Last Thursday or any other day ever.

Wrote this, but didn't have internet for a while, so this gets posted now. A little insight into my very normal, however much Parisian, lifestyle.

Welcome to my pathetic life. This was a great day.

Starts with the night before how I pull out one side of my neck for some reason and it’s super painful for all of today. The wifi is also not working at the apartment so I have to resort to using it at the school. We’ll see how that goes. I also attempted to make myself wake up an hour early to do some reading in the morning. Before I pass out I set my alarm for the regular time I wake up. Knowledge is power, that’s the spirit!

Breakfast is fine. Take the usual new route that I’ve figured out to school except this is the first time I’ve done it at rush hour. Kill me. Rue de Vaugirard is packed and it takes forever to get through. So I show up basically on time for class. The teacher is usually late so that’s good. But I’m finding that I don’t like showing up sweaty to class. That is no way to attract a French boyfriend.

I meet up with a girl I’m doing an oral presentation with after class which means no biking down the street to get new-found cheap lunch at the student cafeteria. We both head over to the library to email our teacher about our presentations to find that the regular internet isn’t working. After being on the struggle bus for a while we finally just use another random network. After an hour it just randomly shuts down. Thanks Sciences Po.

I bike over to the cafeteria, funny story, it’s 2pm and they’ve stopped serving lunch. Dave is going to class so mooching off of his free internet isn’t an option, but I keenly remember that Place des Vosges has free internet. I head to the Marais, pick up a falafel, and then head over. Takes me ages to find the proper internet connection and I guess I’ve just never connected to the internet outside before, but even though it was overcast in Paris today the sun just makes looking at a laptop screen impossible. It would be more properly used as a hand mirror.

Time is up and I have to head back to Sciences Po for my 5pm class. I do the reading right before-hand in the classroom next door, but it doesn’t say much. Class is interesting -Global Public Goods-, but I play hearts throughout. I think I’m just on this high of never having a laptop before in class and this is how I express myself.

Two more boys in my class add on to my oral presentation group. One of them I have hung out with before, and god damn it, he has played charades in my dorm room. And he has no idea who I am.

Get a text from Nathan. Pasta Party at Alesia. Bike over to the 14^th. The pesto is delicious and who cannot love the company. I think I need to stop carbo-loading. Biking 4+ km a day is not doing anything to the baguettes I’ve collected over the past month.

They head off to booze it up, but I make my way over to Montparnasse to see 500 Days of Summer (500 Jours Ensemble) with some other friends. It’s good, but I chronically ruin movies for myself via imdb and Wikipedia. If you like depressing (yet hopeful!) ‘romcoms’ spend a couple of euros and treat yourself.

I start home only to find that I have a flat tire. That has probably been getting worse and worse all day and I just haven’t realized it. It gets to a point where it makes the back part of my bike bounce a little and it makes a weird noise and my bell rings unintentionally at a cyclical rhythm. The noises become curiouser and curiouser so I get off. Yep. That’s a flat tire. I walk the last ten minutes home. Course the sketchy druggies are hanging outside as usual. It’s a nice neighborhood I swear, for some reason across the street from my apartment is their location of choice. I hurry inside to properly inspect the damage.

Grocery shopping and the bike store tomorrow. I need some granola bars.

White Girl Can't Bake

So it came to my attention when I went to one of the biggest grocery chains in France yesterday to buy ingredients to make my illustrious oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that apparently people in France don't bake. Like at all. Sometimes possibly bread (especially because you only need yeast, flour, and water for that) but that's about it.

So here is my, if you're ever in France and you want to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies recipe (here is the original for reference or if you're just in the US):

1 stick+ 6tbsp butter = a little less than 250 grams of butter, estimation probably was the best thing I learned in math class

3/4 cup brown sugar = is that a joke? they don't have brown sugar in France. Maybe if I was less lazy I could have figured out the conversion with molasses, but f that. sugar is sugar.

1/2 sugar = the one thing they do have, almost everywhere, as they put it in, almost everything. - so put the two sugars together - 1 1/4 cup - and just use a handy tea cup that looks like it's volume is close to a measuring cup you'd use at home.

2 eggs = chickens are so interval oriented. gotta love 'em for that.

1 tsp vanilla = they don't have real vanilla in France. You're going to have to settle. and just splash it in. god knows if they even use measuring spoons in France. Maybe you should just bring them with you.

1 1/2 cup flour = flour is simple and cheap. thank god. so take your fake measuring cup and measure out a cup and a half.

