Average day

On any given day, there are a few things that constantly run through my mind:
-How much I love just being in France
-How much I love the food here
-How much I spend, in part due to the sorry state of the dollar
-How I have no time

Today has been no different. I arrived at IES this morning fully prepared and looking forward to writing about how much I love it here (how is that different from any other day?) I had a lazy breakfast consisting of tea, tartines, and some leftover gâteau au chocolat et chataignes (chocolate and chestnut cake) that my host mom made for dessert last night because I had told her just how much I loved the other one. I walked all the way to school because the bus passed my stop about 45 seconds before I got there, and because I secretely love walking to school, and ran into yet another mini-grève, though this one was about ten thousand times more tame than the previous. I was walking along the sidewalk near the mairie, and heard nothing but horns. At first I didn't know if it was just my music, but then I turned the corner and saw a parade of about 15-plus garbage trucks blocking one lane of traffic (on a two-lane street) and laying on their horns the entire time. They were going super slowly, forcing all traffic to detour around a block or two and keeping buses from continuing their routes. The combined sound of about 20 garbage truck horns is not something that can be ignored, so I unplugged my headphones and kept walking. The man in front of me, a scruffy man in his mid-40s, raised his fist and yelled in support to each and every truck driver that passed, which only facilitated more honking... and I couldn't help it. I just started laughing! In that way that is pure ridiculousness and craziness and so incredibly unpredictable all the time... I love it.

A block or two later, I passed "Le P'tit Bouillon", that brasserie/restaurant I mentioned earlier that always has the same attractive man writing the daily menu on the glass-enclosed blackboard outside the storefront. The board is about four feet tall and two feet wide, and it lists the day and date, the lunch and dinner prices, and the options for each course with the chef's specialities. I caught him while he was out there again yesterday... and there's something about that... some comfort I find in seeing the same man in the same spot at the same time, just going about his daily opening-up-shop chores, not knowing that I have noticed. So today, I passed and checked the blackboard, as usual, only to find that he had already written up today's menu. Today, however, was not like the other days; it wasn't just "Mardi, le 20 octobre", but instead, it was "Mardi!!!" And again, I couldn't keep from laughing. I wonder what that man has going on in his life that an ordinary Tuesday like today needed three exclamation marks. Was he in an equally lighthearted mood? Or maybe today was exactly that-- an ordinary Tuesday-- and he just wanted to spice it up a little. Either way, this man is slowly becoming my favorite.

With things like this, it's impossible NOT to love this city. Everything I do, everywhere I go, this whole city is so full of life. It's abundantly happy, ridiculously outspoken, and humbly comfortable in its own ancient ways. Every person here is a character-- one who refuses to be defined by their work or their family or their success, but instead by their attitude and the way they make their own statement on the rest of the world. I feel like while I'm here, how can I not be moved by this infectious joie de vivre, the convivality of la vie francaise?

So when there are times, like right now, when I'm cursing the $1.50 to 1E exchange rate and the inability to have enough foresight to research trains rather than flights and spend a couple hours really rooting around and triple-checking all aspects of my trip to London rather than doing what others are and not knowing that you can reserve train tickets for pickup and payment at a later date (because I was trying to save myself an $8 online charge and ended up waiting too long and the price went up a ton) and actually, despite all my efforts, wasting the equivalent of roughly $150 and 5 or more hours of travel time in planning my holiday weekend... that is when I have to remember that it's a lesson learned. I'm not saying I'm nonchalantly blowing off this wasted money-- believe me, I was irritated about it-- but I'm trying to take it in stride. Nothing can be changed without spending more money, so there's no point in getting angry, right? I keep telling myself that there's no rush to see every place, to visit every destination while I'm here this semester. I'll be back in hopefully two years, and everything will figure itself out..