More stuff about me living in Paris
Things are so good that every once in a while I suddenly find myself (internally) lashing out at a cultural difference. For instance, I saw that the Mozart l'Opéra Rock DVD comes out in November, and my reaction was along the lines of, "Well, that would be swell if I knew where I could find a NORMAL CD STORE IN THIS FLIPPING TOWN!!"
But other than the occasional teeny meltdown, life is superb. I am so tired already. I feel like I need to take some time and just be normal for a day, but that's not going to happen until I get back to the States in, like, June. Because every day I'm here I feel like I should make the most of it and do something... Paris-y.
So this is what I've done so far this week:
MONDAY.
Monday was my last day of summer, technically, so I pulled out my beloved Pariscope and was checking things I could do in town. I had a few plays picked out that I wanted to see, but none of them were performed on Monday for some reason. Sunday and Monday are the roughest days to find entertainment in Paris... everything closes early on Monday and a lot of things just don't bother opening on Sunday. Sunday is the official last day of the week here.
Anyway, since none of the plays I wanted were on, I looked the through film section. Call me a plebe if you want, but I had no interest in paying to see some intense French movie whose plot I would probably be unable to follow. If I want to see a movie these days, I want to laugh. And then I saw that Get Him to the Greek was playing, or "American Trip" as the French call it. I missed that back home because my mom wouldn't watch it and she was my movie buddy for the summer. I was scoping out cinemas (I picked the ones in the Montparnasse area because, well... because they said Montparnasse, obviously) when my phone rang. Another girl from our program whose host family is in the same banlieue as mine wanted to meet up and faire les courses, or do some food shopping. I agreed, and off we went.
We met up at the train station, and because I had it in my head that I wanted to go into Paris, I suggested we get on a train. Since Tuesday would be our first day of classes AND our first Parisian railroad strike (grève) we figured it would be a good idea to familiarise ourself with the route on a day when the trains were working normally. So off we went, and about forty-five minutes later we arrived at the Foyer near the jardin du Luxembourg. Since we had nothing else to do, we just kinda started wandering about. I suggested we walk in the direction of the Palais des Sports (where Mozart l'Opéra Rock will be in November) so I could familiarise myself with that area of Paris... because I figure I'll be spending plenty of time there.
The other girl was craving some caffeine, so when it started to rain we stopped at one of those little Parisian cafés and sat facing the Boulevard Montparnasse (!) until the rain passed. While there, I busted out my Pariscope again and we started looking at movie times. The other girl thought I was retarded for wanted to see a Russell Brand movie in Paris, so she picked some French thriller thing that started at a similar time. We went to a cinema called Gaumont Montparnasse and bought our tickets... and the place was MASSIVE. To get to my theatre I had to go down a hallway, through a tunnel, past a second lobby, up some stairs, down another hallway, through a set of doors, and down some spiral stairs. Everything was painted purple and red.
The film was fortunately in English, but subtitled in French. I found reading the subtitles completely irresistible, and from them I learned new words that I'm a little afraid to repeat. After the film, we went back to our banlieue and did some grocery shopping at a Franprix. Then, at my host family's behest, I played piano for a while... then cooked myself some cheese ravioli with pesto (which was AWESOME). Afterwards my host family invited me to join the girls in watching Servane's favourite show... which turned out to be CASTLE. Dubbed in French. I had a little trouble following, but I got the overall idea, yay me!
TUESDAY
I got up very early so that I could find a train that would get me into Paris, and at the gare Saint-Lazare I took my host dad's advice and took a bus to Saint-Michel instead of crossing my fingers and heading into the métros. The bus took us right past the Comédie-Française, which I think of as "my old neighbourhood" now, and I saw the bench where misatheredpanda, josiana, and I sat out and talked about Repo and crossovers until the wee hours of the morning.
We got there pretty early, so I went up to the awesome terrace of the Foyer and finished my reading with the company of the Eiffel Tower. Then we had our North Carolina class, which has an interesting subject matter (femininity, sexuality, and post-Revolutionary France... and it's a LIT class!) but a rather dry professor (Costello). The group then all reunited (I realised I had really missed them--Phoebe, Sherry, and Mike, that is--in the one day we'd been apart) and we headed over to the Sorbonne to get our placement test results. I got intermediate, which seems kind of low, but I agree that I rather suck at a lot of grammar and articles and that sort of thing... we're here to learn, and goshdarnit, that's what I plan to do. A few of us stopped by a group favourite sandwich shop which sells baguette-sized sandwiches, a drink, and a dessert for five euro. I only got the sandwich because I'm TERRIBLE at making decisions and couldn't pick a dessert or drink. We ate our food in the Luxembourg and then headed off to our classes. Mine isn't next to the Panthéon, sadly, but it *is* directly across from Notre Dame, so I guess I shouldn't complain. The bells of Notre Dame tell us when class should end and begin. Oh yeah.
