January 29th Tuesday

I got up at 9:00 and had a yummy breakfast. Adrienne and I had the last two crêpes with jam on it as well as a yogurt. Our class wasn’t until the afternoon so we had decided to go to the bank to set up accounts. Karuna had spent the night with some other friends on the other side of Paris.

We went to BNP Paribas because they have a deal for students of Sciences Po. We can have a free checking account and even get €80 for opening one. We checked in at the receptionist desk and got an appointment for noon. That wasn’t too far away so we went to the Monoprix across the street. Monoprix is a clothing store that also has a grocery store, bakery, and restaurant in the underground floor. I found some pretty cheap face soap. I was worried it was all going to be expensive. I had trouble finding just a face soap that wasn’t made to take off makeup.

Hoping that our shopping bags weren’t too noticeable, we headed back to our appointment at the bank. The lady was very nice and set us up with bank accounts. We need to get some forms signed by our landlord but otherwise the account will be verified in a week. It will be helpful to have our money in Euros here.

As we were leaving we saw Alberto. He was at the front desk explaining that he wanted to do the same thing we just did. We stuck around a bit to see if he needed any help.

We had to get back home in order to eat and grab our things for class. We ended up simply having some vegetable soup and some Asian noodles that I found in the grocery store. We got a call from Karuna. She was with a friend who has a very large box of Karuna’s old things that would be very helpful. We were going to try to go help her get it but we were going to be late to class.

Instead, Karuna came and joined us in class. She wanted to get a taste of the French classes before she’d be here next module. It’s much easier than Spanish for her at least.

We walked home from class and made dinner. We cooked up some chicken and had it with pesto and mashed potatoes.

After dinner I got to talk to my dad on Skype. Almost an hour after he’d left, my mom called me on Skype and we talked. She asked me where my dad was and I told her that he’d gone to the gym to exercise. She said “Well I’m glad I have to call Paris to find out where he is.”

When I wasn’t talking to them I was reading. It was a fairly interesting reading on the local and national levels of government in France. Adrienne and I had to run to the ATM. We’ve been trying to get enough money to be able to pay our rent and safety deposit on Friday. I can only take out €200 at one time so I have to go back a few times. While we were there I noticed there was a little store open next to the machine. I popped in and bought some taffy because I was craving some kind of chewy candy.

We went back home and then I was actually able to talk to Tyler a little bit online. He was doing some homework. I read for class and ended up getting sucked into a strange Google feature online. I didn’t get to bed until after 2:00. I felt pretty awake. I don’t want to blame the candy though. It’s so sweet.