Today I bought a frying pan. And yesterday I did my laundry. It's funny how the tiniest things here become a big deal, like buying laundry detergent. I went into my local Fontprix market and found the cleaning supply corner, because here there are corners, not aisles, and faced the wall of what appeared to be laundry detergent. I spotted bottles of what was obviously detergent, as there were images of children in bright colors with grass stains and food stains disappearing from the clothes, but those bottle cost about 10 Euros a piece, and that's a bit much for my student budget. The powders were cheaper, but I don't like powders because sometimes they don't rinse well and make it look like you have a horrible case of dandruff. So then I was left looking ... read more

So it begins. I have 7 days before I board a plane to leave this continent for a year. There is so much to do and prepare for that my thoughts can't seem to organize themselves into coherent sentences. I finally got my visa, pasted into my passport behind all the stamps I collected on my jaunt through South America. My violin is fixed, so I can bring it with me in case I'm ever really hard up for cash, plus it's fun to play and might act as an ice breaker in some social circles. I'm torn between buying cheap clothes here or bringing very little with me and doing a complete style make-over in Paris, which would probably lead to me blowing all my money for the semester in a month. I guess I'm ... read more