Monotony? Not For Me.

These past few days have been occupied by classwork. Since that stuff is really boring, I haven't posted in a while. Honestly, I'm slightly disappointed that I've let myself slip into a funk of banal routine. Shortly after my arrival here, my friend Michael asked me if I'd be blogging every day. I responded that the blog posts would probably slow as soon as things "stopped becoming new". In retrospect, that was a poor answer. I hope that things never stop becoming new throughout my time here. Okay, there are some things that I'm glad have slipped into the ease of routine, like how to lock/unlock a French door or the knowledge of when to eat what during a meal (I'll post about that sometime soon), but those types of routine are natural and necessary for me to function in everyday life here. While looking back on these past few days and realizing that nothing particularly interesting has happened, I decided that I'm going to try and make every single day here unique. It could be something like researching and eating at a new place for lunch instead of making the daily pilgrimage to my go-to crêpe stand. Or, perhaps, it could be something like deciding to rent a vélib and biking my way to/from class one day instead of taking the métro. LD and Dayna, I feel like you two would be good at holding me accountable for this.

My Scrumptious Eclair

Yesterday, we all had to go to Accent to get our monthly NaviGo (métro cards) recahrged. While we were waiting, Alyssa and I decided to walk around and find Jacques Genin, one of the places on the list of 38 best pastries in Paris. After about 20 minutes of wandering and getting distracted by stores and their cute window displays, we finally found it. Alyssa got the Tarte au Citron and I got the Éclair au Caramel. They were both ridiculously overpriced, as is everything in Paris, but they were fantastic and we made all of our classmates jaloux when we got back.

After class today, my classmates wanted to go to a café/bar that they'd heard about because of its early happy hour (happy hour is usually from 8-10pm here, but this one was from 4-7). I decided to join them and we took the métro towards the Louvre area and found the bar. I opted out on getting a drink, but I was happy to just sit and hang out with everyone. We then walked over to the Tuileries Gardens and sat around there until the sun set, indicating that it was time for all of us to go home and eat.

Monsieur came home from the countryside on Sunday evening, but the rest of the family is there for the remainder of the week. I got the notion that Monsieur isn't the best cook, since Madame loaded the usually sparsely-stocked fridge with pre-made meals for our dinners. Last night's dinner was comprised of egg rolls, salad, and couscous... I'm not hatin' on any of these things, it just gives me the impression that Monsieur has no idea what he's doing in the kitchen. I'm used to having 5-6 other people around, so it's been really quiet around the house since they left last Friday. Inès came home this evening from a trip with her friend and it definitely eased the contrived small talk that Monsieur and I have been engaging in these past few days. He's a very nice man, but my limited French vocabulaire and his limited English vocabulaire don't exactly add up to thought-provoking, philosophical conversations.

The prospect of making tomorrow (and everyday thereafter) a unique day is already getting my mental gears spinning. I'll be sure to report back. À bientôt!

Affecteusement,

Katie