Class was pretty good. There are all different levels in there. Most of the other kids are American, but there are a few from Sweden and one from Liverpool. Our professor is pretty young and very French, with dark hair and a wardrobe that consists of neutrals (and a fantastic fashion sense, obviously). She's friendly and patient and everything seems to be going well.
After class I led the other two UNC kids from my level to Châtelet, and I decided to hunt down La Droguerie, the yarn shop the internet told me was the best (and pretty much only) in Paris. It was quite an event to try to get there, but after a lot of wandering and some growing blisters I finally found myself in the right place. (I went slightly out of the way because I wanted to walk through the Rue des Prouvaires.) However, when I walked into the shop there were giant hanks of yarn hanging from hooks on the wall, all sold my weight. Geez. I wasn't even sure what it was I wanted to knit (I'd narrowed it down to Mozart l'Opéra Rock dolls to give the cast like a stalker and my tricorn for when the weather gets cold) and if I did the tricorn I would need to make sure I bought 100% wool, but I realised I didn't even know how to say wool in French. It was sort of a headdesk moment. I decided to google it and come back later.
On the way home I went into Les Halles to see what it was and whether I could find my way home from there. It turned out to be some kind of wacky underground mall thing with, like, cinema libraries and movie theatres and stuff, but after a bit of wandering I found a métro station inside, and I went on back to my host family.
Tuesday night is my night for dinner with the family (along with Thursday) so I played piano while the mom cooked and then went down to join in. We had shrimp (whole shrimp, with sad little faces, but I pulled them off and ate their bodies like a trooper) and crab legs, except the French are smart enough to even dig around in the crab bodies to find meat (something my family never bothers with). We put some kind of yellow-y mayonnaise on the crab meat once we got it out, and it was delicious! For dessert we had this white yoghurt-y cheese sprinkled with sugar. And after dinner I joined Servane and the Swede (I have to figure out how to spell her name) in the living room for television. We watched "The Story of Us," which is a Rob Reiner movie with Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer, and was surprisingly good. It was dubbed in French, of course. Servane got really into it. Like when the couple fought she would go "Ohhh," and when they made up she was really excited. It was precious.
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday was a little bit ridiculous. I woke up all relaxed, like, I don't have class until 1:30, go me! I was chillin in my pyjamas, reading "Hark, A Vagrant!" when I got a text from Phoebe asking if I was on my way to the fountain. I had no idea what that meant. Then I got a text from Katie that said "Where are you?" so I got really nervous. I started going through my schedules and stuff, but there was nothing that said I was missing an event. I texted Phoebe back with confusion, and her response was that uh-duh our walking tours class was supposed to begin that day, and apparently I was the only person who had forgotten. They proposed I meet the tour in an hour at the middle ages museum.
So, no time for a shower, which I sorely needed. Instead, I threw some clothes on, ran downstairs, shoved some breakfast down my throat, and then took off through the train system, running up escalators and speedwalking across moving sidewalks. It wasn't till 11:10 that I arrived at the Cluny museum thing, and I awkwardly waited outside in the rain for twenty minutes until the group showed up. We then moseyed over to the Panthéon, aka the one thing in the Latin Quarter that I don't need a tour guide to explain to me, and that was the end of the tour. A group of us went to a Lebanese restaurant where I got a wrap that had the usual wrap stuff and, bizarrely, French fries inside. A beverage came with the meal deal, so I hemmed and hawwed for a while and finally decided to try Rose water. That was definitely a mistake. I'm okay with beverages smelling and tasting like fruit, but when they smell and taste like a plant I feel like I'm drinking soap. I eventually had to dump the rose water out and refill the bottle with normal water at the nearest Wallace fountain.
