Locks of L.O.V.E.

Today was the first day of classes and my first (and only) class was at the appropriate time of 19h15 or 7.15pm. Obviously this is the best time to have a 2 hour lecture on the discipline of politics and ethics, aptly titled "Right or Wrong". I'm feeling the latter is more accurate with that kind of timetable scheduling. Luckily the kitchen I share with about 20 people on my floor has no cutlery or applicances (bar a mini oven which refuses to go above 180 degrees and a microwave designed for people with an IQ over 200) so its not as if I would be having dinner then anyway.

Specaloos are definitely an appropriate substitute. (Specaloos are these fantastic biscuits that taste like nothing I else I have ever tried which is both unnerving and marvellous. Because they taste like nothing I have ever tasted I have merged them into the categories of breakfast, lunch and dinner and therefore its not inappropriate to eat them for every meal of the day. Or so I tell myself, and the others who ask why I'm constantly eating them. Also: they're cheap. Ridiculously so. I'm 99% sure they're made by superbly trained animals or slave labour children.)

Anyhow, with most of the day free for activites, I set off into the busy streets of Monday morning Paris with a to-do list to work on. Our first stop was LCL, my new FRENCH bank account (pretty sure this almost qualifies me as 1/5th french now. I just need a french boyfriend who wears loafers, carries a baguette and rides a bike and I'm set). The bank is situated at St Germain des Pres, right on the corner which we have walked past millions (okay, maybe dozens) of times but somehow (actually I know exactly how, we talked too much) we missed our metro stop and got off one late. This caused us to get completely lost and, as so often happens when we're lost and not in the vicinity of shelter, it started to rain.

We eventually found our bearings (ironically we used le tour de Montparnasse to guide us, thank goodness its useful for something. For a wee insight, it is well known among the Parisians that the best view of Paris is from le tour de Montparnasse because that way you can't see it. Ha. Ha. French humour). Anyway, we arrived at the bank to find out our card was still not ready and that when one teller tells you something will be ready on Monday, it is perfectly acceptable for another to tell you that thats wrong and it won't be ready for another 5 days. This french system stuff is totally straight forward. Not.

We moved on. I waited in the queue for my student card for a respectable 1 hour 20 minutes and made friends with a Canadian guy (I guessed American, he scowled. Then he guessed I was Australian and we made amends) who made the time go faster purely because he spoke at the speed of light (I forget if light or sound is faster so I'm not even sure its possible to speak at the speed of light but you get the idea).

I paid my social security fee (pretty much a whole week of working) and got my card on the spot. Success! Thankfully all the french that was needed this time was merci beaucoup!

With time to kill we treated ourselves to a tarte aux pommes and an orangina from the local Monoprix and visited the Pont des Arts which is a 2 minute walk from Uni. Its a famous bridge because it is used by lovers who wish to profess their undying love for each other. The idea is that you go to this bridge together and put a lock on the bridge and then throw the keys into the Seine. Its supposed to be wonderfully romantic but I just see it as a waste of a perfectly good lock. Comically, all the shops surrounding the bridge sell locks. So if your an avid cyclist and ever in Paris searching for a lock, go to Pont des Arts. (I mean the shops nearby, don't go and try and steal a lock from the bridge, it would probably end in some poor couples divorce.)

This bridge visit was followed by class from 19h15 till 21h15, possibly the most bizarre class time I've ever had in which I discovered that I will most probably fail this class because a.) I still don't really understand the class after 2 straight hours and most importantly b.) the teacher is (regretfully) very good looking and has a french accent. Failure, here I come.