Practice makes perfect.

Learning the basics.

I now know:

Where is the ferris wheel?
I like your outfit.
I want beer.
To spank.
Help.

Germany, I'm ready.

Ma vue.

Pour un rire.

Conversation between me and an American friend.

S: "Do you have any siblings?"
Me: "Yup, I have one brother. His name is Ben."
S: "Wow, that's so mean of your parents!"
Me: "Really? That's actually a really common name in New Zealand. I thought it was kind of universal actually."
S: "What? No way! We don't tend to name children after garbage disposals in America."

Ben. Not bin, S.

Pronounciate.

Chess sounds like cheese when you have a New Zealand accent. Apparently. When reading out an excerpt in front of the class and the facial expressions of everyone else in the class, including the teacher, doesn't match up with how people normally regard someone when they're speaking, maybe stop and check everyone understands you and isn't instead wondering how we moved from the subject of intellectual sports to culinary delights.

FYI

It costs to sit in Paris.

Cost of un cafe noisette at the bar: 1 euro.
Cost of un cafe noisette at a table and chairs: 2 euro 70 cents.

Cost of un cafe noisette from school vending machines: priceless. (well, not really, 50 cents, but cheap.)

Busy.

Entry lag. I could blame it on moving apartments and the lack of Internet involved in the transition but really I've just been lazy. For some reason chocolat chaud, les baguettes, les mecs et les adventures have been distracting me (and by adventures I mean using the metro late at night/early morning and watching a very drunk Spanish 50 year old get on the metro looking wheezy and taking bets on how long it would take her to vomit. I voted the shortest at one minute and let's just say I was the closest, it didn't take long..) There is definitely something about being crammed in a small moving tube with lots of other people on a hot, humid night with the sound of someone throwing up and seeing vomit roll towards you on the ground that puts a serious down buzz on the evening (or does the opposite if you're a certain someone who has an extremely bizarre and slightly worrisome fetish for vomit, won't name names but they're from their eastern corner of the world. Typical.)

This was coupled with the fact that we were returning from Paris' equivalent of the red light district (don't ask how we ended up there. Long story) where we were repeatedly asked if we wanted to watch sex shows (and as the places got dodgier, asked if we wanted to join the sex shows.)

Followed by a day planned for Chantilly then realizing we had read the train timetable completely wrong, deciding instead to take a spontaneous trip to London then realizing we didn't have our passports and finally settling on a visit to the cemetery Pere Lachaise which was actually really cool (and really boiling, they didn't need to use the crematorium that day.)

One more class today which I'm 90% percent sure I will fall asleep in after staying up to such an hour that morning joggers were beginning to appear. Then at 10pm it's time to board the bus for Munich!! 12 hour journey and we arrive at the famed Oktoberfest!

I can feel my beer belly already.

FYI

Sometimes there are interval break bells at university. Sometimes. If they feel like it. They are extremely long and very, very similar to fire bells in New Zealand schools. However, when in France, don't assume it's a fire bell, grab your bags and make to leave. The professeur will find it rude and look at you strangely.