We went off to Raspail, which is near my favourite place Montparnasse, for our first phonetics class, and then it was all the way back up to Cluny/Notre Dame to the regular French class. After class, I stood out on the street corner juggling my Pariscope, my map of Paris, and an umbrella, because goshdarnit, I was GOING to see a play. I saw that I'd missed Much Ado About Nothing by a few days, so it was down to Tartuffe and La Cage aux Folles. Because there are posters for La Cage all over the city and because it starts Christian Clavier of Thénardier fame, I decided it was La Cage. So I worked out a métro route to the right street and off I went into unfamiliar territory.
Did I mention it was raining the whole time? And my shoes weren't very rain-friendly? And I got off the métro and started wandering down the Boulevard Saint-Martin and did not see a theatre. I got nervous. I got frustrated. I was still carrying my books in my arms because the only bag I have is a purse. Plus I had my umbrella. My feet were getting wet. I wanted to lay down or at least sit, but benches everywhere were wet. Just as I decided to give up and go find Tartuffe, I saw flashing red lights and naked marble women. It was the theatre! I limped on inside and asked for the cheapest seat available, which was for twelve euros. I said I'd like to be sitting on the ground floor and the woman asked some question about how I felt about armrests (answer: uhhh... I don't require them?) The show wasn't for another two hours.
I didn't know what to do with myself, so I decided to wander about for a bit. I discovered some giant arches in the middle of the street and, more importantly, a Monoprix. I dashed inside and bought the cheapest bag I could find, which was a cute navy thing with a pink bow stuck on it, and immediately chucked my stupid books inside. My arms were so sore. Then I went into a Gibert Jeune, but it was crowded and swarming with employees and I got nervous, so I ducked out. I wandered a little longer, saw the weave district (I'm guessing), and finally decided to just go ride a métro around for a while so I could sit. About an hour before showtime I came back to the theatre and awkwardly stood around in the lobby until they opened the doors. There was a cool futuristic bathroom with square toilets and motion sensor lights. Finally we went into the theatre and I handed a cute usher my ticket. He led me straight to the front of the theatre and... unfolded a little dumpy red chair right in the middle of the aisle, row two. I could see other foldy chairs next to all the other rows, but no one else sat in one. I felt so awkward. But I was also in the second row for only TWELVE EUROS. I struck up a conversation with an American couple nearby who had paid sixty-five euros for each ticket but were pretty sure they were supposed to be up a level, in a balcony. They asked another usher who confirmed this, and off they went.
The show finally began, and it was pretty magnificent. I was discouraged at first, because for the first few minutes I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying. Christian Clavier talks SO FAST. But once I relaxed a little I started to catch on. I admit I only understood about a third of the dialogue, but I definitely understood the plot after a few minutes. It was a delightful show! I wish I'd heard all the jokes, but the ones I did get were hilarious. People in the audience were wiping tears from their eyes and even snorting with laughter. It was a great environment. Christian Clavier had a little piece of white hair that was part of his costume, but it started to come off and was hanging down the side of his face in the first scene. When he realised what was happening, he pulled the hair out and looked at it in mock horror, saying something about how his son's marriage plans would make him go bald. He had the lock reattached before the next scene, but when Didier Bourdon as Albin threw a pillow at him the hair slipped off again. The audience laughed at that as much as at anything else in the show. There was another bit were Albin ripped off a pearl necklace, which broke and scattered pearls all over the stage. One even rolled into the audience. I considered picking it up when the curtain fell, but I figured it would just be another dooda that I hung onto for the rest of my life and had no idea what to do with but couldn't bear to throw away, so I left it where it was. The show itself was a delight, and I couldn't stop grinning as the whole cast danced through curtain call in drag.
By the time the show ended it was about 11pm (or 23h, as the French say) and I was a little concerned that my host family would be worried about me. I took a métro back to Saint-Lazare and then found a train that was on its way to the right banlieue. If I had missed that train I'd have had to have waited another thirty minutes for the next one! In a world where the longest wait between trains is about five minutes, that seemed outrageous. Then again, it was late at night.
I got back to the house and had a little trouble unlocked the front door. When I finally got it, I had awakened my host mother. I was worried she'd be frustrated I hadn't called, but she was so relaxed. She mentioned that Servane hadn't gotten back either, and asked if I'd been out to eat. I told her about La Cage, and she was really impressed that twelve euros got me so close and that I'd seen such famous French actors. Then I came upstairs with the intention of doing internet things, but I was so exhausted I had to give it up and pass out for the night.
Such is my life!
