Some observations

I just got back to my friends' apartment - tomorrow's the three week anniversary of my arrival here. Wow. Talk about an imposing guest. Fortunately, a departure is in sight. I finally prodded CROUS BLEU, the student housing agency, to give me a room in the university residence Berlioz. I went five times to their office, each time trying to convey as much urgency as possible. I wish I could have hired a small, battered child to serve as my spokeschild. Surely that would have spurred them on more, and perhaps only required three or four visits. The rooms are 12 square meters, or around 108 square feet, and include a bathroom with toilet and shower. Oddly, individual mailboxes are unavailable - instead, each hallway, around twelve people, shares one mailbox. Whoever gets the mail first becomes the mailman. I'm interested to see how this works... I might have to end up using my friends' address or buying a PO box.

Here are a few sweeping generalizations about life in France:

• McDonalds burgers are better here. Or at least that's my opinion after tonight's "Royal Bacon." Mmmm. (Don't yell at me for getting McDonalds in France - it was 10:30pm, everything was closed and I needed something quick after my exhausting basketball practice.)
• Everything's dirtier... at least compared to Indiana. It'd be on par with Tempe, if it wasn't for the dog poo EVERYWHERE OH MY GOSH THERE IS SOME MORE BEING EXCRETEDAS I SPEAK SEVEN FEET AWAY FROM ME.
• Everything's smaller. Taking a shower, using an elevator, squeezing inside a public telephone booth, sitting at a cafe and attending class have all become daily acrobatic adventures. It's like you're always wearing an invisible corset.
  
• Shower curtains are extraordinarily rare. Thus, one must take care to splash as little as possible while showering.
• There is no organization in the university system at all. I registered with the International Relations office... but not for classes. I had to go to a different floor to receive my student card. How does one choose classes? You find out - via obscure bulletin board, random sheets of paper or by consulting tarot cards - and then show up for the first day of class. Eventually - no hurry - you find another obscure office and "inscrire," but only for language classes. If you're taking political science classes, like me, you have to go to a completely different building and office and pray, really pray, that the office will be open. You usually have a 50-50% chance of waiting in a horrendously long line to see a bored, rude and ill-informed bureaucrat, but if it's Wednesday or Friday, you're better off just standing in front of the tram and letting it run you over.
• One must have absolutely no fear of traffic, whether it's giant city buses, stealthy trams, tiny scooters or little cars. You have to step out in traffic, clench your fists and MAKE EYE CONTACT. If you do this, 95% of the time traffic will stop well in advance, smile and wave you across. But if you hesitate, you might as well be wearing a George W. Bush mask.

That should be enough for now. I've heard some curious things about the USA, too -- one quarter of our government is Israeli (unfortunately, after saying this, Ahmed from Lebanon lost much of the credibility he had earned up to that point), all of our school materials and classrooms are sponsored by Coca-Cola (a British girl said this, and I laughed) and 70% of us don't know where Canada is.

One parting note - the bathrooms (90% of which are unisex, quite bizarre) are like cages. Literally:



Ah, I forgot - I saw Shane Black's "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" at the movie theater today. It was excellent - very witty, very gritty. It was in English, with French subtitles - slightly distracting, but helpful when the characters mumbled. It's not out in the States yet - I think it comes out in a few weeks back home - go see it! The movie theater was nice and cozy, and the picture quality was good - but snacks were entirely lacking. The ushers stared blankly at me when I asked if there was popcorn, but directed me to the "bonbons." The "bonbons" consisted of two vending machines in a narrow, dark corner. One had three items to offer - old gum, old French tootsie rolls and old Mentos mints. The other machine was out-of-order, but even if it did work... you could only buy its ice cream with francs - the currency that was phased out three years ago. Next time, I'm taking my own food.