MES VALISES SONT ARRIVEES!

If I had ever known how true the idea of me being a gypsy would become, I never would have supported it... ALL my possessions have gone everywhere with me because all I had was my purse. Wearing the same clothes the first two days I was here because I had no euros and no idea where a store was anyway, I truly lived up to the dirty Frog stereotype. A week after I left my house in Raleigh, my bags have arrived here with me. Fabulous. So I have existed the past week without computer (power cord in suitcase), clothes (except for new ones I bought at Monoprix and H & M), and toiletries (except for the bare necessities from Inno). But now "mes affaires" have arrived and I am stoked.

Since I now have time to breathe and quit freaking out about that... The most ridiculously French moments since arriving here: Two days ago I went with Jessi (the other girl I live with in an apartment with one older woman) to a cafe a few blocks from our apartment. We walked in with books to read and letters to write, ordered our drinks (these odd French mixes of wine and something fruity... they are called Kir and I tentatively like them), and looked for a table, but the only one we saw open, though it was only 4pm (16h00), had a dog laying asleep on one side of the booth. We looked at each other and whispered, "well, we will just sit on the same side then..." until Jessi pointed out, "It is a DOG, we could just ask it to move..." This reminded me that in fact we didn't really even need to ASK it, as it probably speaks better French than us anyway, but before we had a chance to introduce ourselves, the dog's owner called it off the booth. As soon as I had sat down on the dog's claimed side, though, he jumped right back up next to me and pushed up against me, then promptly fell asleep. So there I sat, looking out the window at the MotorScooters and SmartCars driving past the Eiffel Tower, sipping my kir, and trying to move as little as possible so as not to disturb the "petit chien" asleep next to me.

Yesterday I made an emergency trip to H&M to buy clothing to wear today since I had no suitcases. Today I put on the black dress I had bought and rushed out the door to my grammar class, sat down on the Metro to head across town and noticed that the woman sitting right next to me was wearing the EXACT same dress as me. As soon as she noticed she put on her sunglasses and turned to look out the window, apparently not as excited to look like a 20-year-old American as I was to look like a 30-year-old Frenchwoman.

The apartment where we live is AMAZING. Paris is in the midst of what MUST be a heat wave; we've worn shortsleeves everyday since I got here. Buildings here are almost never airconditioned, so we sleep every night with the windows open... these huge, door-size old windows with sheer curtains billowing in with the breeze. My street is SILENT at night unless a motorbike drives by or at 1am when the bars close and people, quite literally, walk down the road singing some kind of French drinking song. So I open the windows at night and stand out on the tiny balcony, looking across the cobbled street to the ancient beautiful building across the street that blocks most of my view of The Eiffel Tower. My room is so much bigger than anywhere I have ever had to myself... with some of my favorite artwork hanging on the walls and a weird drying rack contraption on pulleys above the bathtub because I guess they don't dry their clothes here. Who knew? So basically the place is amazing, in the 16eme arrondissement, which is kind of like a district. My grammar prof says it is "tres chic" and perhaps old money. By which she might mean old PEOPLE but that is cool with me. The elevator in the building is also amazing... we haven't quite figured out how to work it, but it is wooden with wooden glass doors that have to be pulled in, and then an iron gate that has to be pushed out so getting in and out is a huge ordeal. We just take the stairs, usually. Ooh, must go, computer going to die, but more to come ASAP.
I guarantee I miss you and I love you a lot.
~Blair