In other news, apparently Prince Poppycock is through to the final four on America's Got Talent, and that's without my input! I'm so pleased! It's now him, a guy who looks like Heath Ledger and plays guitar, a tiny girl who sings excellent opera, and that Fighting Gravity show thing. I'm pretty excited about Poppycock's chances!
But other than the occasional teeny meltdown, life is superb. I am so tired already. I feel like I need to take some time and just be normal for a day, but that's not going to happen until I get back to the States in, like, June. Because every day I'm here I feel like I should make the most of it and do something... Paris-y.
So this is what I've done so far this week:
MONDAY.
Monday was my last day of summer, technically, so I pulled out my beloved Pariscope and was checking things I could do in town. I had a few plays picked out that I wanted to see, but none of them were performed on Monday for some reason. Sunday and Monday are the roughest days to find entertainment in Paris... everything closes early on Monday and a lot of things just don't bother opening on Sunday. Sunday is the official last day of the week here.
Anyway, since none of the plays I wanted were on, I looked the through film section. Call me a plebe if you want, but I had no interest in paying to see some intense French movie whose plot I would probably be unable to follow. If I want to see a movie these days, I want to laugh. And then I saw that Get Him to the Greek was playing, or "American Trip" as the French call it. I missed that back home because my mom wouldn't watch it and she was my movie buddy for the summer. I was scoping out cinemas (I picked the ones in the Montparnasse area because, well... because they said Montparnasse, obviously) when my phone rang. Another girl from our program whose host family is in the same banlieue as mine wanted to meet up and faire les courses, or do some food shopping. I agreed, and off we went.
We met up at the train station, and because I had it in my head that I wanted to go into Paris, I suggested we get on a train. Since Tuesday would be our first day of classes AND our first Parisian railroad strike (grève) we figured it would be a good idea to familiarise ourself with the route on a day when the trains were working normally. So off we went, and about forty-five minutes later we arrived at the Foyer near the jardin du Luxembourg. Since we had nothing else to do, we just kinda started wandering about. I suggested we walk in the direction of the Palais des Sports (where Mozart l'Opéra Rock will be in November) so I could familiarise myself with that area of Paris... because I figure I'll be spending plenty of time there.
The other girl was craving some caffeine, so when it started to rain we stopped at one of those little Parisian cafés and sat facing the Boulevard Montparnasse (!) until the rain passed. While there, I busted out my Pariscope again and we started looking at movie times. The other girl thought I was retarded for wanted to see a Russell Brand movie in Paris, so she picked some French thriller thing that started at a similar time. We went to a cinema called Gaumont Montparnasse and bought our tickets... and the place was MASSIVE. To get to my theatre I had to go down a hallway, through a tunnel, past a second lobby, up some stairs, down another hallway, through a set of doors, and down some spiral stairs. Everything was painted purple and red.
The film was fortunately in English, but subtitled in French. I found reading the subtitles completely irresistible, and from them I learned new words that I'm a little afraid to repeat. After the film, we went back to our banlieue and did some grocery shopping at a Franprix. Then, at my host family's behest, I played piano for a while... then cooked myself some cheese ravioli with pesto (which was AWESOME). Afterwards my host family invited me to join the girls in watching Servane's favourite show... which turned out to be CASTLE. Dubbed in French. I had a little trouble following, but I got the overall idea, yay me!
TUESDAY
I got up very early so that I could find a train that would get me into Paris, and at the gare Saint-Lazare I took my host dad's advice and took a bus to Saint-Michel instead of crossing my fingers and heading into the métros. The bus took us right past the Comédie-Française, which I think of as "my old neighbourhood" now, and I saw the bench where misatheredpanda, josiana, and I sat out and talked about Repo and crossovers until the wee hours of the morning.
We got there pretty early, so I went up to the awesome terrace of the Foyer and finished my reading with the company of the Eiffel Tower. Then we had our North Carolina class, which has an interesting subject matter (femininity, sexuality, and post-Revolutionary France... and it's a LIT class!) but a rather dry professor (Costello). The group then all reunited (I realised I had really missed them--Phoebe, Sherry, and Mike, that is--in the one day we'd been apart) and we headed over to the Sorbonne to get our placement test results. I got intermediate, which seems kind of low, but I agree that I rather suck at a lot of grammar and articles and that sort of thing... we're here to learn, and goshdarnit, that's what I plan to do. A few of us stopped by a group favourite sandwich shop which sells baguette-sized sandwiches, a drink, and a dessert for five euro. I only got the sandwich because I'm TERRIBLE at making decisions and couldn't pick a dessert or drink. We ate our food in the Luxembourg and then headed off to our classes. Mine isn't next to the Panthéon, sadly, but it *is* directly across from Notre Dame, so I guess I shouldn't complain. The bells of Notre Dame tell us when class should end and begin. Oh yeah.
