Losing My Way While Finding France

I woke up a little late this morning so I had a quick piece of a baguette and some butter, then rushed out the door to the metro. After stopping in the boulangerie across the street for a chocolate croissant, I came to the IES building. But then I found out that I don't need to be here until 3 this afternoon. So I'm spending some time on the computer to write messages since I usually cannot. This past weekend I went to Rouen to visit Vanessa. I took the early train on Saturday for about an hour and we met at the station in Rouen. We walked a little and told each other about all of our french escapades so far. There are several cathedrals in Rouen including one enormous one. We strolled around inside their immense hollow skeletons. For lunch, we ate at a restaurant called Paul Bistro. It was delicious! I had a salad with goat cheese and some sort of duck that looked like strips of uncooked bacon. Vanessa ate a croque-monsieur with eggplant. And we split some wine of course.

After a while we rode the bus up the hill to Mont Saint Aignan where she lives near her school. That night we went back down the hill with some of her friends to find a spot for dinner. We ended up at sushi restaurant which was some of the best french japanese cuisine I've had here so far. We checked out a pub in the same area and talked and watched the Barcelona soccer game. I'm hoping to get to a few soccer games somewhere and sometime here.

The next day, Sunday, not much is ever open in Rouen, so we hung around her room for a while until catching a train back to Paris at 3.

That's the highlight of everything since I last talked with you. Other than that I've been getting lost in Paris too often. I'm very confused by the layout of their streets here. Yesterday I met some friends at IES and we walked around for a while after meetings all day long yesterday. I decided to walk home because I didn't I was very far -- and I wasn't, but I started walking in the wrong direction. I turned a 20 walk into an hour and half easily. That happened again last night when I left after dinner to meet up with some friends at a bar. I took the metro to les Grand Boulevards stop and couldn't find them. An American girl from New York asked me where to find the Café OZ -- an Aussie bar where they were celebrating Australian day yesterday; the one day out of the entire year when people think of that far off continent. So I wandered in the wrong direction for a while then turned around and looped back around. I eventually found the Café OZ about half a mile past the metro stop in the other direction. I guess I'm getting a pretty good feel for the city though. So after I've been lost everywhere here it won't be possible to be lost anymore.