Thus far, part 3

Saturday

I was woken up around 8 am by a text message from Lauren, and as soon as my eyes were open, the adrenaline was flowing and I was awake. So I texted Kerstin and told her to come over and go to a cafe with me. She didn't end up arriving until around 11, and was in bad shape when she got here. We went to La Contrescarpe and I had a cafe creme (soooooooo good but also 2,50) and a tartine grille (toasted baguette with butter, more delicious than you would think). Afterward we just kind of walked around the neighborhood, had a crepe (the crepe man is so nice and offered to give me a free banana -- I didn't realize at the time that he was going to put it in my nutella crepe, I hate bananas. I sucked it up), found the 24 hour supermarket and got a few staples. Her hotel was out in the ghetto so she needed to get back before dark. This day is rather fuzzy but also comforting because we were both miserable.

Sunday

According to the info MICEFA mailed me over the summer (MICEFA is the program overseeing my University of Paris studies), I was to meet with our director at 2 pm, walk to the MICEFA office and the campus where we're doing immersion classes, and then have a 6 pm boat ride on the Seine. This time I had the foresight to write down her cell number, and good thing too, cuz when I called her from the meeting place, she informed me that the meeting had been moved to the day before. Oh well. So I texted Kerstin and met her at Les Invalides. Luckily I know this neighborhood pretty well, so we walked to Rue Cler (where I stayed during both my previous trips to Paris), but Sunday isn't really a good idea to see anything in Paris. It's all closed. We also walked to the Eiffel Tower, got some ice cream, and laid in the shade at Champs de Mars.
Apparently this guy had been looking at us for a while and Kerstin was wondering what the hell he was doing (I didn't notice), but he did approach us and asked if we would speak English with him. He was Russian but had been living in Paris for years and spoke English with a heavy French accent. He was nice enough, very geeky (he was obsessed with American movies and music), and told us that Million Dollar Baby was playing that night for free and outdoors. He gave us his number and took us to the metro station to go back to my place. We decided to go to the movie but we didn't want to lead him on (he was very interested in being BFF and showing us everything and helping us get cell phones), so we didn't call. We got some shawarmas from the Lebanese take out place on my street (there are like four Lebanese food places in a block radius. Fun fact: there is a place where you can also get take-out pasta in Chinese food containers), then head off to the park. It was a long way away and I definitely fell asleep on the metro. We were both exhausted but we toughed it through the movie, then back to my place to crash. Kerstin slept on my guest floor mat cuz the metro stops at like 12:30.