Class was pretty good. There are all different levels in there. Most of the other kids are American, but there are a few from Sweden and one from Liverpool. Our professor is pretty young and very French, with dark hair and a wardrobe that consists of neutrals (and a fantastic fashion sense, obviously). She's friendly and patient and everything seems to be going well.
After class I led the other two UNC kids from my level to Châtelet, and I decided to hunt down La Droguerie, the yarn shop the internet told me was the best (and pretty much only) in Paris. It was quite an event to try to get there, but after a lot of wandering and some growing blisters I finally found myself in the right place. (I went slightly out of the way because I wanted to walk through the Rue des Prouvaires.) However, when I walked into the shop there were giant hanks of yarn hanging from hooks on the wall, all sold my weight. Geez. I wasn't even sure what it was I wanted to knit (I'd narrowed it down to Mozart l'Opéra Rock dolls to give the cast like a stalker and my tricorn for when the weather gets cold) and if I did the tricorn I would need to make sure I bought 100% wool, but I realised I didn't even know how to say wool in French. It was sort of a headdesk moment. I decided to google it and come back later.
On the way home I went into Les Halles to see what it was and whether I could find my way home from there. It turned out to be some kind of wacky underground mall thing with, like, cinema libraries and movie theatres and stuff, but after a bit of wandering I found a métro station inside, and I went on back to my host family.
Tuesday night is my night for dinner with the family (along with Thursday) so I played piano while the mom cooked and then went down to join in. We had shrimp (whole shrimp, with sad little faces, but I pulled them off and ate their bodies like a trooper) and crab legs, except the French are smart enough to even dig around in the crab bodies to find meat (something my family never bothers with). We put some kind of yellow-y mayonnaise on the crab meat once we got it out, and it was delicious! For dessert we had this white yoghurt-y cheese sprinkled with sugar. And after dinner I joined Servane and the Swede (I have to figure out how to spell her name) in the living room for television. We watched "The Story of Us," which is a Rob Reiner movie with Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer, and was surprisingly good. It was dubbed in French, of course. Servane got really into it. Like when the couple fought she would go "Ohhh," and when they made up she was really excited. It was precious.
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday was a little bit ridiculous. I woke up all relaxed, like, I don't have class until 1:30, go me! I was chillin in my pyjamas, reading "Hark, A Vagrant!" when I got a text from Phoebe asking if I was on my way to the fountain. I had no idea what that meant. Then I got a text from Katie that said "Where are you?" so I got really nervous. I started going through my schedules and stuff, but there was nothing that said I was missing an event. I texted Phoebe back with confusion, and her response was that uh-duh our walking tours class was supposed to begin that day, and apparently I was the only person who had forgotten. They proposed I meet the tour in an hour at the middle ages museum.
So, no time for a shower, which I sorely needed. Instead, I threw some clothes on, ran downstairs, shoved some breakfast down my throat, and then took off through the train system, running up escalators and speedwalking across moving sidewalks. It wasn't till 11:10 that I arrived at the Cluny museum thing, and I awkwardly waited outside in the rain for twenty minutes until the group showed up. We then moseyed over to the Panthéon, aka the one thing in the Latin Quarter that I don't need a tour guide to explain to me, and that was the end of the tour. A group of us went to a Lebanese restaurant where I got a wrap that had the usual wrap stuff and, bizarrely, French fries inside. A beverage came with the meal deal, so I hemmed and hawwed for a while and finally decided to try Rose water. That was definitely a mistake. I'm okay with beverages smelling and tasting like fruit, but when they smell and taste like a plant I feel like I'm drinking soap. I eventually had to dump the rose water out and refill the bottle with normal water at the nearest Wallace fountain.
We went off to Raspail, which is near my favourite place Montparnasse, for our first phonetics class, and then it was all the way back up to Cluny/Notre Dame to the regular French class. After class, I stood out on the street corner juggling my Pariscope, my map of Paris, and an umbrella, because goshdarnit, I was GOING to see a play. I saw that I'd missed Much Ado About Nothing by a few days, so it was down to Tartuffe and La Cage aux Folles. Because there are posters for La Cage all over the city and because it starts Christian Clavier of Thénardier fame, I decided it was La Cage. So I worked out a métro route to the right street and off I went into unfamiliar territory.
