rude rude macaroons

I'm now back at the same cafe with Aurelle and Liz- the cleaning lady came. Even the cleaning lady is extremely fashionable, with her little leather belt and her leather leggings on her thin parisian frame.

I found these in the living room today and started reviewing. I was upset with the macaroon incident, but I'll get to that later.

2 nights ago, dinner in the 3rd arrondissement

I had a vodka diet coke

The bar we went to was also a book store

Lunch the next day after the placement test

last night was a lot of fun. i had a good feeling before going out the door that it was going to be a good night. first we met up at o cub3 in the 9th arrondissement with a big group of NYU-ers. Aurelle and I first thought that o cub3 must've been a drunken typo in a text, but the place was actually called that because cub3 was supposed to be cube.

i was approached by a group of french guys holding a BIG plate of at least 20 shots. they asked if i was leaving, i said yes and promptly tapped Aurelle to translate. they offered us each a free shot. i noticed that people are a lot more open to approaching people here.

then we walked around until we found a club, but we were told that it was an african club and the bouncer suggested we go elsewhere. we wandered upon a really really cute bar- small, swanky, funky, bathed in blue light with a dj and a big screen playing strange music videos. the crowd was late 20's well dressed. i went to the bathroom downstairs & found 2 pairs of legs and a splattered canvas in an dark blue alcove

a 28 year old man asked me in english where i was from and spoke to me a bit before I went into the stall. upstairs when we sat down at a table, he came over and asked me if he and his friends could join us. he spoke english and a bit of chinese, having travelled to NY and Shanghai before. later when he left to get a drink his friend came and sat next to me- he spoke considerably less english and i told him that i was shy with my french, he said something to me and i asked Aurelle to translate- apparently he said "don't be shy because your accent is beautiful and if people make you feel uncomfortable to speak french then they're assholes"- I said thanks. the other one then asked to switch seats with his friend and asked if he could be my french teacher and i could be his chinese teacher. that's the same thing the man who stalked me at the restaurant this summer said to me. i'm never interested in such a proposal.

Then we walked over to a club and a man tried to give me a flower and told me that i was beautiful. I said thanks and walked away fast, but he came back again and tried to talk to me. meanwhile (sorry for the punctuation problems, i've had too much coffee today and i'm really jittery and out of it) a group of swedish men were trying to chat us up and one of them tried to get me on his arm. i told them i wanted to leave but they insisted we go in with them. we agreed and went inside for a sec and it was wild- like a hugggge rave. we left after a little bit because i had to get up early in the morning.

around 9:30 Hana picked me up from my apartment and took me back to her neighborhood in the 6th arrondissement. we walked to the luxembourg gardens and bought crepes

crepe avec champignons, fromage, et les tomates

Hana was my good friend from High school. she used to play in a band, which i managed for a while. I told Hana that I developed bad anxiety in New York but upon coming to Paris I stopped having anxiety problems. She said the same thing happened to her years ago when she went to Japan- she thought it had something to do with starting over, and that the anxiety was situational as opposed to personal. She said Japan changed her, and upon getting back she stopped having the anxiety problems. I thought that maybe I had done the exact right thing for myself upon deciding to come here. It's maybe what I needed.

Later we went to get macaroons. At first the lady greeted me and was very friendly, but upon noticing that I had an american accent when ordering, she immediately gave me a glare and told me that the man next to me was there first and refused to take my order. The man tapped me on the shoulder and said no no, it's fine, let her go first, but the lady insisted on taking his order. finally she let me take my order and after i paid i came back but she wouldn't acknowledge me so i had to wait for a while, so i gave the receipt to someone else who finally gave me my macaroon. the lady glared at me again, and then started being very very friendly with 2 older french people. she was so rude- this was my first experience with a rude french person. Liz mentioned that she thought that some french people who hate rude obnoxious americans take out their anger on the nice ones who make an effort and are polite. she said in florence she had an experience when waiters refused to serve her and her friends because they were americans. it's a shame.

aurelle just found out that we have a bikram 11 mins away from our place. but it costs 25 euros to go!