Woe Upon Your Cylon Heart!

ADVENTURES IN FRANCIA (by which I mean, Madeline gets mildly inconvenienced and/or walks around different areas of this area of France, eating her way from boulangerie to boulangerie)

- On Monday I went into Paris for the afternoon and it was lovely! On the way back, though, it turned out that there was an 'accident passagere' at the station before mine, subtext being: you are so fucked, people trying to get out that way!. (Also, I combed the internet today, and no details on the accident! Fail, metro.) Anyway, a trip that would normally take me around twenty minutes wound up taking an hour and a half.

Best of all, while stuck in Choisy-le-Roi, being blasted by frigid breezes, I was standing near a mother and her preteen daughter who looked like a forty-five year old divorcee from New Jersey. They were going to some meeting at my school and knew now that they were either going to be late or miss it. So clearly the proper response was to curse, loudly and constantly. A NICE-LOOKING OLDER WOMAN AND HER CRAZY LOOKING DAUGHTER, CURSING UP A STORM and I'm timidly like, "Hey, if you're going to the lycee I found a bus route to get out there if the trains don't start running again" and it's like [BLAST OF CURSES] and I was like I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS REQUIRES SUCH FOUL LANGUAGE.

(I did eventually get home! Whew.)

- Realized that there are actually three delicious bakeries within walking distance from where I live. This is so not a good thing. I also still am in the mindset that 'coins aren't real money' which is a problem when one and two euro coins very much are real money.

- Found out that the castle was bombed during the second world war and there were pictures and it was SO COOL, so much history! I love it!

- Learned that banks in France really hate you withdrawing money. In this case, I had to withdraw 350 Euros to pay October and November's rent (yes, sadly the dream of not paying rent has ended. It was nice while it lasted.) One of my roommates told that there's a rule saying you can only withdraw 300 per day, so I dutifully do that, even though I'm mentally thinking IT'S MY MONEY, AND I NEED IT NOW. So, whatever, I take out 300 yesterday, and I thought I'd get the remaining 50 today, plus some more for this weekend.

Nope! Totally cashblocked at three ATMs in two different banks, both telling me I couldn't get anymore because I couldn't. And I checked my account when I got home, definitely have the money there. So IDK, man. I just hope I can get it out tomorrow or Friday.

- I keep losing lipbalms. For those of you who don't know me that well, I rarely lose anything so the fact that I lost one tin of rose salve, one tube of rose salve, and one tube of carmex is really beyond the pale. FRENCH BORROWERS WITH CHAPPED LIPS: BUY YOUR OWN.

- EXCITING THINGS COUNTDOWN:

This weekend: Trip to Strasbourg with bonus night in Germany!
A week from tomorrow: MELISSA COMES, MELISSA COMES, MELISSA COMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
December 19th: I GO HOME!!!! (And Melissa is on my flight to Miami!!!)
BIRTHDAY
CHRISTMAS

:D :D :D

Honesty time: I might actually have to go home due to the money situation. Ugh, so much stress.

(Yesterday was pretty good- I got a french phone with like, an hour of talk time for two weeks and unlimited texting with french phones, and I went around Sacre Coeur again and then down to Hotel de Ville and inadvertently saw a lot of Paris due to getting lost with two girls, and today we're going to the Louvre, which is free, but omg. I keep dreaming about being at home and waking up so disoriented and it's awful and I'm so stressed about the money and uuuuugh.) Orientation is on Wednesday for my group but I'm going to try to get to my school Monday to be all "C'EST MOI, AVEZ VOUS DE LOGEMENT POUR MOI" (It's me, do you have housing for me) and see what happens. Stressssssss.

1. OMG YOU GUYS TWO DAYS UNTIL D*C. I CAN'T EVEN BREATHE SOMETIMES FROM EXCITEMENT/NERVES.

2. I spent Irene in DC with Monica and Justin and their friends and where we were, it was like a glorified thunderstorm. Hearing about all the destruction it wreaked is kind of stunning compared to our experience- we had Monica's bridal shower, and then we had food delivered to her friend's house, where the power flickered three times but only went out once, and drove home with nary a problem. My flight wasn't delayed or anything!

3. Also it's three and a half weeks until Monica's wedding, which means it's about a month until I have to be in France and it makes me kind of want to throw up and panic and cry about why in God's name would I want to do this to myself and why would I say I wanted to live so far away and who does that, but then I calm down and it's exciting. I had my visa appointment and everything was okay!

4. Started watching and reading Game of Thrones! I have one episode left of the series and I'm about a fourth of the way through the book. Somehow this show grabbed both of my parents' attention, and in an unprecedented move, both of them are watching. It's not so weird for my mom- we watch a lot of the same shows, and she oftentimes watches shows after I recommend them except BSG because she's made of fail but my father has literally never watched a TV series. He watches the news, sporting events, history specials on wars and shows about cars, and suddenly he's watching GoT on demand all on his own. And then coming out to talk to me about it! It's amazing.

5. DRAGON*CON. WHAT TIME IS EVERYONE ARRIVING. WHAT IS EVERYONE PACKING. WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU'D RECOMMEND I BRING? WHO IS EXCITED?!