Did I mention it was raining the whole time? And my shoes weren't very rain-friendly? And I got off the métro and started wandering down the Boulevard Saint-Martin and did not see a theatre. I got nervous. I got frustrated. I was still carrying my books in my arms because the only bag I have is a purse. Plus I had my umbrella. My feet were getting wet. I wanted to lay down or at least sit, but benches everywhere were wet. Just as I decided to give up and go find Tartuffe, I saw flashing red lights and naked marble women. It was the theatre! I limped on inside and asked for the cheapest seat available, which was for twelve euros. I said I'd like to be sitting on the ground floor and the woman asked some question about how I felt about armrests (answer: uhhh... I don't require them?) The show wasn't for another two hours.
I didn't know what to do with myself, so I decided to wander about for a bit. I discovered some giant arches in the middle of the street and, more importantly, a Monoprix. I dashed inside and bought the cheapest bag I could find, which was a cute navy thing with a pink bow stuck on it, and immediately chucked my stupid books inside. My arms were so sore. Then I went into a Gibert Jeune, but it was crowded and swarming with employees and I got nervous, so I ducked out. I wandered a little longer, saw the weave district (I'm guessing), and finally decided to just go ride a métro around for a while so I could sit. About an hour before showtime I came back to the theatre and awkwardly stood around in the lobby until they opened the doors. There was a cool futuristic bathroom with square toilets and motion sensor lights. Finally we went into the theatre and I handed a cute usher my ticket. He led me straight to the front of the theatre and... unfolded a little dumpy red chair right in the middle of the aisle, row two. I could see other foldy chairs next to all the other rows, but no one else sat in one. I felt so awkward. But I was also in the second row for only TWELVE EUROS. I struck up a conversation with an American couple nearby who had paid sixty-five euros for each ticket but were pretty sure they were supposed to be up a level, in a balcony. They asked another usher who confirmed this, and off they went.
The show finally began, and it was pretty magnificent. I was discouraged at first, because for the first few minutes I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying. Christian Clavier talks SO FAST. But once I relaxed a little I started to catch on. I admit I only understood about a third of the dialogue, but I definitely understood the plot after a few minutes. It was a delightful show! I wish I'd heard all the jokes, but the ones I did get were hilarious. People in the audience were wiping tears from their eyes and even snorting with laughter. It was a great environment. Christian Clavier had a little piece of white hair that was part of his costume, but it started to come off and was hanging down the side of his face in the first scene. When he realised what was happening, he pulled the hair out and looked at it in mock horror, saying something about how his son's marriage plans would make him go bald. He had the lock reattached before the next scene, but when Didier Bourdon as Albin threw a pillow at him the hair slipped off again. The audience laughed at that as much as at anything else in the show. There was another bit were Albin ripped off a pearl necklace, which broke and scattered pearls all over the stage. One even rolled into the audience. I considered picking it up when the curtain fell, but I figured it would just be another dooda that I hung onto for the rest of my life and had no idea what to do with but couldn't bear to throw away, so I left it where it was. The show itself was a delight, and I couldn't stop grinning as the whole cast danced through curtain call in drag.
By the time the show ended it was about 11pm (or 23h, as the French say) and I was a little concerned that my host family would be worried about me. I took a métro back to Saint-Lazare and then found a train that was on its way to the right banlieue. If I had missed that train I'd have had to have waited another thirty minutes for the next one! In a world where the longest wait between trains is about five minutes, that seemed outrageous. Then again, it was late at night.
I got back to the house and had a little trouble unlocked the front door. When I finally got it, I had awakened my host mother. I was worried she'd be frustrated I hadn't called, but she was so relaxed. She mentioned that Servane hadn't gotten back either, and asked if I'd been out to eat. I told her about La Cage, and she was really impressed that twelve euros got me so close and that I'd seen such famous French actors. Then I came upstairs with the intention of doing internet things, but I was so exhausted I had to give it up and pass out for the night.
Such is my life!
In other news, apparently Prince Poppycock is through to the final four on America's Got Talent, and that's without my input! I'm so pleased! It's now him, a guy who looks like Heath Ledger and plays guitar, a tiny girl who sings excellent opera, and that Fighting Gravity show thing. I'm pretty excited about Poppycock's chances!