it's like lincoln park. nobody works.

This has been my big discovery of the day. Walking around the beautiful, new shopping area just south of the Rotond, I have discovered that, indeed, nobody has any work to do here. They all just have time to walk, shop, chat, and mange as they wish. It's great!

Last night I tested out my first cappacinno in France with friends at Happy Days. I really can't get over it, but I just love all the people I'm meeting here, we get along so well!

This morning I had my cinema class with a grand total of 5 people, which is actually the minimum number of students needed to keep the course alive, so we made a pact together to not drop the course as to keep each other happy. After 3 hours of french history, vocab, and syllabus-reading, as it relates to cinema, I was free for the day to enjoy the sunshine & shopping. Not that I bought anything, really, but it was a delicious day at least!

Colleen and I ate at a cafe just down the street from the American Center, where we split a Noçoise salad (presentation is everything, as my wise Sister Nana always says) that was in this cool, thin shell and had a really, really good semi-hard-boiled egg on top–great colors in the salad. Main course of margarita pizza, which made me think of the scene where Julia Roberts goes out with her friend for pizza in Napoli in "Eat, Pray, Love," or "Mange, Prie, Aime" as it's advertised here. Which leads me to my next obsession–the movie "Inception"–hopefully I will be going to see it soon here in France, because it was such a cool film and hey, I think Leo & Joseph-Gordon Levitt will still be cute with voiceovers:)

After checking out the H&M here with Colleen, I stopped in a cafe I had my eye on during my recent runs, La Crossainterie, where I sat down to read, but ended up meeting up with Ali to chat at a different nearby cafe! Life is tough here. We went through a store called "Maisons de la monde" and dreamed about future apartments back in the states, and then literally turned into kids in a candy store.

Tonight my host sister, Alix, and I went for a run together–this is going to be our routine on Tuesdays we've agreed. It was a riot, we had fun together. She showed me a nice road to take as a path, it's uphill on the way out and downhill coming home so I think it will give me a good chance to imitate my "bro" on his hill workouts. Maybe..

I'm off to eat with the fam and then back to Lisabeth Salander, I'm starting to get hooked to the second book...!

XOXO,
c