L'orientation: 2eme jour

As I sit here and write my entry for the day, I realize there are 2 great things about being a étudiante pauvre à Paris.

1. We are forced to live similarly to Parisiens; we cannot go out every night and are thus forced to find the little gems in the city that offer free leisure or inexpensive delicacies. In other words, we are forced to stay away from the tourist traps (say goodbye to virtually every corner bistro as they are at least 10 EUR more expensive than the places most parisiens frequent).

2. Since we cannot afford to stuff our faces silly with extravagant French meals, that glass of wine goes a long way.

For example, for lunch today I had a 1/2 baguette from a boulangerie around my school (52 centimes) and had the other half for dinner tonight with some meat and tomatoes from my fridge. I covered the meat with some tomato sauce and basil (99 centimes for the jar) that I bought at the ED around the corner. My verre de vin blanc hit me like a ton of bricks.

Around 15 h (aka 3pm), the Université treated us to some coffee, tea, and chocolat chaud at "Select" in the 6e (boulevard du montparnasse). The café was absolutely adorable and even had a cat who occupied one of the booths below his portrait that was inscribed, "chat d'or: Micky." I chose a chocolat chaud (made the French way) which was absolutely delicious.

Le Select is a great little place to go and visit as it, like many other cafés on boulevard du montparnasse, played a crucial role in the everyday lives of parisian painters back in the days when painters could still afford to live in Paris (even though they still could not eat in Paris). When the painters couldn't afford a meal, they would often paint the restaurant something in exchange. Le Select still has many paintings on the wall to refelct this history. One can find many other cafés and restaurants on the block that still maintain this policy for some painters.

<--- Micky










In other less fabulous news, I took my first examen today. There was a section on dictation that made me very glad to have taken Christelle's phonetics class at Pomona (FR105). I think I'll leave it at that.

Damages today:

Baguette: 0,52 EUR
Tomato sauce: 0,99 EUR
Cola Light: 0,37 EUR