These people are all liars // General Updates

I've noticed that these people can't keep their story straight lately...


1) I walk around town on any given day and I see people wearing shirts that have text in English. “Oh look, another Anglophone!” is what my mind instantly jumps to. Wrong. Lies. They are a French person. Apparently they think it’s cool to wear things printed in English. I think it’s bullshit. Get your own t-shirts.

2) Europe claims to be all high and mighty with recycling and reusing stuff. Me being concerned with all of those things and just being straight up poor, brought my reusable plastic water bottle. I look around in my giant lectures and see disposable plastic water bottles EVERYWHERE. Are these kids too lazy to remember to grab the same bottle every day and go fill it up? Do they have enough money to buy a bottle of Evian every day? I don’t know. But I’m calling bullshit on this behavior.

3) Deodorant here is weird. Make some joke about how French people smell, and I will fly home and punch you in the mouth. I’m sick of it. That being said, I’ve seen this in several stores now, and I might be wrong, but I think I’ve noticed a trend. The majority of the stuff is in aerosol cans. I’ve seen it back in the States, but it’s not nearly as popular. If your country is going to sign onto the Kyoto Protocol and whatnot, how about you not use aerosol cans so much? Pretty sure that was one of the things they first figured out people should stop doing once people all the sudden started to get green conscious. I’m having my mom ship me normal stuff once I actually need more. So once again, I call bullshit. Stick to your story, France.

4) This weekend was “La Patrimoine”, loosely translated as history-fest. Since France is so old, there are more substantial historical sites than in the States. Since they use larger portions of their budget to take care of their citizens, they have to be smart with what’s left. So, all of this stuff is open only this weekend, for the most part. They open it all up for free, and make a big deal out of all of it. That way, the upkeep costs are smaller and everyone can have an equal opportunity to learn about their country. But now to the bullshit…my landlady. Her house/building is from the mid 1600s, and mine probably is too, but it’s not the same style at all so it’s less cool. She was charging 2 euro for a quick tour, and 4 euro for a longer tour. Really, lady? Do you need the money that bad? She was pretty much the only one charging an entry fee. I declare bullshit.

But everything isn’t bullshit.

Fun things of recent:

My roommate and I trekked the whole two blocks to the laundromat. We walk in, and there are two women and a man who appear to be in their early 60s. They were speaking American English, and as soon as they heard my roommate and I were as well, they just about died. They didn’t speak French and couldn’t figure out the weird payment/starter machine. We helped them out, I let them use some of my soap, which they nicely overpaid me for. It was a wonderful little encounter.

I almost have a cat over here. This little all white kitty quickly figured out how to get into my friend’s building through a window, and go all the way up the stairs to her 5^th floor apartment. She can be super cute and sweet…or sometimes she just wants to sleep on Grace’s bed alone and will take a swipe at you if you try to disturb her. And kitty apparently just comes over whenever she wants and stays however long she wants. So if I’m ever over there, there’s a 75% chance the cat is already there, will come over while I’m there, or will be outside and if we call her name out the window she will come over. It’s awesome.

Today was the 2^nd or 3^rd nasty day since I’ve been here. I was originally planning on going to the beach, so it sucked. But looking at the bigger picture, I’ve been here for just about three and a half weeks, and aside from these couple not nice days, it’s been sunny, 80, and not a single cloud in the sky. I’ve been told that rain comes in the fall and spring, and winter and summer are pretty dry. So we’ll see.

I still don’t have real internet. I remain convinced that wifi is black magic. Ok, “friends”…if it’s a stupid question as to whether it leaks through an open window or not…is rain a legitimate excuse for wifi to suck? And how come my roommate’s laptop can grab wifi in more spots than mine, but mine gets BETTER wifi in some of those spots? I don’t understand this stuff.

My friends and I decided that we’d like to go to Paris for Halloween. They do the Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday and Saturday, so we’d like to go for that. I already decided that my costume this year is going to be a unicorn. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m keeping my eyes peeled for inspiration.

So that’s what’s going on in my life. Hopefully soon I’ll have real internet and I can Skype with people to catch up on what’s going on in your lives. This stolen stuff can barely load a facebook page; much less wrap itself around Skype.

TTNF, ta ta for now.