Peaches!

I'm not going to lie but I really had no idea what to call this post...you'll figure out why Peaches is the best thing I could come up with in just a minute.
Ahh this week is over!
Finally.

It was a great week but a long one. I started language school which is supposed to be 2 days a week but for now is 4 days a week. It's a 45 minutes metro ride for me with one transfer which isn't too bad. The ride to and from school is something I can probably do with my eyes closed now. On the first day of school I thought about just bringing an oversized purse and being all chic but then I realized I wouldn't have room for my travel mug, apple and lunch. Priorities. So there I was walking out the door with my backpack like a true American. Even though this made sitting on the metro seats awkward, I had the added benefit of being able to pack a lot of baguettes in there if I chose to buy 1 or 12. School turned out to be way below my level of French and most people in the class have had 1-2 years of the language. I may be rusty now but 12 years has taught me more than how to conjugate verbs in two tenses. However, being somewhat lazy on my placement test and overly confident (and probably cocky) in class doesn't always sit well with the teacher so she's hesitating on switching me.

Baguettes! Oh. My. Goodness. I don't know what the hell we eat in America that we are calling a "baguette" but those things should be called "this didn't make the cut for IKEA furniture". The baguettes here are truly amazing. They are so soft and they never need the old wet paper towel in the microwave trick. I confess that I have bought one in the morning, had part for breakfast, come back for lunch and put some meat on it and then finished it off with some soup for dinner. I'm CONVINCED it's because they make their bread smaller here. Please don't try and tell me otherwise.

But I know the baguettes will start catching up to me eventually so they are not an everyday occurrence...I don't spin nearly enough here to be able to do that. Speaking of spin, my parents sent me my bike shoes in the mail so I've been wearing them to spin class now. After class one day the instructor came up to me and (in French) said that she'd never seen anyone else with bike shoes. I told her I was an instructor in the states and she promptly told me I must compete in some little gym competition on Tuesday and that I had to wear blue. Competition on a spin bike. Sounds good to me. I have no idea what to expect but I'll be there in my blue.

Nothing as exciting as last week but being more busy felt wonderful. I was getting sort of antsy just having work. I bet you're still wondering why this is called Peaches (or if you weren't you are now). I get out of class at 1pm and head straight to the metro using the same route. Every single day that I have been walking to the metro eating my PB and J, there is a man walking the opposite direction eating a peach! Same guy, different peach, but he is always about a quarter of his way through the peach when I pass him. We always pass each other at about the same point on the sidewalk too. He's an older man with a rounder physique and chubby cheeks so I've dubbed him Peaches.

That's all for now! And to all you Americans out there eating baguettes...please stop. Come visit me in France and get a real one (for 1 euro!).

Panoramic I took of an AMAZING rainbow we had. It reminded me of Seattle.

The spinning light at the top of the Eiffel Tower from my window. The clouds that night made it look so cool.