Found some more wireless at a McDonalds and, though I had to buy a milkshake to get it, thought updates would be good. I will hopefully have my Sciences Po wireless set up tomorrow, now that someone else has figured it out, and then I can do even more. These free WiFi places I've found so far limit you to 30 minutes, so that's been a pain.
A note on the food here. It's no wonder the Europeans are skinnier than Americans (something I was thinking about after reading that Times piece today). The food is overpriced and the portions are small. Which, yes, is probably better for you, but is kind of a pain every time you get your bill.
Ok, so you don't actually get pictures today since it seems the McDonalds WiFi doens't want to upload them in anything close to a reasonable speed. So instead, an update from yesterday, and today was just class and buying a phone, so not too much interesting there. It's overcast and I've got to head back for dinner soon. I've been trying to keep fairly deatiled track of what I've been doing, just to have something to read through in a few years.
TUESDAY:
So I again had trouble falling asleep. But I managed to drag myself from bed in time to arrive at school for my French placement test. It has been a long time since I’ve done more than stumble my way through a few simple sentences in French, but I was surprised to see how much came back. It certainly wasn’t brilliant; sloppy with the more complex tenses and moods, and my essay was more on the simple side, but nice that it comes back with some prodding.
First Lawmaking and Policy-making class today. The professor, German, seems energetic and knowledgeable, as one would hope. The discussion helped to straighten out some basic organizational points I had begun to glean from the text, but was missing the big picture on. The EU group seemed, during that class, to have established some level of camaraderie. I have my first project now, too. I will have to present on the role of the Czech Republic in the EU, what that represents being a newer member, a former communist nation, and hopefully I can tie in some of what I have been reading more recently about its push to be a champion for human rights. After, I ended up with the same people from yesterday, so perhaps that is beginning to develop into a bit of a group. Failed to get the wireless set up, since we had no idea what we were doing and Lucie was having some issue on her computer, trying to get us the client or whatever it was we needed on ours. But I got to check my email quickly, so that was good, just to make sure nothing major had happened while I was out of touch.
Walked all over the area north of the Louvre today. Up to the Opera and the Bank. We found a little street market where we got crepes. I will, at some point, have to buy food besides those. Found a small coffee place with free WiFi, so I was able to respond to some email, post some pictures, and promise more to come.
So it's not just me, after all, when it comes to Chicago. I always complain how it doesn’t make sense to me as a city. I’m surprised how quickly Paris is starting to make sense to me. I can already get myself to places, know relative locations, and am beginning to put together ideas of the different neighborhoods’ characters.
Failure trying to buy a phone. The store did not have any Orange phones (the main mobile company and the cheapest), and the others were more expensive, so I decided to wait until tomorrow. Hopefully, I can get my internet issues straightened out then as well. Successful at doing all this in French, since the clerk didn't speak English and therefore automatically switch when he heard me speaking French like so many of them seem to.
Today’s wanderings were less directed towards specific sightseeing, but were nonetheless interesting and good time spent with the others.
Between waking up earlier and walking for at least four hours after class, I’m feeling rather exhausted tonight. I will probably eat, go over my reading, find a book for a bit, listen to some music, then go to bed.
Fish for dinner. And potatoes (again). Very good though. Talked with Mme Lancelot for a while while we ate. Her husband was a doctor and they lived in Africa for a while, years ago. Good practice for my French.
