Bonjour Paris!

Such an easy airport process! Out in a jiffy. Got my month metro pass (about $5NZ day for unlimited travel is not bad at all!) and headed to my apartment. I was prepared for Elouise from LuckyYouth.com hostels to be absolutely hopeless like she was last time…and she was. Fucking hopeless. She didn’t leave me a key. And she didn’t come to meet me at 1pm. Luckily I got in because some other people were staying there too and let me in. But I couldn’t leave because I didn’t have a key to let me back in. After calling and txting and emailing Elouise a thousand times I gave up. Had a power nap then headed out to explore. The apartment I’m staying in is right in the middle of Montparnasse which has a big central metro station in it (most are very small) and a big shopping mall. Kind of a Newmarket really. Although I haven’t found anywhere like a Queen St in Paris yet! Maybe they don’t do things like we do. Very likely. I ended up going and getting myself a French simcard for my cellphone which was interesting.

“Bonjour. Je suis desole. Ma Francais est tres ‘wah-woh’ *sound of dying trumpet*. Je voudrais une simcard pour mon telephone.”

But I got what I wanted! And I actually am finding my French is not as bad as I thought. I mean it is pretty bad. I can say things. But I hardly ever understand what people say back to me.

“Plus lentement” (more slowly) will be very useful to me.

I am finding though that I can understand what a lot of billboards say.

I want to see this!

And I am really keen on getting better at French so I am always getting my dictionary out and looking up new words that I don’t know. I feel like a little kid asking mum “what does that mean?” “and that?” “and that?”. Ahhh the joys of learning. :)

I also learnt that sometimes you have to learn by screwing up…like my dinner!

I went back to the Le Refuge – the pub I discovered on the last few nights I was in Paris last year, in order to get a hearty steak meal. I ordered ‘Tartare Viande Italienne’. It sounded nice…

NOTE TO SELF: TARTARE MEANS ‘RAW’. NOT ‘TASTY SAUCE’.

I ended up getting raw mince on a plate with fries and a salad. The lady asked me how it was. “Ca va?” … “errr. C’est froid!”. She took it back as we agreed to get it cooked a bit. It came back with the top of the ball of meat slightly cooked. But still really just a ball of raw mince. It didn’t actually taste that bad. But I couldn’t really hack the texture, and the thought of what was in my mouth. Which is ironic, because I like meat. But I felt a bit too much like a carnivore eating raw mince!