Woke up this morning from someone knocking on my door. It was 11 so I probably should have been up anyway. It was a girl on my floor wondering what I was doing today. I didn't tell her I had planned on taking two hours to straighten my hair.
I took a shower. The shower drains very slowly, so I had to turn off the water while I conditioned my hair and then turn it back on to rinse otherwise the water would overflow out into my room. The bathroom is small enough that just about any overflow would go into my room.
We have these nice big windows in the room and I have a pretty good view so I opened them to let some air in. Then I got this crazy paranoia that a bird would fly in so I closed them most of the way. I went to plug in my hair straightener, and presently blew the fuse, breaking my power adapter. I tried to plug in my computer, etc. and nothing worked. I went down to the front desk to see if they could help me. The guy was really nice although not much help. He kept telling me it was bizarre, that he was sure my adapter wasn't broken, and that maybe I should change rooms. I tried my adapter in Andrew's room with no luck, so I told him that wasn't the problem. He gave me directions to a store where I could buy a new one, and I was going to go with Andrew anyway to get some food. At this point, however, I'm still in my pajamas with nothing done to my hair, so I go back to my room to get ready. As I'm changing, the window had blown open a little, and a bird came in. Yeah, a fucking bird flew into my room. I freaked out. My first impulse was to run out of the room, get Andrew, and make the big strong boy take care of it. Poor Andrew, he didnt know he would be getting to deal with all of my problems this quarter. Anyway, about as soon as it came in, it went right back out so it wasnt a big deal. I went and shut the window, but now I'm afraid to open it even a little and its getting a little stuffy in here.
Andrew and I walked around for about two hours before we found an adapter. We found what was like a Target, but they didn't have anything. The one we found ended up to be at a rundown general store in the arondissement next door. It works, which is why I can type this now. I think I'm going to go to Sacré Cour this evening at some point to just hang out there. More later
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Day 1
Neil and I went to Kellers for breakfast before he took me to the airport. It's sad that that's one thing I'm really going to miss. We drove up to O'Hare, decided that we didnt want to go all the way into the city to take 90/94 or take the toll road, so we settled on a parallel highway. It turned out to be not much of a highway at all but the main road of every suburb we passed, complete with range-rovers and suburbans at every stoplight.
We got the airport though, checked my bag (50.5lbs because I am amazing) and I got through security in about ten minutes. Neil left. Five minutes until boarding they tell us we are going to be an hour late, which means that certain people won't make their connecting flights. Of course, I am one of those people. I get in line to talk to them, and behind me is a girl I recognize as the ref from waterpolo. We start talking and she's pretty cool, so I decided to hang out with her for the day. US Airways put us on a direct flight with American, which meant we had to go to baggage claim and get our stuff, take the train to the other terminal, and then go through security all over again. We went to check our bags with AA, but the woman started getting really mad. My new friend Kathleen is allergic to nuts and was trying to ask if there would be nuts in the food. The lady kept saying "we can't guarantee anything, you should have told us 24 hours in advance." We tried to explain that we were just moved from another airline, which had been notified in advance, but it didn't help, she kept saying that Kathleen might not be allowed on the plane. Eventually we got that worked out and headed over to security, where we got "randomly" selected and patted down. Awesome. The flight was fine, except that there was no storage above the middle aisle, so i accidentally opened the cabinet for the oxygen tanks thinking it was overhead storage.
We got to CDG, and were somehow able to navigate our way to the RER trains, buy the tickets, and make it to the Cité Universitaire without any major problems. Mainly small obstacles and triumphs every step of the way. On the train we met Jonathon from New York. His wife produces fashion shows for Chloe. Next week is fashion week in Paris so he was here to spend a romantic weekend with her before she gets too swamped. He seemed legit, so we talked to him for a while.
We got settled in, I took a nap and discovered that my alarm clock doesn't work, and then spent a ton of euros on train passes. Olivia, Andrew, Kathleen, and I went up the river and walked around the tourist areas for a long time, taking as many pictures as possible until my camera died. Liv got them all though... We picked a little café for dinner and happened to pick the one playing country music and serving cheeseburgers. Overall it was a pretty good day. I like Paris enough to have a great time for ten weeks, although I'm not sure how I would handle living here longer.
We got the airport though, checked my bag (50.5lbs because I am amazing) and I got through security in about ten minutes. Neil left. Five minutes until boarding they tell us we are going to be an hour late, which means that certain people won't make their connecting flights. Of course, I am one of those people. I get in line to talk to them, and behind me is a girl I recognize as the ref from waterpolo. We start talking and she's pretty cool, so I decided to hang out with her for the day. US Airways put us on a direct flight with American, which meant we had to go to baggage claim and get our stuff, take the train to the other terminal, and then go through security all over again. We went to check our bags with AA, but the woman started getting really mad. My new friend Kathleen is allergic to nuts and was trying to ask if there would be nuts in the food. The lady kept saying "we can't guarantee anything, you should have told us 24 hours in advance." We tried to explain that we were just moved from another airline, which had been notified in advance, but it didn't help, she kept saying that Kathleen might not be allowed on the plane. Eventually we got that worked out and headed over to security, where we got "randomly" selected and patted down. Awesome. The flight was fine, except that there was no storage above the middle aisle, so i accidentally opened the cabinet for the oxygen tanks thinking it was overhead storage.
We got to CDG, and were somehow able to navigate our way to the RER trains, buy the tickets, and make it to the Cité Universitaire without any major problems. Mainly small obstacles and triumphs every step of the way. On the train we met Jonathon from New York. His wife produces fashion shows for Chloe. Next week is fashion week in Paris so he was here to spend a romantic weekend with her before she gets too swamped. He seemed legit, so we talked to him for a while.
We got settled in, I took a nap and discovered that my alarm clock doesn't work, and then spent a ton of euros on train passes. Olivia, Andrew, Kathleen, and I went up the river and walked around the tourist areas for a long time, taking as many pictures as possible until my camera died. Liv got them all though... We picked a little café for dinner and happened to pick the one playing country music and serving cheeseburgers. Overall it was a pretty good day. I like Paris enough to have a great time for ten weeks, although I'm not sure how I would handle living here longer.
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