1 tsp baking soda = I actually went to Grand Epecerie which is a famous food store here (very equivalent to a Balducci's). They have a Etats-Unis/Canada section which had Arm and Hammer baking soda and a whole slew of other funny American things including: marshmallows, fluff, maple syrup, peanut butter, beef jerky, salad dressing, rando candies, buttered popcorn in bags, pumpkin puree (which I snagged for pumpkin cookies), and other things I can't recall at this time. So just grab a small spoon and throw some of this in too.

1 tsp ground cinnamon = I couldn't locate it in the two stores I looked for it, it probably was around, but I was banking on my fake host mom to have some and thank god she did. But it expired in 2007. Whatever. Fake cinnamon is fake cinnamon. Throw some of that in too.

salt = salt

3 cups of oats = oats aren't allowed in France, just like immigrants and poorly made cheese. I couldn't find it in either of the two stores so I settled and bought this muesli granola stuff that was very obviously not cooked yet and was marked at 4 Euros and was dried bits of figs, apples, and uncooked oats. Cool France, for making everything unnecessarily expensive.

1 cup chocolate chips = those don't really exist in France either. Occasionally they pop up. I bought a bar of chocolate and cut it up instead. IT WAS FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE. That is one thing France is good for, Fair Trade products. The sugar was FT as well.

Mix it up. Figure out how to work a French oven, set it for 175 degrees Celsius and cook for 8-10 minutes.

Granted I could have gone to the specialty baking store that I found today looking online for baking soda, but should I have to do that? No I say! But I guess the French can't miss what they don't have. So I probably should just keep my cookies to myself. ;P

Reduce, Reuse, Bicycle.

Adorable anecdotes on bike time!

Almost ran into a girl on a scooter because I thought I had the right of way! Funny story, I didn't!

Run over the same dead pigeon like 3 times in one week! Stellar!

Times I've almost been taken out by a car door: Twice!

Times I was almost accosted by drunk men: thankfully only once. that was super creepy.

And the best story of them all. How about two hours ago at 9:30pm I was biking back from class and I ran a red light since no one was around and got stopped by the police.
The interaction:
police (in french): stop. get off your bike. you just ran a red light.
me: huh?
police: you just ran a red light, right?
me: oui?
police: you just ran a red light? [repeating himself because he's super surprised that I just admitted to it, but hello - you just saw me do it]
me: attends....le bus? [as he stopped me at a bus stop and there was a large bus behind us trying to get in]
police: ok, get off your bike.

So I get off my bike and bring it up onto the sidewalk. He has to pull around the corner (because of the bus) which is like 100ft away but he can still see me. And since there are three cops in the car I figure one of them will come out and over to me since they told me to stay there. But they stupidly just starred at me for ten seconds to see if I would take off or something? And then I guess they were too lazy to get out of their car so they drove around the block and since Paris streets are all sorts of crazy it probably took them about a minute or two to get back around. So I took off. and biked for my life. so Mom, I will never ever bike through most of the red lights in Paris ever again.

My DC Family

I've been a little homesick recently. Which by all definitions blows. Especially because it was my cousin's wedding this weekend and my entire family was in DC. So literally almost everyone who I love was in DC this weekend and I wasn't too thrilled about it. Especially because I came down with a cold on Saturday as well.

But! the light at the end of the tunnel. 1. my friends in DC and I have a strange obsession with skype, so that's usually covered. and 2. HOLY CRAP. My other cousin basically photo blogged the wedding for me via facebook. So just imagine, me getting home from a bar around 12am (I left early because I was feeling like crap) and being like ho hum ho hum go on facebook and there are pictures. of the wedding. happening. right now. since it's 6pm on the east coast. and holy crap. they're opening my present on stage. in front of everyone. WHAT?

Keyboard

and I'm currently typing this from the Sciences Po library on a French keyboard.
Tues-moi.

Réveille-toi Nicolas

whenever I have free time I wander over to protests.
this was monday's.

http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/video/2009/09/21/flashmob-pour-le-climat-au-sacre-c-ur_1243210_3244.html



falafels: 9

hit on in franglais: 5

Count Check

Number of falafels eaten: 8

Number of times I've been hit on and the person has to switch to English: 4

Number of carafe d'eaux: alot, I will be posting my montage soon

Number of times I was told bon appetit tonight: 2
(I'm not crazy! I was eating a crepe while walking down the street and two guys said it to me! It's a phenomenon!)