Nothing here sounds like it is spelled. On the metro they will announce every stop and the names are NEVER what you think they are, but the announcer has served as a good tutor for me. Today I stumbled on Champs de Elysees. I was on the way to a Dr appointment and there I was. That is the fun thing about his city is that you will just be going about your life and OH! There is..... the 10,000th cool thing I've seen. So I have grown accustomed to carrying my camera in my purse because you cant leave the house without seeing something cool-- but today, I forgot it :-(. It was a beautiful spring day and all of the flowers were blooming. It was really pretty.
There is every store you could imagine there and some delightful restaurants that look very un-gluten free and expensive. There is a GAP and they are not having a sale (in case you were interested-- they are really expensive here!?). Any ways, I have a walking tour in my book for Champs de Elysees so I think I will go back one day early in the morning and have a coffee there, then go on my tour. ** I just realized that I have not seen a hill in over a month....WIERD.

We both create our own holidays. However, I understand when people don't close their place of business on my "Whitney Holidays" but France closes everything. May Day...have you ever heard of it? I have heard of it but it is an actual business holiday here. Grocery stores, banks etc will all be closed Friday May 1, many staying closed all weekend for the "holiday". According to Wikipedia it is similar to Labor Day. I really don't know how they do it, technically I mean--because the fridges were are SO small, if you have more than one mouth to feed, you cant stock enough food in your house and most restaurants are closed.
Another thing we have in common is we both stop everything for lunch. You cannot go to the bank and several other stores during lunch, because they close. I am just fascinated by this....it would never occur to anyone in the US to just close down an entire bank branch so that everyone could leave and go eat lunch....for an hour and a half. It sounds great! Easter closed everything down for about a week! So any ways I need to go prepair for May Day so I don't run out of food.

I realized today while I watched the news that I have sure heard a few funny things about America. The quote that made me think that was by an NBC news anchor in reference to the recent death of the 23 month old in Texas from Swine Flu. He said: "In Texas-- that HUGE state in America...towards the bottom of it".
The French love President Obama, and when they find out I am American they say-- "Oh Obama"...I'm not sure what I'm suppose to say...yes?? There was another quote on the news "I like Obama more than Bush, because he is better".

Those are two of my favorite :-)

During my last trip to the book store I bought a "walking tours of Paris" and attempted to go on my first tour. I only got half way through because I had an appointment and ran out of time. While on the tour I walked down the oldest street in Pairs (which I have walked down before and never would have known) and I saw the oldest house in Pairs, built in the 1300's (there is some controversy about if it is-- its also pictured above). I kept walking and also saw the Templar square (which isnt marked), this is where the Knights Templar had their church/ castle...place of residence (lol), when they came in and took over Paris during the Roman times. They basically drained the Parisians of money and were later over thrown, but it was a cool site to see. The funny thing is that it is about 4 blocks from my house and I have walked by about 20 times and if I hadn't had my book I never would have known that it was anything but a park (there is a park on the site now).
I remember when I was in Spain a few years ago and my tour guide showed us the steps that Christoper Columbus met the King and Queen to tell them he had discovered America. But if someone hadn't told you-- it would have just been a normal set of stairs. This is why I love going on tours instead of just going it alone, cause there is so much value added to a place when you can connect it to it's history and some REALLY cool things that have happened there. Now I know why my cross street is Rue de Temple-- because of the Knights Templar.

I started feeling a bit like I am getting a cold a few days ago. This isnt terribly abnormal for me, so now i probably have the swine flu too-- which is fine. I am really glad that I am not in America, because I WOULD definetly get swine flu there. It seems to be spreading pretty quickly! I only get the news on my television, so all i hear all day long is about thr recession (I know IT ALLLLL people), and now the swine flu. Although I just heard that several French tourists are feeling symptoms.
I have been eating garlic 3 times a day -- yes raw full cloves, to help detox my stomach (I have a staph infection in my stomach-- no im not making it up). In the middle ages prisoners were forced to burry the dead from the plauge. They ate raw garlic in large quanities and none of them died from the plague (just from smelling gross- lol). So I might actually be safe from the Swine Flu. I can only imagine the CRAZY amount of people reporting to hospitals with the sniffles- lol. Any who, no one die, eat your garlic.

This weekend was some what non-eventful. I was feeling pretty tired so I spent a lot of time at home trying to rest. On Friday I made my way over to the American library in preperation for my next paper. The library is really not impressive. It kind of looks like a prison, a very small prison. There are a lot of books smushed into a very small building and the ceiling is maybe 12 feet high (for 2 floors). I was really suprised, it looked like it was from 1970 and nothing had been updated since. VERY...UN-PARIS. Any who, when I make the Dolla Billz I will pay to update the janky library. So I checked out the only 2 books they had on supply chain managment. I also got over to the San Francisco bookstore, an American bookstore. It was cute, very crowded with books and I hadnt realized it was a used bookstore (nothing is wrong with used, but if you are looking for a particular book, they are unreliable with what is in stock). So I was a little disappointed. I did today manage to get over to an English bookstore "the red wheel barrow" which was realllllly cute! The owner is a lady in her mid 40's and she knew about every book they had. They didnt have the one I was looking for but she recommended another that I bought instead, as well as a "Paris walking tour" book so I can go on tours of neighborhoods. It looked like it should be Devon's bookstore :-) I started walking around the Marais, where the bookstore was, and it was really cool. It is one of the districts that is almost 100% preserved, so the buildings are all original. It is also the jewish quater so there were tons of Jewsih backeries and sandwhich shops (i wishhhed I could eat one). There seemed to be alot of people, I'm not sure if they were tourists or if because the Jewish quarter--people arent in church on Sunday. In any case, it was VERY cool, and I need to do more exploring there. My professor from my last class hasnt posted the paper topic yet, so I havent been able to work on it. I emailed him asking for it-- letting him know, that for personal reasons I wont be able to work on it later so I need the topic so I can get started (personal reasons being that I would like to get it done :-)).

Hello, I have been gone for a month today-- and no one is emailing me :-( I need emails people. I write my little blog and try to call all of you and keep you updated, now its your turn-- what is everyone doing!?? EMAIL ME--- GOSH-A.