I feel so very Minnesotan always talking about the weather, but it is such a vital point to a "good" day in Paris. I don't really think that I can have a bad day in Paris, but when the weather is just right everything just seems to fall into place. Today was one of those days.
After class this mid-morning and afternoon, my seminar partner and I went to scope out the route that we want the rest of the class to look at since we are doing ours on Baron Haussmann, the architect/ city planner that made Paris look the way did does today. We decide to end our "walking tour" at Le Jardin du Luxembourg. Where we proceed to look for a baguette for me to eat in the garden, it took forever to find one but eventually we did. We then settled down for a bit of relaxation and "sun-bathing". Now you are thinking, "What! Janice in the sun she will burn like a lobster without a shell." And you would be thinking right, however I was a Girl Scout so I was prepared. I had my trusty sunscreen tube on me and I lathered my face up. So there I was sunbathing in the Luxembourg Gardens with a baguette in Paris, no big deal or anything. It was a sorta crazy surreal moment when I realized that I have enough time in Paris to spend a lazy day in the park and not have to worry about rushing off to this museum or that monument.
I don't know if I have learn wit while I am here you will have to tell me if I am at all witty or if I was witty before if I am witter. But I now know where I have to go to become a well-rounded person. So who wants to go to London and Florence?? I would really love to learn some poise since I thing I have indeed become clumsier since coming to Paris. I think I hit my head at least three times a day and I run into the door almost every time I go to open one. Their doors are quite tricky here. I think they change them in the night which way they open. And they often try and hid the door seal so you can't tell which way to swing the door. Life can be a challenge here in France.
I often talk about the little things here but when you are in a foreign country they become the big things. Like France has ginormous buttons to flush the toilette or that men and women share common space in the bathroom. The fact that there are no screens on windows or that your maid wakes you up at nine AM to give you new sheets. Let me tell you that is no way to wake up. Having a random woman in your doorway speaking very rapid French is very confusing. Nine AM is much too early to speak French. But it is nice when French people that I interact with ask if I am American and I respond to them in French and they continue to talk to me in French. I really want to communicate with them in French they just speak so fast that it can be very hard. The other day I was asking a waitress for more water and I had intended to ask in French instead it came out in broken English. So if you are with me when I just come back please understand that while I did not learn better French my English did get worse.
So this was a mishmash blog update, but nothing really structured happened in my free time so it was "a boring day". A nice relaxing day none the less. I hope to spend the rest of my days are like this. Alas the real world in pounding on my door and tapping on my window, but I think for now I will snuggle down in to the comfort of my youth.
Jusqu'à demain
Bisous- Janice
All photos taken at Le Jardin du Luxembourg
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