March 21st Friday

I got up around 11:00am. I had some bread with butter and pear jam for breakfast. I decided to look out our kitchen window and see what the noise was. Our kitchen and bathroom windows open on this rectangular... hole. It's about 10 square feet of space but it goes up about 5 or 6 stories. I don't know if there's any way to enter. It sounded like someone was trying to get in the window the previous night. I looked down and did see something. There was a duck! A poor duck is trapped in the space. I'm not sure how he got in there but it looked like he couldn’t get out. From what I've seen of duck takeoffs it looks like they need a sort of take off area like a plane. They can't fly straight up for 6 stories.

I threw some bread down for the duck so that he could have something to eat. Then I emailed our landlord to ask him if there was any way to “libérer le canard.”

After that I had to put aside my duckwatch and talk to Amana S. We talked briefly and scheduled a time we could go grocery shopping together. We wanted to make a big Easter dinner. Adrienne and I would host it in our apartment.

I ran to the library around 3:00pm. I copied my books and checked out another one. I saw Alberto and he was working hard on his papers as well. I started heading home but then I got a call from Amanda. She was wondering if we should just meet at the library because she had some books to return. I turned around and headed back to the library. I knew she wouldn’t be there for a bit so I made a side trip to the G20 store nearby. I was starving and wanted to find something cheap to eat.

I couldn’t find much sadly. I’d passed right by the sandwich area at the front of the store. I ended up getting a drinkable vanilla yogurt and some pizza crackers. I munched on these while I walked back to school. I met up with Amanda and she returned her books. Then we walked from there to Franprix. I’d talked to Adrienne and she met us at the store. We bought the ingredients for Easter dinner there. We bought some chicken, potatoes, and pears. We stopped by the apartment and dropped off the groceries.

Amanda was really craving some McDonalds. I decided to break my tradition from my last trip to France and go with her. When I’d studied in Tours I did not eat at a McDonalds once for the whole six months. It was hard when I’d get cravings for it and be homesick. Amanda and I walked up to the McDonalds on Rue de Rivoli. It was a really nice McDonalds actually. I think it looked nicer than any in the states. I had the Big Mac menu with fries and a Coca light. It was really yummy.

After that I walked home. I worked on my paper a bit more and talked to my parents. I was disappointed that I hadn’t heard from our landlord in regards to the duck email. He doesn’t always read his email every day. I saw that he was home but he was wearing a robe and looked like he might have his kids visiting. I decided not to bother him right then.

I got hungry later and made myself some onion ramen noodles to hold me over. I worked on my paper until 3:30am. I went to bed around 4:00am.