Four Weeks

Let’s just say today was…interesting. I got up in a good mood, as I found out last night that I am able to travel during my break in October to visit my good friend Tyler who is living in Deutschland (aka Germany). Otherwise I would have been sitting with my host parents as they renovate this barn thing they just bought…not my idea of fun. So I was pretty happy to be alive and pretty happy to have made it to the milestone of 4 weeks. My happiness would change later in the day.

I was also happy because I only had 4 hours of class today, as I got out an hour early to go have lunch with my rotary club. This is when my trouble’s started. I had been planning to go to Porte Dauphine (a metro stop, and where Rotary actually meets), but I thought I remembered my rotary guy saying Place Dauphine. So during my philosophy class, I was looking at the map, just to make sure I was going to the right place. Turns out there’s a Place Dauphine on Ile de la Cité (where Notre Dame is, middle of the city) and Porte Dauphine (very west end of the city, again, the place I was planning on going to before I decided to check). So I, at the last moment, decided that it was Place Dauphine. So I traveled for probably 20 minutes on the Métro to get there, only to find that there was no Rotary Club, as the Rotary Club was at Porte Dauphine. I had walked a good way to get the Place Dauphine, so I had to walk back and navigate through one of the biggest Métro stops in Paris to get on the right line and go to Porte Dauphine. Once I got there, I realized I actually didn’t really know where they met, I just knew to get off at that Métro. So I decided to try the Pavillion Dauphine (kinda sounds like Place right?), but started going the wrong way, stepping in dog crap, said some bad words, and turned around. Pavillion Dauphine was the place I was searching for, and I entered 40 minutes late sweating profusely. Luckily I was the youngest person there by probably 30 years, so the welcome people knew exactly who I was.

Rotary in Europe is a little different than in Fort Collins. Basically it’s the rich, old man’s club. There were maybe 5 women, every man was in a suit, and I seriously thought the guy next to me was going to die sometime during the day’s presentation. The sign at the welcome table said lunch was 57.50 Euros (around 70 dollars), so I felt pretty good about eating for free. Except it seems somewhat ironic that, in order to receive my monthly stipend, I have to come to a monthly meeting and eat their expensive food. Maybe next time I’ll just forgo eating and ask for 57.50 in cash or check. Or maybe not. I felt extremely awkward eating (as my table manner’s aren’t exactly up to par with upper class Paris as of yet), but the food was great. It wasn’t the most exciting time of my life, but it was good to eat expensive food for free and get to meet and talk to my rotary guy. I also came home 80 euros richer, which isn’t something to complain about.

Next adventure. I went, again, to renew my visa. I was sure I had everything this time, as I went through and checked everything. So I traveled for probably another 40 minutes to the extreme south end of the city. This time there was no line, so things were looking up…that is until the lady told me I needed some more originals that I didn’t have with me. Awesome, you know what lady, I’ll just come back next week. I LOVE SPENDING MY WEDNESDAYS TRAVELING ACROSS TOWN FOR NOTHING…MAYBE I’LL MAKE A FREAKING CLUB FOR IT. So that made me kind of angry (I didn’t really yell that though, it might be hard to translate into French), but the day didn’t end too bad. Leo (the brazilian exchange student) and I hung out again, so it was good to see him and talk to him.

Let’s hope tomorrow will be a little more mellow.

Brent