Le Francais

I have never been happier that I speak at least some French.

Although some people speak English, most people can't say more than a few simple phrases. This is a problem. Ordinarily, I would do my best to speak only in French...but when I'm trying to make sure I know how many minutes I get in my calling plan, and if my phone has free incoming international calls, and if there is free internet in the apartment (or any connection whatsoever for that matter), the last thing I want to do is use my broken French. Of course that is what I end up doing because no one speaks English.

Another frustrating thing I shouldn't be complaining about...My accent. I don't speak French very well, my grammar sucks, and I have a fairly limited vocabulary. However my accent is good. So I walk into the cell phone store asking if the employee spoke English (in French) and he replies that my French is better than his English. This did turn out to be true, but its happened frequently enough that after the first few basic words I say to people, they assume I speak French and then go rattle off *really* fast. Normally I can understand most of what they say, but then they start looking at me weirdly when I have a really hard time answering them.

Went to the American Church in Paris looking for apartment ads, found two...went to one already. The apartment was small (though I'm used to that) but there was no Internet. The woman, a nice Vietnamese woman, mentioned that it would only take 2 days to get it...but I can't take the risk that something won't work and I won't be able to use the 'net. So went that apartment.

Next we have an appointment at 5pm in a place slightly outside of Paris, but still on the Metro. Its a family homestay but its about 20 metro stops from cooking school...eeek. Perhaps it will work out, but I'm now doubtful.
At 7pm and at 8pm we have other appointments. The 7pm is with a woman who graduated from Berkeley in California, so I hope I like her room because it seems we could have some things in common. (In addition to the fact that she speaks English fluently!)

OH. Yesterday's apartment was *excellent* but she has someone coming to look at it on Saturday who expressed interest before us...so if that person doesn't take it, its ours...but if that person likes it then we're out of luck. This is why we're looking for other apartments now :)

-D