Open up your plans and damn, you're free (The promised light at the end of the tunnel)

I keep trying to speak French to the concierge at my hotel, but so far two out of three of them have responded in English. It’s a tad bit annoying, since the main reason I am here is to improve my French. Perhaps they just can’t stand the sound of me butchering their language, so they rob me of the opportunity to speak it. I’m not that bad. In fact, I get most of the words right, it’s just the accent that I occasionally mess up. Perhaps I am reading into this too much. Je ne sais pas.

Anywho, today has been pretty close to perfect. I woke up at about 4am, despite going to bed at midnite. I set my alarm for 9:45, thinking that I would sleep in and rest up, but I guess jet lag got the best of me. I woke up famished. I was so hungry that I felt a bit nauseous, but the best thing I could do at 4am was chug a few cupfuls of water from the bathroom and try to go back to sleep.

I finally got up and moving at about 9am, and went to a boulangerie (bakery) around the corner from my hotel. The city was all smoky and beautiful in the fog of the morning light. I ate un pain du chocolat while I did a test run to the BU Office, where I will go to check in and begin my program on Tuesday. After that, I headed to le Tour Eiffel.

On the taxi ride from the airport on Saturday, I passed le Tour Eiffel; however, by the time we arrived at the monument, I was too convinced that my cab driver was trying to cheat me with wrong turns to boost his tab that I hardly paid attention to the thing. In fact, it looked pretty short to me.

Well, it looks much more magnificent when taken in outside the confines of a corrupt taxi. I had a field day with photos from all angles and vantage points. My camera has a nifty little flip screen that is perfect for taking self-portraits, and since it was about 9:30am when I arrived, no one was around, so I snuck in a few of myself. Whenever a local passed walking a dog or just strolling with his/her significant other, I’d casually hide my camera—I’m terrified of looking like a tourist. First, I don’t want to annoy the Parisiens and give them an excuse to call me a stupid American. Second, I don’t want to look like easy bait for a pick pocket.

One can only take so many pictures of the Eiffel Tower without going up inside of it, and since I am waiting to take a tour with my BU group, I left and began wandering around the esplanade that runs along the Seine. I was approached by a pickpocket/scammer on one of the bridges to the Right Bank. This girl passed me and bent over to “pick up” something. She tried to offer it to me as if maybe I had dropped something valuable. The way it works is they try to give the item back, and if you don't want it, they try to sell it to you for more than it's worth. Or, they distract you while an accomplice rummages stealthily through your purse. But AH HA! – I had read my travel books, and so I knew to be on the lookout for folks like her. “Non, merci,” and kept walking. Take that! I won’t get got, and that’s a fact.

Today was so perfect because I absolutely love wandering around the city. I had so much fun by myself that I am worried that I may not want to socialize when my program finally starts. Traveling in groups is so difficult, and requires too much coordination and agreement. I love the freedom to turn a corner at a whim and not be responsible to the rest of the group.

I stumbled upon the most wonderful neighborhood this afternoon by doing just that. It’s called La Rue de Cler, and it’s about a block or two long, with shops, grocery stores, boulangeries, patisseries, cafes, and brasseries galore, and all for pretty decent prices. I accidently arrived at le Café du Marche, which I had planned on visiting at a later date, and so I sat down for a bit with my newspaper, Le Monde, and the tiniest café crème I have ever seen in my life. I nursed that sucker like a pro, though, and listened to the musicality of the French language around me.

I left the café and finished my aimless wandering, then headed back to the hotel, where a nap that was supposed to be one hour turned into two.

I’ve got one more day to get lost before I have to start being a college student again, so tomorrow I plan to live it up. Or just chill. That’s a very Parisien thing to do, ya know.

:: Peace ::