Bonjour mes amis!
I made it to Paris! I found my hotel without an issue. I managed to take the RER B to the center of Paris and then took the 11 metro line out as far as Jourdain. My hotel is only a couple blocks from the metro station. The neighborhood seems nice enough. I was pretty proud that I made it without incident or getting lost. My hotel room is small but it will do. It literally has a single bed in it. But there is a wee WC - so I have my own toilet. I don't know where the shower is...but I guess I'll eventually find out. It is likely on the floor or downstairs off the lobby. I wonder how long I could go without a shower. I mean, I have a sink in the bathroom I could wash in.
Oh! And it has free WiFi (hooray!). I need to go out tomorrow and find a US --> EU adapter for my plug. There must be someplace in Paris that sells these. A Radio Shack-esque type place. I'll take a look around. But my cell doesn't seem to work here. I might need to buy yet another cell phone. Ugh. I have the other one though, the one that I got to come over here. I could just buy another SIM card for that one. It's unlocked. We'll see. I'm not in Paris very long.
Already I have a whole new feeling of empathy for people who come to the United States and don't speak English. I went to the local supermarche to buy some fruit, pain, et fromage - when I got up to the counter, the woman jabbered something at me in French. All I could say was: "Comment? Je ne comprend pas." The nice guy behind me took pity on me (or maybe he really wanted to get out of there) and took the fruit and said he'd be right back. He came back and they had little stickers on them. Apparently you have to label them yourself.
Whoops.
So I genuinely felt bad. I find that I can read the signs and such well enough to get around, but when someone speaks to me in French, I have NO CLUE what they are saying. Some people are really patient, others look like they want to kick me in the head. I'm not stupid...I just don't know much French! It makes me a little nervous for Austria because I have very, very little knowledge of German. But I guess that will be trial by fire.
I'm going to eat my fruit and go to bed early. Bon soir!
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1 comment:
Dude, when I was in Europe I found that in France they were the most intolerant of lack of language. But I also found that if you're in a place more than a week you start to pick up on stuff. When we were in Italy, we were there long enough that I learned some Italian.
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