anyway, i have compiled a list of things my dear readers might like to know about paris that i haven't talked about in any of my class posts. take a gander, mes amis!
1. i always sleep with ear plugs. my apartment is right near a main road, and there are always sirens going off in the middle of the night. i'm not really sure why. hence, i always sleep with earplugs these days.
2. a. all of the women here are wearing leather jackets. all of the men here are wearing leather jackets.
2. b. everyone wears a jacket. all the time. even when the metro is 6,000 degrees fahrenheit.
2. c. also everyone and their mother wears a scarf.
3. black, grey, white. those are the colors of choice here.
4. i have become a pro at the art of layering. seriously folks, i may look like ralphie's litter brother from a christmas story, but i'm not even mad about it because it helps me stay warm. take the other day at church, for example. i wore : a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a jacket, and then on top of that another jacket. and a scarf. and BOOM! i stayed nice and warm (ish) all day.
5. i like to look at people's hands. some of you knew that already. if you didn't...there you go. anyway, i have observed on the metro that a ridiculous amount of people here chew their nails. mainly the men. it may or may not bug me a little bit.
6. also, my belief that all should use kitchen lingo in every day life remains in effect here in paris. yes, we should all say "corner" and "behind" all the time. and everyone should obey human traffic laws. like always stay on the right. that way you don't have any major traffic problems. the metro could benefit from that.
7. i love the bus. it is my new favorite mode of transportation in france. it's hard to take because it takes so much longer than the metro, but it is much less congested and you can actually SEE where you are. i like being not underground. if i were better at getting up early, i would take the bus everywhere...but seeing as i still have some improvements to make in that little area (mornings are just as hard in france as they are in the states), i take the metro more often than i would like to. my goal for myself is to be better at getting up earlier so i can take the bus more!
8. toilets are always an adventure! there aren't really public restrooms here like there are in the states. and sometimes you have to pay to use them, which goes against everything i stand for. but i'd rather pay and use the bathroom than be miserable! it's always exciting to see what kind of toilet you are going to use, and how you flush it. sometimes there is a button to press, sometimes a cord to pull, sometimes a lever to stand on...sometimes it's a squatter. you never know what you're gonna get!
9. i love my classes. it is so cool to have art history here in paris because we get to actually SEE the pieces we are learning about. like in real life. no more power points and googleimage photos. this is the real deal. cori and i were talking about how crazy it is that we went into the louvre for 40 minutes to study a few specific pieces for our midterm and then we just left. you know. no big deal. we just breezed past the mona lisa all nonchalantly. we walked past the most famous painting in the world and didn't even look back at her. how weird is that? just studying in a building filled with art that is hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years old. this is my life, and i love it!
10. i love gardens. i love love love all of the gardens here. like the big public ones, like the jardin du luxembourg. i think that is my favorite one so far. i loved that garden and the gardens at vaux le vicomte (a little castle outside of paris). i love how immaculately kept they all are and i am totally loving the fall colors! it's beautiful. and i love them with the old buildings and grey skies in the background. so wonderful.
11. a pastry a day keeps the doctor away. :)
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