euros over in the 7e, go to le Tour Eiffel to chuckle ironically at the tourists. Drink some whiskey and write about weird people I see. Go to the 1er to watch people by the Louvre and the other museums around the area.

I don't really expect that anyone reads this, but it's helpful for me to remember what the hell I'm doing all of the time. Plus it fosters my vague narcissism.

A bientot