Acclimation...i.e. Trial and Error.

So tonight's dinner was pumpkin soup, toast, a hard boiled egg, and prunes [??], and I realized that all this healthy eating-slash-walking-slash-running to the train will do me a world of good after a summer-long stint of laziness, $5 Fat Tires, and Susie Mom's offer to buy me whichever snacks I please--for free [don't think me ungrateful Mom, just relieved that I'm too poor to stock up the same way here].

I'm fortunately getting used to the food, time difference, new friends, homework, early mornings, correct form of asking questions, and correct form of promptly ignoring them when asked of me...lol. I swear that regardless of how natural my friends and I become in our Parsisian environment we're still going to have "I'M AN AMERICAN" radar beaming from our foreheads. Therefore, the local creepsters' curiosity of where we're from and where we plan on going comes at us from all angles. Don't get me wrong, I've dealt with some interesting people and situations in Chicago, but never have I experienced, oh let's say, a bum flicking a burning cigarette all over me. I was sitting outside the Saint Michel metro stop on a park bench waiting for some friends [plenty of people around and a genial looking elderly couple sitting next to me] when drunkie mc'drunkard comes sauntering up to me yelling Heaven knows what at my headphone-covered ears. Apparently he was interested in my boots because he kept putting his foot up on the bench, which resulted in pained looks from the woman sitting next to me. I finally somewhat acknowledged him, shaking my head to whatever it was that he'd been rambling on about for a minute and a half, which must've pissed him off right good...man flicks a cigarette IN my face. I don't think I was angry, scared, or offended...just stunned hah. The lady sitting next to me SHOT up faster than you can say "merd, my clothes are burning" to go find the cops who'd been circling the square. Long story short, my friends showed up to find me struggling to explain an otherwise strange situation to the Paris police...in French. They detained him while we went to find what ended up being the best food I'd had yet in Paris, so not all hope for an enjoyable evening was lost. hahaa.

The next day I made my first museum visit to D'Orsay, home of Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and countless others that I have yet to see. It's huge, and our guide took his sweet time explaining some dude Whistler's paintings when I would've rather sat with legs Indian crossed in front of Starry Night for an hour. I did learn a lot though and felt rather sophisticated in the process. My favorite turned out to be a rather haunting Monet called "Un Coin D'Appartemente."



We didn't have enough time for the Van Gogh room, and the guide didn't even touch on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (who instantly intrigued me à cause de Moulin Rouge) so I guiltily stopped to take photos of his huge murals on my own. The catch: the only rule we had at the beginning of the day was to stay with the group so that our IES leader didn't have to worry about us getting our earphones back to museum security at the end of the tour. Weeellll, as I stop to take pictures of Toulouse-Lautrec's can-can dancers, I accidentally lose the group. Oops. And my IES leader gave me the equivalent of a verbal spanking for having to wait 10 minutes for me to show up. Hah. Ohh Pierre. Come to find out he's leaving IES in a few days anyways so I tried not to let it bother me, and wrote off our "stay with the group" rule as something I hadn't been expected to do since junior year of highschool. I'm a rebel, what can I say. All in all the day was intellectually stimulating AND I made new friends, so Pierre's worry-wartedness slid off like oil [painting, that is.....I'm SO punny ;]

Well boys and filles, there's much MUCH more I need to talk about [i.e. my first visit to the Eiffel Tower, new international friends, and simple household amenities that I am très grateful to have, seeing as I've found many others are regretfully without] not to mention more about the graceful Véronique, whom I am growing to love; however, I've procrastinated my homework long enough. Bon soir~