A Paris: Day 2- Thursday 9 June

First thing I did today was [actually, to eat, [or put my contacts in [but I guess technically to open my eyes?]] and then to] pick up a different power adapter, as I was unable to charge my computer, which led to a minor mental breakdown yesterday. Breakfast was actually somewhat amusing; I've been here less than a day but I've seemingly managed to convince Maria [as Mme Laloux wants to be called] that our whole family is mad; last night she made me dinner, and I ate the leftovers when I came in around eleven, and she walked in on me eating the chicken with my hands and was absolutely shocked. She was likewise shocked this morning when I offered to eat cold potatoes for breakfast, that I thought hot chocolate was made with water, that I don't eat nuts but do eat Nutella, that I brought my own toothpaste and that everyone in my family pretty much has their own toothpaste and that this is normal, that I call my mother 'dude,' and so on. But what the hell, her washer is in the kitchen, the dryer is in the bathroom, their jelly is made of figs, all the floors are parquet and I haven't figured out how to close any of the doors, including the cabinet ones. Mostly she speaks to me in French, usually repeating everything twice or so, but my occasionally telling her things like I do all of my dishes by hand inevitably elicit strongly ebonics-accented phrases like "Sweet Jesus!" that leave my ears paralysed by excess culture, and then she has to repeat everything three times for a while afterwards.

My spell check seems to be British now. I thought I was going crazy.

Today at the electronics store I asked the salesdude to give me my change in one euro pieces, and he proceeded to give me directions to the nearest bus ticket booth. I think.

Basically, I just wandered around today, up the something of a very nice brick strip mall Viaduct des Arts with its myriad modern furniture stores and music stores and stores selling blouses made only of fake flowers and just stores, and on top of the length of it a garden, to Place de la Bastille with its commemorative column and picturesque canal stuffed with boats of varying degrees of wealth, where I ran into a marche [market] that, of course, I had to go through. My favorite booths were the ones selling fish, most whole, some flayed open, and mussels in baskets, different kinds of crab carefully arranged, things in shells, all of it nestled in ice. You could also purchase: A lot of fruit, a lot of vegetables, bread, raw meat, farm-made cheese, honey, various cooked things, soap, possibly legal DVDs, shirts, shoes, sewing supplies, beeswax sculptures, flowers, paperweights, and I lot of things I can't remember. Travelling once again to the school, I found my suitcase waiting for me, went back to the apartment, had the potatoes for lunch, unpacked, then went out foraying once more, in the opposite direction, to the confusing Bibliotheque Nationale de France, a library that it seemed you needed to pay to use, across a neat bridge to the Palais Omnisports and the unintentionally eccentric Parc de Bercy, which had everything from a merry-go-round to a sort of fake marsh to a vegetable garden, through the Gare de Lyon again, because it's fun, on to the Hotel de Ville to hang out in their courtyard for a bit. I had wanted to go to BHV to get a watch, as I'd lost mine in Maine last year in a tragic and painful skiing accident, but it closed at an unexpected time. Discovering I can't rent a bike, still, I was late to dinner, but this turned out to be very okay; Maria asked me this morning what I liked to eat, and I said pasta, so she made spaghetti, which is totally logical and, sadly, the one kind of pasta I don't eat.

Let me know if I'm being too boring, okay?

Today's edition of Weird Things About France: They have hobbit doorknobs everywhere. Overlarge and round, they're located in the middle of the door but don't turn. A lot of doors to buildings that use codes to get in have them, you just enter the code and push, and the door to the Laloux flat is like that, only you unlock the door with a key to get in. I think it locks every time the door shuts. Note to self: Do not forget key.

Hotel de Ville on the left, Notre Dame dead ahead