May 1st Thursday

Today was a holiday in France! It was labor day. It’s a jour férié so that means that the stores are all closed. Traditionally, people buy muguets (Lily of the Valley) and give them to people as a symbol of springtime and friendship.

At 10:00am a woman called Adrienne in response to an email she sent showing interest in an apartment. She scheduled a meeting with us for the afternoon. I fell back to sleep until around 12:30 or 1:00pm. I got up and showered. I had my fruit granola cereal with milk for breakfast. I got ready and we took the metro to Montmartre.

We were at the Anvers metro stop a bit early so we looked around for a bit. We met the woman and she showed us where the apartment was. It was a very nice apartment. It reminded me of some of the small apartments in the mountains in Colorado. It had a kind of homey feel to it. The bedroom window even had a view of Sacré Coeur. Unfortunately, the price matched the greatness. It would be €1200 a month. That was definitely out of our price range. We thanked the woman for showing it to us and said we’d let her know if we wanted it.

We walked around because we hadn’t been to Montmartre that much before. Adrienne spotted a flower shop and wanted to stop and get some muguets to give our landlord M. Choupin. The woman made them into a very nice presentation in a little box with moss and everything. It was quite pretty.

After that, we continued to walk around. I was starting to get really hungry and the only restaurants we could seem to find for lunch were the expensive tourist places. We settled on an open café a bit off the main road. It was 4:00pm at this point. Pretty late for lunch. I ended up getting the €12.50 menu with tomato soup and a plate of lamb in a tomato sauce with potatoes. It wasn’t great but it kept me from dying of hunger.

We finished lunch and got on the metro to head home. Adrienne got off at Solférino and I continued onto the Rue du Bac stop. I needed to go by the bank. I walked to BNP and withdrew the rent money. I was craving a crêpe so I walked across the street and bought one with nutella from the usual stand. The man working there was the same man who flirted with me on the night that Heidi and I rescued Alberto. Luckily, it was busy and he didn’t seem to recognize me until the last minute.

I walked home and on the way saw many tables set up with people selling muguets. It looked like there were a bunch of lemonade stands everywhere. It looked out of the ordinary.

I got back home and watched some X-Men episodes online. I got to talk to my parents on Skype after that. I finished the evening by drawing a picture and writing a letter to be sent in a package to my friend Maya for her birthday. I went to bed around 3:00am.