Relax, dammit

I've been on break for a week now, and while I've thoroughly relaxed and I feel mostly normal again, I've got this knot in my stomach that won't go away. I don't know whether it's about work, school, money or whatever. All of those things pose a little stress right now, but nothing is so dire that it should be hanging over me like this. Especially because I have all the time in the world to sort everything out right now.

But onto other things. Last night I went to the gym and twice experienced something that I have always noticed but maybe notice more in Paris. Probably because in Paris you spend so much time in full public and people are just everywhere. But it's this: men have Tourette's. Obviously it's not all of them but it's enough that I notice it rather regularly. Men just feel they have the right to make comments about women whenever they feel like it. It's one thing to stare, but it's another thing to blurt something out and make yourself look like a total douche. I never wrote this down here, but a couple weeks ago when I was with Lauren, we stopped to get her a crepe close to Chatelet. This drunk/high/medicated dude with a surprising amount of cash on him (which he dropped all over the floor), stumbled up to the stand and started expounding the virtues of a Greek sandwich to me. Whatever, I humored him. He noticed us speaking English and tried to tell us about how good his English was. Things were all fine and dandy until, in French, he started to ask me what we were going to do after we screwed (okay, he said "faire amour" but whatever). At first I thought I'd understood wrong until he started making gestures. So I said, rather calmly, "You speak English? Okay, fuck off."

Clearly that is an extreme example, but just last night at the gym I got two comments from men between the gym and the metro. The first was from some chav (I wish I knew a word to describe them in French -- I think "beauf" applies) who was like "C'est le soir du sport ou quoi?" I didn't say anything, but usually when I get comments from teenage boys late at night in that mall, I blurt out "fuck you" and they are thoroughly embarrassed at having offended this American girl. Anyway, I was going down the stairs in the metro when one of the guys tiling the wall elbowed his partner and told him to look at me. I walked right by them and just as I made eye contact and gave him my meanest scowl, he blurted out "trop belle." Seriously, dude. And it's not just dragueurs, either. The other night in the grocery store, some guy walked by me and remarked, "Quels longs cheveux." (Such long hair). He was old and clearly not hitting on me, but it was like, shut up! You're evolved enough to have inner monologue for a reason. If I ever have a son I'm going to teach him that it's inappropriate to make unsolicited comments to women, and only a dumb slut would respond in kind.

On another (and happier) topic entirely, Lauren and I booked plane tickets and hostel beds to Greece yesterday. We will fly to Crete, stay for a night, next night onto Santorini for two nights, then Ios for a night, then the last day and night will be spent doing cultural and historic things in Athens because it's mandatory. Crete, too, will be spent exploring Minoan ruins. In Santorini we will sip cocktails at the pool and lay on some volcanic black sand beaches. No joke, this 14 euro/night (for a private room) hostel has a pool and a deck. And in Ios we will get rip-roaring drunk and spend the next day nursing hangovers on the beach (apparently Ios is the Cancun/Daytona Beach of Greece). Somewhere in there I want to rent a Vespa and drive around an island -- we'll see if I'm up to it. And then an overnight ferry (*fingers crossed*) will take us to Athens and our hostel two minutes away from the Acropolis. I'm so glad that it's all booked, I can't even express. I actually got an email from the Santorini hostel last night telling us to give them our ferry times so they can pick us up and drop us off at the port. All that's left to do is check the ferry schedules every day so I can book that overnight ferry.

In addition, Matt emailed me yesterday to tell me that he'll be coming to Paris for a week at the end of his spring break, and that Joe will be showing up the last couple days. I am overjoyed 1) because they were both supposed to come for all of March for internships but couldn't work out the housing, and 2) my brother will be here that week so it'll be a big party. This semester is going to be so full of visits and travel, I'm almost worried about schoolwork. So far I think the only "project" I have will be an exposé in my French civilization. And I'm actually missing the last class of French history for Greece, but I don't believe there's a final in that class either. If there's a quiz that day, well, I'll figure something out.

In the mean time, I'm going to try to quell this pit in the bottom of my stomach.