Breather

I'm at an internet cafe near where the lectures this week have been taking place, in the 5th near the Pantheon, having a stale pain au chocolat and a hot cocoa.

I haven't really had much of a chance to breathe lately, but hopefully soon I will stop having to search for apartments all the time.

A few of my favorite things....

Today to get to the lectures I had to take two RER trains. RER trains all have four-letter codes (no one I've talked to knows what they mean). Usually they're something like HVIC or JPDE. But today, the first train I was on was MONA, and the second was PEPE.

Apparently, as important as saying "Bonjour monsieur" or "Bonjour madame" when you interact with a shop clerk or someone is to say "Au revoir monsieur" or "Au revoir madame" when you leave. In English saying goodbye after saying thanks in that situation seems very redundant and overly formal, but here it's impolite not to. There's a phrase "filer a l'anglaise," i.e., "to steal out in the English manner," i.e., "to leave without saying goodbye."

I had a hard time finding out the phrase for "go ahead," as in when you want someone to go through the door first. But finally someone thought of "allez-y," and that seems to be right.

There is a chain of stores here called Picard which is basically a whole store like the frozen section of Trader Joe's! For those of you in Buffalo who tragically have no access to Trader Joe's, what this means is that there are natural and gourmet frozen foods at reasonable prices, anything you can imagine. So, for instance, if you're going to have a dinner party, you can get the fixings for a four-course meal there. (I am inordinately excited about this store, but then, I guess I get that way about stores...to stave off noo's inevitable comment at this point, did you know that in Chicago they have a WHOLE STORE for containers?)

My parents are coming in tomorrow, at which point I will optimistically relocate to their hotel room, in hopes that by the time they leave on the first I will have an apartment. Getting my stuff from the suburbs to the city is not going to be so fun, so better to do that with them around if possible!

It will be nice to see them.

Everyone wish my brother a happy birthday, too!

As far as professional stuff is going...I'm pleased that semanticist AK is here, I'm going to meet with her on Monday to talk about a subject of mutual interest, namely that topic situations should replace topic times and all that.

And, I got asked to review for fancy semantics conference taking place in Tokyo. :) Finally I am joining the academic community, with all of its annoying responsibilities! I guess it really does work to keep in touch with people and network like crazy.

I haven't forgotten my promise to skype and/or instant message on Sundays, but until I have a place, that's unlikely to happen. I will post here when I'm ready to start doing that.

Another apartment to look at today...two tomorrow. Last night I walked around the neighborhoods where these next few apartments are, which was instructive since one of them (the Marais, in the 4th) becomes very lively at night. That could be good or bad, I spose! Anyway, if I end up living there, it will be just like West Hollywood: right between the gay neighborhood and the Jewish neighborhood.

That's all the random musings I have for now...