The Expat Diaries

I’m a terrible blogger, but using it as a personal tool for venting is healthy right? Well let me paint a scene for you. After an amazing weekend in Amsterdam with two of my new friends Sarah and Katie, on our last night we joined a 300 person pub crawl. It was exciting, dirty, sweaty, and fill in the blank with more adjectives you might excpect from a Saturday night pub crawl through Amsterdam. 

There was a bachelor party dressed as the Village People, the groom in ass-less champs and a very sexy, handcuffed clad cop, (but that’s a story for a more uptempo entry), some very sloppy Brits who managed to find three different stripper poles, and the list goes on. But this is not a happy ending.

After loosing our group around two in the morning, we needed to start paying for our own drinks. Natuarally I went straight to the ATM. Card goes in, card never comes out. You hear horror stories of people loosing their passports, credit cards, etc while traveling but I never thought it would happen to me.

Had to cancel my card and expedite a new one to my mom since Chase doesn’t have international shipping, unless I want to wait 2 months.

While on the phone with the bank in the lounge of our hotel, a funny thing is on the TV. A wildness survival show. I found myself relating to these Aussie strangers trekking through the tropical volcanic mountains of an unsettled island off the coast of Africa. They were forced to create their own fire, catch fish by hand, build hammoks to sleep in…do I need to go on?

I went into survival mode right away. More news to come in the next 12 hours of attempting to get back to Paris without a dime. Wish me luck and if you talk to my mom or dad in the next couple of hours, tell them to check their email. 

Cheers. 

It really is terrible how much I crave television. I think I want to watch the 45 minute BBC documentary on the woman who married the Eiffel Tower and figure out how to marry Hulu or Netflix. My obsession became embarressingly apparent last night when I found a tv on the street and carried it a mile home and up five flights of stairs. 

Does it work? No. Am I going to try to make it work? Yes. At the very least I can plug my computer into it and have movie nights with my neighbors. But operation “find antenna from the 90’s” has commenced (not sure if paris still has antenna tv). 

I am a little embarrassed to be admitting my addiction so explicitly online, however, it is kind of funny that there is a pretty good sized tv in my very small apartment that does absolutely nothing. 

So after being a terrible blogger (and friend and daughter and sister and …) I have a whole day to myself to catch up on the things I told everyone I would do. Today is a day for blogging, skyping, facebooking, and emailing, talk about a digital world. So what have I been up to all week you ask? Oh you know, the usual…

Monday night I got food poisoning, don’t know what it could have been, could have been one of the moldy, juicy, illegal in the U.S. cheeses I tried, but who knows. I was in bed all night shivering with quite regular trips to the bathroom. I was supposed to start class on Tuesday, but instead at 5 AM I had a lovely French doctor in my bedroom sticking needles in my butt. Good times. 

But did I let that stop me from going out on the Fourth of July? No! I’m an American dammit! We headed to Wide Open Spaces for some free shots for Americans, then played…wait for it…BEER PONG at a bar that was having specials for Americans. 10 euros to play an all to famously amazing game. So here we are in the middle of Paris, on the 4th of July, playing beer pong with some friendly frenchmen. How expat of me. When discussing the difference between French rules and American rules with a creepy Arab man, we discovered there aren’t that many (for those of you who like a good 10-cup-throwdown and might find yourself overseas.) But if you’re a girl and you try blow the ball, they will think that’s weird. FYI.

Slept all day Tuesday, it was magical. Was still sick and I’m sure the beer wasn’t helping. 

Wednesday was my first day of class. My professor is the most adorable little creature you will ever meet, I want her to either be my friend, or shrink down and hang out in a Paris snow globe in my room. I understand how creepy this sounds. 

Anyways, class, picnics under the Eiffel Tower, a little bit of shopping, etc. Thursday night we went to the Opera. I wanted to be able to come here, sit down and say how beautiful it was, and that it was a great time etc…But unfortunately it was miserable, I left at intermission with some other disgruntled friends. Unless you’re Sarkozy himself, you are stuck in these velvet bleachers that have you sitting at a -85 degree angle, so in the shape of a “V” with your knees jammed up against the seat in front of you. I could’t focus on the show at all. What a bummer. 

Now here’s where the week gets really great. Last night we went to a rave. This is not a joke, in the 18th district we saw Chromeo and A-Track and some other guys DJ and it felt like a show at home. Parisians like to mosh and it doesn’t help that a majority of the men smell like a football players behind after a double header. Met some very nice people, one of whom wanted to know my definition of love and conveniently could only explain that part in French. 

That’s the latest from Paris. I do miss cable television, swimming pools, and regularly priced Starbucks, but I’m making it work. 

Until next time, au revior. 

D

Salut! I’ve finally figured out the WiFi in my apartment. It’s really less of an apartment and more of a 4x4 room with a sink. But I’m not complaining. After being here for 2 days I have already fallen in love with the Latin Quarter. There are fresh markets and Roman arenas around every corner, secret gardens and coronations for giant, 5 feet long baguettes (not kidding).

We went out last night for the first time, and what did we find? An American bar, bien sur. Called “Wide Open Spaces,” a throwback Dixie Chicks reference, Guiness Beers, Packers game was on and Britney was blasting. Ended up being a great night and a huge culture fuck. Met some nannies from Wisconsin, a German who spoke in a Jersey accent and said “how you doin’” about 100 times, a French man from Guadeloupe, could keep going but I think you get the idea. 

After our 3 hour walking tour this morning, we were starving, and being the poor students we are, we found something called a Quick Burger. Which was right outside of the Luxembourg Gardens and across the street from a McDonalds. Let’s just say drunchies here I come, it was gourmet fast food essentially. Yummm. 

Going to have a picnic on the Seine. Blog you later. 

D