Leaving Paris

How quickly 3 weeks flew by!! I almost didn't notice it passing except for the buildup of sleep deprivation. Instead of taking the paris shuttle as I had done on my arrival, I took a private car driven by a Chinese student. They call themselves Ma yi ban jia which mean Ants Moving. It was far cheaper than the Paris shuttle and a regular taxi of course, and got me there in 25min (that would be in comparison to the 2hrs I spent in the paris shuttle). Plus, they were perfectly on time and because I had requested a receipt, they had one prepared to hand me upon arriving at the airport. The model of efficiency!! However, it seems that they only cater to the Chinese student population. I was introduced to them by the Chinese student who was in my lab in Paris. Apparently, they advertise on the Chinese student bulletin board in Paris. Of course, that means I'd have never found them myself, seeing as I would never have found the site and then never have been able to read it. I wonder if it is possible to book such a service for a non-Asian friend. I'm not sure how good their French is but every contact I had with them was in Chinese. There was a bit of a language barrier when they tried to ask me if the street I lived on was a rue (small street) or boulevard (big street). But of course, instead of pronouncing rue (roo) and boulevard (bu-le-var) in the French way, they said rui for rue. I had to ask them to repeat themselves 5 times before I understood the question. How was I supposed to know that rui = roo? Actually, the Chinese accent in French also has a problem with the letter R and seems to pronounce a H instead.

At the airport, I had a pain au chocolat and a decaf creme, for 6 euros!! What a rip off. But I guess they know that that Frenchies can't do without their morning coffee and croissant and the tourists are looking for that last French flavor.

I had to buy candy for my lab of course. Which was probably the 3 thing or so that I bought in all of Paris. Everyone kept insisting that I should go shopping since it was sales season in Paris and every store had a 20%-70% off sign on their window. However, even with all that, everything's still ridiculously expensive or at least not cheap when the dollar is in the gutters. If the dollar was still 1:1 with the euro, I probably would have bought out the entire perfume section of the duty free since there were some amazing deals. (aside on perfume – Essence de femme by Hugo Boss!)