Bonjour/bon soir/bon soirée/bonne nuit! It is very late here in Paris, and I'm trying to accommodate all time zones and I don't understand how French people know at what time of day or night to switch between these expressions. But more on that later.
I am in Paris, France, for the next nine months. I will be studying French and almost nothing but French. Hopefully, I will be fluent in French (or at least almost! or at least mistaken for a French person once in a while! or at least not so obviously a tourist!) by the time this is over. Everyone at home seems to think I will end up with some French boy and get offered a French job and never come home again, but I am not convinced.
I've been in Paris for about ten days now, and I'm getting used to living here and loving it. I'm resigned to the fact that no Parisians wear flip-flops (at least not at this time of year) now that I've seen it with my own eyes, and I'm trying to adjust to this fact. I only wore them the first weekend when my feet hurt from all of my other shoes! If you know me at all, you know that this is a big accomplishment. Other than that, I've been getting to know my host family and everyone else in my study abroad program, even though that includes a lot of people from DU! I've been to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, the Luxembourg Gardens, the Tuileries, and the Arc de Triomphe. I might even be forgetting a few places. We're being so touristy it's funny...which brings me to my background picture. I do not know how it got there and I do not know how to make it go away. I really like it (and Bonnie is a really good photographer!), but I just don't know if I like it so big and all over everything. On the other hand, it is kind of perfect. It has all the essentials of Paris--a famous monument, a pigeon, and an Asian tourist...and I mean that only in the nicest way. I love all the Asian tourists.
So on to the point of this post. I got locked out of my house. The first Saturday night I was here, my host family went out of town for a wedding. My host mom had given me a key, shown me how to use it, and even made me practice until I could do it right. So I went out to walk around and explore for a few hours. Then I took the metro back to my stop and of course took every wrong street possible so what should have been a five minute walk back to the house was somewhere around an hour or two. When I finally found the house, I was so happy and so ready to go inside and go to bed. I thought getting inside would be the easy part. But no, I could not get the key to work. I stuck it in the right way, I turned it until it clicked, I pulled the door handle out as I turned the key, and I thought I did everything I was supposed to do. Apparently not. After trying over and over again, I walked up and down the street a few times, called Bonnie who of course couldn't help me because she was about an hour away but made me feel better anyway, and then tried again. After a few more tries, it worked. I don't know how it worked and I don't know what I did differently, but I was all safe and sound and I can laugh about it now.
I can also laugh about my experience a few days later with a French sink. I got up one morning and went to wash my face and brush my teeth. One of the times when I turned the water on, I could not turn it off. I turned it too far the wrong way and then I did not know which way was right and then I could not turn it at all. It was stuck, and I was sure I was going to flood the bathroom and the whole house, especially since the bathroom is on the fourth floor. I thought that no one else was home, but at that moment, the door downstairs opened and Madame and Laurene, the nine-year-old girl, had come back from somewhere. So I was all, "Madame! Aide-moi, s'il vous plait!" and they both came running upstairs, helped me turn off the faucet, and had a good laugh about it. I learned my lesson.
After all of my mishaps and misunderstandings of the first week, I am now able to find my house, get into my house, use the bathroom correctly, and even find my school where I will start class tomorrow. To make it even better, I'm pretty sure that someone mistook me for a French person today. I was walking down the street, not looking particularly French I didn't think (but maybe it was my purposeful way of walking or my very stylish zebra umbrella that convinced him) when an old man asked me in French if I knew where the nearest Fnac was. I told him in French that no I did not and I was sorry. He said that was ok and thanks anyway, and he didn't even switch to English. Yes! Of course, only later did I think of an even better answer--Fnac is not even open on Sundays. Are you crazy? Nothing is open in Paris on Sundays! French people never work! Just kidding. I love France and I love French people and I cannot wait to see what happens this year!
