What Not to Do In Paris

Well, I arrived in Paris yesterday morning, and I haven’t actually seen a thing yet. As I arrived at Paris’ Gare du Nord train station around 11am, I realized that I didn’t have my Chevy Chase Bank check card, which is my primary means of getting cash. After throwing down my bag and searching every nook and cranny, the verdict was that it was gone. I’m still not sure where it got misplaced, but it was definitely at some point in Bruges. I spent the entire day yesterday figuring that mess out, but it looks like I’m good to go now. I have a new card on the way and I still have a Citi Student Visa with a $5000 limit. So, crisis averted.

So in addition to me being in a horrible mood because of that yesterday, Parisians have also lived up to their reputation of being snobby, offputting, and rude. I came with high hopes of proving them wrong, but in my experience, everything you’ve heard is true. I’ve had people yell at me for trying to speak English, laugh and talk behind my back in French, etc etc etc. I even try to speak the language whenever possible – I ordered my entire lunch in French yesterday, and both the waitress and the customers still scowled and acted as if I were ruining their day. Get over yourself, Paris.

Haha aaanyway, after all that nonsense, I did check into my hostel, which once again is very nice. It’s very modern and up-to-date, with a bathroom and shower in my quad room. Last night I stayed with three girls from Iowa State, who turned out to be very cool. After a day of hearing nothing but French, it was nice to able to communicate with people in something else than broken sentences. We had all planned on going to the Eiffel Tower last night to see it light up at night, but their fondue dinner ran 3 ½ hours long (the French eat and serve food very slowly), so by the time they got home it was 11:30 and I was too tired. Plus, I wanted to get up early today.

One good thing that did happen yesterday was the dinner I had. I went to a local grocery and picked up the following things:

Baguette (like 2 ½ feet of bread)
400 grams ham
One wheel of fresh Camembert cheese (hand-made in Normandy)
Bottle of white wine
Bottle of blush wine

All that cost me only 10 dollars, or a little less than 7 euro. I only ate like a third of everything, and it was all delicious, especially the cheese. I’m sure I’ll do the same thing tonight for dinner. In fact, I took only one picture throughout the entire day yesterday, and it was of my dinner.

Anyway, I’m gonna head out and see if I can begin to cram a week’s worth of sights into two days. We’ll see what I can do!