Monday, September 25, 2006

...and by left I mean right

Yeah, I forgot to draw all the graffiti on the left side of the bridge...so in case you can't see it, look to the right (the river is the Saone)! We'll see if I can't create this picture in real life someday soon! MS paint is the bomb, ps. Did you know that MSN talk is free, and it works like skype...I may just have to save 2 cents a minute with that baby, though MSN messenger seems a bit low brow to me.

I just joined this semi-paid craigslist thing, and it looks like it might find me an appartment. This is good news. The banks are closed today, so I have to save my bank bravery for tomorrow...surely they have some youth package deal that will make life easy for everyone.

I hope all the assistants and whoever come here without too much trauma. So far life's been pretty good to me, though! Knock on wood and all that business, but yeah.
I really hope someday to be witty and poignant in these blogs, but for now, since I'm doing this after all sorts of internet business, I'm just feeling the need to post, but not the need to be a poet. That can be for laters.

And now for some bullet pointing:
- I met up with this lady Magdeleine and her daughter Camille to see if I am the one who gets to hang out with Camille and speak english! It could be fun, and I could totally get into this english+babysitting deal.
- I randomly went into this storefront that had a word that I think means "introduce you to/discover" in reference to lyon, and I met all these nice people and they were like, join the youth group, you'll have all sorts of friends/parties, and its not a cult or anything! Its some sortof "get acquainted with your new city" thing for france, but Lyon has an international branch, and I happened to walk into it. Neato. I met a lovely lady named Francoise who invited me to her apt. for coffee and she and her daughter gave me some appartment finding tips - they said it was going to be hard, but they were MEGA sweet. And their appartment so cute! They also told me that there's a big old french pop star (who I imagine is like, the french britney spears) and her name is Lori and all the young girls in the land wish their name was Lori. Francoise also said that when I came in with my cute outfit and my pink purse it was very much the fashion of "lori" and she thought it was so charming - and I was like, cool, I am pop star-esque. This cannot be a bad thing.
- Oh, i met up with a missourian dude who's going to be an assistant and subsequently got locked out of my room in arab ghetto lyon. Can anyone think of a cute nickname for my ghetto home? Potential Riot Land? PRL? Anyone? Submit your answers.
I did get rescued by the gallant Agnes, who is awesome and I love her family - they're really the coolest. I got back and we talked about the Purvines and whatnot and it was super lovely, actually. Here's what I wrote:
20.Sept.2006
Had a lovely talk (in French) with the precious Calderos. They like the Big Lebowski, we are totally friends. We talked about my cat, my big family, Mormons, Morteau (lots of snow), Edna Purviance and other things. After they saved me from my locked door at midnight sticky situation. Oh la la. Had lovely time with jetlag mike from JeffCo - he's a nice boy and will be a nice friend! Oh! And tomorrow I ill meet a family pour voir si I could babysit their daughter on wednesday afternoons! I hope that works out, I'd like to hang out and speak french with a real french kid! And she goes to dance class so hey, that is really cool. Fun fun fun meeting french people. I hope al lmy paperwork birth certificate translating and band account getting will work out. And that i will find an appartment soon! And that they don't need my soscial security card nor do they require that my carte de sejour be processed within a week of my arrival. Oh la la. FUn night. I like people.

Ok so that was a departure from coherence, but there you have it. Straight from my black leather notepad.
Anyway, it was very 007 waiting for Agnes to come get me from my 60s architecture dystopia. Like, I was in a video game. You can bet I had my keys in my fingers and had my killer instincts on, though I was gated in, so technically fine - but there are not spikes on those gates. Plastic bags moving in the wind nearly gave me a heart attack. But i was saved!

- I saw mormons on the subway and it made me think of Elder Sean P! Shout out!
- I managed to find the emails of some swing dancers in Lyon...we'll see if that works out. I'd like to get to dancing to help speed up my leg rehab b/c having even a slightly gimpy leg is a little achy breaky annoying.
- Walked around Lyon with the Calderos after seeing little miss sunshine with the family on a friday night. Note: always say english things with a french accent. The guy at the movie counter looked like I'd just spoken martian when I said I'd like 2 tickets to Little miss Sunshine. I said it in french, but the title's in English! I guess its like when news reporters switch to a super ethnic accent all of a sudden, and when people pronounce Paris "Par-eee!" - its a little weird. Steve Carell was just as precious as can be as the gay proust scholar in LMS - though the casting was super (greg kinnear, I have loved you since watching talk soup when I was 12) the movie was sortof like, yay for perseverance what a caper, ok whatever. Don't hate on the beauty pageants! The little french girls were like, OMG i would HATE that beauty pageant, how dumb. And i was like, hey now. I was in one, and I won it, so there.
- I met up with some usa girls on saturday - they're other assistants - and they were sweet. One has a real cajun boyfriend (they met at a crawfish boil, I am so jealous) and a penchant for altruism (excellent) and the other seems to be very obsessed with wearing skinny jeans and black flats like she sees everyone here wearing. I was like, ok, you go girl, whatever, did you not notice mischa barton wearing skinny jeans and black flats for like the last 5 years? More power to her, though. Enough of the character sketching - i dont' wanna get catty.
- I had to walk through relatively shady parts of french suburbia (= opposite of american suburbia) where all the guys told me they liked my dress. I was like, its a shirt and a skirt you idiot, excuse me while I ignore you. I managed to trek through and find the mailbox to drop of a copy of my birth certificate for translating. Here's hoping the cost is not from outer space.
- We're better off with our american run-down areas, at least in our cities, than the french I think. They've just got these GIANT human spice cabinets - like STL's old school projects - whereas oldnorthcity,etc... has the space and buildings and even a pretty well built skeleton of community hubs or possible ones to makea veritable community. A spice cabinet is a far cry from this.
So hey.

In other news, send me an email and start your own blog (anyone else discovered google reader? its pretty awesome)! America friends, I miss you! :)
a plus.

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