so. i have begun to venture out on my own.
saturday morning i woke up to meet marie-claire at her apt. i shared a room with her at the dreaded fiap, see previous posts. oye. anyway, she had her share of housing woes, but found herself with an adorable french apartment in a great little neighborhood, and saturday i saw it.
i met her at 11:15 ish, took the metro myself, looked up transfers myself. myself (for emphasis). she met me at the metro, baguette in hand tres francaise. we went back to her apartment, where she fed me this amazing chocolate chip bread creation her local boulangerie sells. and i tried guava juice. yum.
next we ventured out towards a flea market I HAD LOOKED UP, that she verified was near her. we looked around and i found these amazing rings that i wanted... then found out were 80, 90, or 100 euros, like hi. flea market? whatever. this is a french flea market. lesson learned. meh. kept walking. it was frigid. people were packing up. i was left wishing i had listened to my mother and packed gloves. whoops. second lesson learned. mom is always right. :)
after we exited le flea market. we walked all around her neighborhood, i enlightened her to the fabulous establishment known as picard. frozen food heaven. we walked, chatted, and lunched. lunch of course took 2-3 hours. what up france. and then i let her go, she is a transfer to AUP. aka a real student. aka not just taking art and art hsitory and french. aka has h.dubbs. i left her to do her 17 chapters of law reading while i metro'd it over to meet dana at a vintage clothing shop in the 1st arr.
yes. once again i navigated MYSELF to dana. go me.
while the next example is not on my own, it is me attempting to use french, so i should still get some points. dana and i got postcards for some extremely important people in our lives (yes everyone, yours is in the mail). and we decided to mail them en route to the gym. we walk into le poste.
one. they wear silly vests at the post offices in paris. haha
two. oye. talk about confusing slash having NO idea what i needed to do. TG for dana.
she parle en francais and gets the guy to tell us WHICH line to stand in. we stand for like 20 minutes, one woman in front of us. again, what up france.
its our turn. dana works her french magic, says she needs to send these to the USA, she buys her four stamps, licks them, and hands the post cards to the woman. yes. i said lick. these are not self adhesive stamps. did i mention france is somewhat behind. as i type this post from the base of my staircase. where i get le wee fee access.
HERE IS MY MOMENT, i step forward:
moi aussi, trois.
yes dana made fun of my non-accent. yes it was three words. YES I GOT STAMPS. so in the end, i won!
Lastly, dana and i needed portfolios for all of our amazing works of art. and tuesday, aka nudey-day (nude model in tomorrows class), is drawing class. so i took it upon myself to venture out after my double period of french and get us some portfolios. my friend hannah had informed me i could go to BHV to get some art supplies, and that i they had portfolios there. she said it was the Hotel D'Ville stop on the 1 or the 11. so i figured i'd just wing it.
hopped on the metro transferred from the 8, to the 1, hopped off. fail #1. i got stuck/lost in the metro station. i kept following signs for what i thought was the sortie. oye. oops. i finally found a green man walking up stairs (the sign for exit) like 15 minutes later, and found daylight TG.
i see BHV across the street. confused. it is a large department store. oye. fml. hannah has sent me to one of those one stop shopping nightmares for the non-french speaker. confused because i met hannah in french class, therefore her french is minimal slash non existent as well. i remember her saying that i should go up one level. TG. i go up on level in this parisian monstrosity.
F to the M to the L. this place is huge. like huuuuuge. like so big i cannot see behind displays. there are all these signs in french, and tons of art supplies, office supplies, luggage, books, dvds, EVERYTHING. i wander. frantically text jared. attempt to bbm dana. like i cannot come all this way and walk out without two portfolios.
i cannot ask for help because i don't know the french word for portfolio. i consider my charades skills briefly, and realize there is no good way to act out the word portfolio. commence aimless wandering.
this occurs for approximately 12 minutes when i find the art section. paper. pencils. paintbrushes. i am close. i can feeeeeel it. finally, portfolios. i grab two. somehow find the register. TG for digital display, i read the total and get out of there.
on my way out my portfolios do not make it through the glass door as successfully as i do. oops. bag ripped. yes, i am that awkward girl on the train with the oversized package attempting to fit. yes i transferred 3 times. yes everyone around me hated me. but then they hated the woman next to me cutting her nails more. so you win some you lose some.
all in all, i have been slowly becoming more independent. watch out. its about to get cray cray.
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