No Verb

So I’ve been conspicuously missing for the past two weeks or so, which translates into NO INTERNET ACCESS, which if you know me at all, you will understand that it was unpleasant! I was in Paris, then Dijon, then Cannes, then Dijon again, and then Paris again, and now I AM IN GERMANY. Everything so far is really great, and right now I’m just having fun getting to know the people around me and figuring out where the Commissary is so I can buy some lunch. People have been really helpful so far. I’m not having fun being achy from a flu shot that I swore I’d never get, but when a nurse yanks you out of the school hallway and sticks a needle in your arm (while asking at the exact same time whether or not I’ve ever had a bad reaction to a flu shot), what can you really do about it?

Some of you have already heard about this in an e-mail, but I have a washer and a dryer and a dishwasher. And I don’t even have to put quarters in them. I am so excited! And my apartment has wood floors and big windows, but it doesn’t have working heating. So the next stop today is to find out about getting that fixed and turning Building 907, B2 from a meat locker to an apartment!

I’ll write more later when the library isn’t about to close. I know I’ll certainly have a lot to say after Monday…if you want to pray for my first few days teaching to go well, I certainly wouldn’t mind.

On the grass in Cannes, there was a sign saying “Pelouse interdite”, which they chose to translate as “Forbidded lawn”.

Eating 18 escargots in one sitting will give you a terrible stomachache, and drinking a liter of water won’t help.

This is totally unrelated to my trip except that I was in France when this occurred, but last night I had a terrible dream, and now I want all of you fellow bird haters to share in the horror. I had a dream about some kind of emergency involving a child who had been locked in a cage of ravens. Honestly, this is the one circumstance where I would be torn between helping a child and running away screaming. I would even help if it involved a mayonnaise related injury…injury: that makes me think of a statistic I read in a book on French culture the other day. Six hundred people a year break a limb slipping on dog excrement on the streets of Paris.

A store called “Monsieur Store”. Appropriate, I suppose.

Not bad.

Last night, I went to a mall nearby which happened to feature a grocery store. A two story grocery store. How do people get around a two story grocery store with a shopping cart, you may ask? With a shopping cart escalator, of course!

i am awake to experience my first full day in europe. right now, i am overlooking a delightfully rainy backyard that features a river. please disregard any typos. french keyboards have letters situated in a crazy fashion, and i cannot find the apostrophe at the moment. here is a promise: i will post more later when i have something good to tell (ie i have been awake more than an hour, and i have come in contact with actual people).

ps my french is sub par, as i am severely out of practice. sorry dad.