A Quick Note About Today

Today was another long French class. Tomorrow is the last one and afterward, they are seperating us into groups based on our language ability. I will be so upset after all the French I've taken if I don't get into the advanced writing class, because that is what I need to work on the most!

Some friends and I went to cure our massive, group-wide pizza craving this afternoon and found a little place in the Latin Quarter. The restaurant owner was a VERY rude little Italian man. It was so bad we got up and left. First he said we could not split his expensive pizzas (but they dont believe in to go boxes) and then he got mad at us when half of us wouldnt eat because we didnt want to pay for a whole one. He said "This is a restaurant! You are supposed to eat in a restaurant!" Finally, my brave friend Ray got up and walked out, as did the other 9 of us. We found a great little place and I had the best chicken pizza ever. Mom, you were so right about the weird stuff on the pizza, though. One had raw tuna, avocado, egg, and mayonaise. Grossssss.

Then we met up at the Notre Dame Cathedral for what we thought was a guided tour of the church and was, in fact, a lecture. The professor found us and immediately he was all business. Very sleek in a peacoat and popped collar - and a man purse. Then, he yelled at Mary Beth and Caitlyn for smoking during his "class". In their defense, we were outside and he had been there for literally 5 minutes. Anyway, they got mad and left on our way into into cathedral.

On a side note, there must have been an extra dose of crazy at Notre Dame today. There must have been 3 nutso's loudly preaching about the end of the world and a dozen gypsies.

I beat the rush hour traffic home to Arcueil, where the infamous laundry saga continues:

This morning I had nothing to wear. I literally thought through dozens of combinations of heavy jackets, sweat pants, and sleep t-shirts until I went with a brown dress I had been saving for the next cultural event, my new boots, and a red sweater. Actually, I looked pretty cute if I do say so myself. I figured that tomorrow would be the real challenge (sweatpant chic), but when I got home I wandered into "the big house" and found my laundry, all 15,000 French loads of it, sitting in the foyer.

I told Francoise when she got home that she absolutely did not need to feel like she had to do my laundry. She said that she had not been able to sleep last night and had gotten it all done. I thanked her profusely and I am totally gracious - the problem is solved! But it turns out that everybody has had the same strange experience. Nobody knows what to do with their laundry and they have a hard time with the small machines.

Anyway, I guess that is over for now. This afternoon I have to call about a babysitting job and (drum roll please) this afternoon I finally called Jeffrey. I am meeting him for dinner on Saturday at 6 and he is going to show me around the Quartier Latin. To be honest, I am equally as excited about seeing Jeffrey as I am about the free food.

Lastly, I am planning a trip to Rome or Barcelona (to visit Madison) on Nov.1-4 and started seriously looking at travel prices today. It is looking like flying is the cheapest (but not easiest) way to go. Oh, and if each of you would like to throw in a couple hundred euros to fund my extravagant traveling plans that would be great.

I'm totally kidding kind of. You wouldnt even believe some of the other kids in this program. I havent even touched on this yet, I know, but lets just say that it must be nice to afford a trip to Nice on a moment's notice, stay in an expensive hotel, purchase a Club Med gym membership and a new designer purse. But that is a story for another day.

Love you guys! Later.