May 2nd Friday

I got up at noon. I had some fruit cereal again with milk for breakfast. Adrienne was up and had been chatting with Amanda online. Amanda invited us to go out to the Bois de Boulogne later. I decided to go but Adrienne stayed home.

But before I could head out there, I had to get my package sent off. I finished my drawing and sealed the package for Maya. I went to the post office and was able to trade packages there. I sent off Maya’s package and picked mine up. My parents had sent me one. I opened it excitedly on my way home. It had my Prilosec stomach meds as well as some fun lip gloss.

I stopped by home and dropped off my package. Then I hopped on the metro and took it to the Boulogne Jean Jaurès stop. I went up to Amanda and Casey’s apartment. We had some bread and cheese as a snack. Amanda had opened her pink Reims cookies so we tried them in a delicious lemonade she had. The cookies are crispy and porous. When dipped in liquid, the cookies soak it up and become soft. It’s quite a fun snack. We talked for a little bit while we munched on Reims cookies.

After that the three of us walked toward the Bois de Boulogne (woods of Boulogne). It was late afternoon and we saw some of the local wildlife already out. By this of course I mean that we saw some of the prostitutes that stand along one of the main streets that cut through the woods. It took me a while at first and I was wondering why the women were going to the woods in stiletto heels and short shorts. Casey and I played “spot the condom” and counted them on the walk.

We walked through the woods until we came upon a park. We went inside and it was very different from the woods. This was a manicured park complete with lawns and flowers. The flowers and lawn were quite impressive. We were welcomed by some very friendly locals of the park. I’m not talking about prostitutes this time (though they dress just as flashy). The park had a large population of peacocks. We were able to take lots of pictures of the male peacocks as they spread their feathers for us. Some of the French people got very close to the birds.

We continued on our walk around the park. It was very large. There were even some small lakes and ponds complete with miniature waterfalls, fish and ducks. We even found some swans swimming merrily about in one of the ponds. The flowers were blooming and making it feel like spring had finally arrived. We left the small park to reach the Grande Cascade (big waterfall). This was a large manmade waterfall. We could walk behind it and climb on top of it. The water smelled like swampy plants and made me think of the creek behind my middle school.

We started walking back out of the bois. We took a different path this time and passed the Hippodrome which is the horse racetrack. I didn’t realize they had the horses run on grass. It seemed like the track would be made of dirt.

We also passed a man on horseback riding through the trails of the bois. Amanda was trying desperately to get a picture of him. He obligingly saw this and slowed down for her. What a nice guy. Our very long walk finally ended when we reached the small outdoor café at the entrance to the woods. There was a small building that sold drinks and treats. We couldn’t resist the ice cream. I had two scoops: one coconut and one lime. It was quite delicious. We sat in the plastic chairs to eat and rest.

When we had the energy to walk again, we got up and headed back toward the apartment. We stopped by some stores on the way to pick up dinner. We stopped in Picard which is a frozen food store. The freezer in the apartment is quite small so we had to pick something that needed to be thawed anyway. We picked a box of éclairs.

Our next stop was at Franprix, the grocery store. We got ingredients for dinner. I bought a few boxes of soup since the choices here looked different from those near my place. We took our groceries back to the apartment. For dinner, we made parmesan chicken. Amanda knew how to bread the chicken with parmesan and bread crumbs. We ate it with noodles and tomatoes. It was quite delicious. For dessert we had some éclairs. They were quite small. The middle tasted like ice cream because they were still a little bit cold and frozen in the middle. We also had some pain au chocolat that were ready to be baked. We cooked them in the small toaster oven. The hot crispy dessert was delicious.

After dinner, Amanda showed me some pictures online. We looked at some wedding pictures of one of her friends. We talked for a while. Eventually, I had to catch the last metro to get home.

I got on the line 10 and took it to Sevres Babylone. There, I tried to transfer to line 12 to take it the few stops to Solférino. As I walked toward the transfer, I saw two men walking toward me. They started waving their hands at me and telling me to go back. They said I couldn’t go that way and that I had to turn around. I thought that they were just two random men telling me to go with them. As they walked up to me they showed me their ID cards that showed that they worked with the RATP metro system. They weren’t wearing any uniforms or anything that looked official. But the IDs looked real so I believed them. I’d missed the last line 12 metro. I walked toward the open exit with the two men. They couldn’t understand why I hadn’t listened to them. They asked me if I was French. I kind of laughed and said no. They then tried to guess where I was from. They guessed a lot of places but didn’t think of the US. I told them where I was from. They said “Ah, well she’s not a native French speaker. That’s why she didn’t hear us.” I thought to myself, “No, I’m a single woman alone at almost 2am who has two men telling her to go with them. That’s why I didn’t listen.” At least these men turned out to be nice.

They saw me on my way and I was able to safely walk home. I was still a little shaky from thinking I was about to be jumped by two guys. I arrived home and told Adrienne about the event. We talked for a bit. I called my parents and talked to them for a little while on the phone. After I hung up, Adrienne and I talked again late into the night until we went to bed around 5:45am.