RIP Camera. 03/09 - 02/10.

I would be interested to find one person that knows me that is surprised that I broke my camera already. Actually, it had a longer than average life span of my electronics. It survived 11 months! It's a miracle, really. But now I have to begin the process of finding another one while I'm here which could be a pain in the ass.

So, today is Valentines day and my valentine happens to be over 4000 miles away (I googled). What's a girl to do? The obvious (and only) answer here is: shop. I ventured out to see what I could buy to fill the void in my life and I had quite a bit of luck. I was able to buy some sweaters (as I did NOT come prepared for this colder than normal weather) and a sweet leather jacket that was only 10 euros! Don't worry mom and dad, I didn't go crazy. I got some great deals actually. The one thing that I went out for and didn't come back with was a new camera. Almost every store in Paris is closed on Sundays which is really a shame because that's when I do most of my shopping. It's also annoying because being that I am of the American mindset of "I want it yesterday, not tomorrow" it pisses me off that I have to wait and go back to these stores when theyre open (which is most likely for a total of 6 hours a day). I'm thinking that if I ever start to get used to this idea I need to move here because it must be nice to work from 9-12 and 2-6. If you consider how french people are always late to everything (FACT) then they are probably only working from 10-12 and 3-6. Must be nice!

This weekend was good, it was really relaxed. People sent me movie and tv sites so I spent some (read: hours) time basking in the glory of American TV and movies. I watched "It's Complicated" which was cute, "Did you hear about the Morgans?" which was not so good, and I even found French Kiss!! I don't care what anyone says that movie will never get old to me. And since I'm actually IN Paris it was cool to watch because I know where she's at during parts of the movie. And another fun fact for everyone - Modern Family is my new favorite show. It's absolutely hilarious and I'm upset that I watched all the aired episodes already because now I have to wait for next week until I can watch another one.

So I always like to share my observations of the weird things going on in Paris, and this week it's bathrooms. Some streets have port-a-potty type things on them, but they're so weird. You pee, but then you can't flush. You have to get out of it, and then the door closes and it goes through a "cleaning"stage where it basically flushes the toilet and dumps water on everything. So every time you go into one of these EVERYTHING in there is soaking wet. When we were in Bordeaux we saw a girl who left her cell phone in there while it started the cleaning stage hahahahaha not a good idea. Then, if you want to use the bathroom in a place like McDonalds or Starbucks you have to have a code. I went into a McDonalds to pee today and asked a guy where the bathrooms were and he told me I couldn't get in because I didn't have the code, and I had t obuy something if I wanted bathroom access hahahahaha is there something top secret going on in these bathrooms? Finally a guy gave it to me so I went downstairs to use it and it looked like I was trying to enter a vault. It was this huge metal door and I had to enter in the code then the door opened automatically. Then to get out I had to push a button for it to let me out. I've never had a more complicated bathroom experience in my life.

This week I think I only have class on Monday and Tuesday which is awesome.  I never have class on Wednesday but it appears that my class on Thursday and my class on Friday were cancelled too. Hopefully the weather this week will be better. Last Wednesday Taylor and I couldn't even go to Sacre-Coeur because the weather was so bi-polar. It was snowing then raining then sunny then snowing. It was really slick and I almost ate shit on the metro. How embarassing would my life be? People don't forget.

We couldn't go to the top of the Eiffel Tower either because it was still closed, as I should have figured. Re-opening on February 5th really means February 15th - 20th. So instead of doing all of this, we went to a restaurant/cafe called "Angelinas". Its supposedly where Coco Chanel used to get her hot chocolate all the time and I can see why. Taylor and I got some and it was AMAZING. It was as if they put pounds of swiss chocolate in a pot to melt it and then they serve it to you with whip cream. It was so rich and thick that I couldn't even have two glasses. And their food was awesome too, I had the best quiche. Relatively speaking it wasn't even that expensive which surprised me.

I haven't seen anyone get mugged or robbed yet, but I think it's only a matter of time. Taylor and I went to a couple of stores after Angelina's and that area is pretty touristy. So Taylor walks out of a store before me, and some guy comes up to her and asked her if she dropped her ring and showed her what looked like a wedding band (a MALE wedding band, mind you). So she told him it wasnt hers and he asked her if she wanted it and said it was goodluck? Then I came out and said the ring wasn't mine either and the guy just ran away. I don't really get it, but that same situation has happened to a couple of other people in the group. I guess if you take the ring they use that opportunity to take your purse, or maybe there's a wingman, I don't know. These theives are pretty smart. I guess there's another thing where someone has a fake baby and they pretend to drop it on the metro and start screaming and when you go to help and grab the baby they steal your shit. Who comes up with these ideas? No one has tried to steal anything from me and I don't know if it's because I look so angry all the time, it looks like I don't have anything worth stealing, or because my cross-body bag is intimidating hahahahahahaha must be the latter.

I have a lot of movies to watch and nail painting to do, so I'll update later in the week. For those of you waiting on the edge of your seat, my new phone number is +33 63 78 60 547, but if you call from a US number you have to dial 011 336 37 86 05 47. If you try to send me a text let me know so I can see if I'm getting them.

Happy Valentines Day! ♥