The Marais

Marais is Paris' gay district. I haven't noticed it all week, and then all of a sudden it's everywhere... guys making out on the street, me eating dinner next to and then talking to and then having a drink with a gay guy last night, to a madame/monsieur (i think she would prefer to be called a madame though) coming into the lavarie (laundromat) and asking for me to punch something in her phone, to which i think was my phone number, what else do I type into someone's phone? Speaking of which, I tried to do my laundry tonight, it took 3 and a half hours... 1 and a half just looking for the stupid lavarie which is supposed to be "turn left and it's right around the corner" de ma apartement. anyway, the dryer is super fast and i did two loads of drying, one that was supposed to shrink clothes (hot) and one that was supposed to keep my clothes the same size (cool/warm). Turns out i put the shrink load into a dryer that doesn't really work that well, and the (cool) dryer was on steroids and dried and shrunk egverything that i DIDn't want to shrink... what a mess. Each load of laundry was 3,50€ which is like $5 so that times 3 loads, plus drying i spent like $20 on my laudnry which is absolutley ridiculous.

All in all, however, I am absolutely loving my experience here. I've never been put into these things before, e.g. my first paris friend is a gay 30 year old man who is going to call me if he is going swimming or to go eat (i think i will pass on the swimming, but i would love to eat), i've never had friends from Australia, Sweden, Holland, and Milwaulkee in one group, i've never lived in such a small place before, i've never been not able to understand EVERYTHING people are saying to me, i've never not been able to communicate Back to anybody.... and the BEST part about it is, I can't leave it. It's amazing being stuck in a place where nothing is what you are used to... although that sounds like a bad thing, I am totally loving it.