Thursday, February 5, 2015

She's Finally Here!!!

Ewelina's hereeeeee!!!! I've been excited about her visit for months, but I didn't realize how much I missed her until I saw her face at the train station. I was ecstatic! 
A bit jet lagged, but alive and well
And we had what I took to be a good omen on the tram home: the shirtless dancing man. I've talked about him before, the man who regularly dances in the tram. He never has a shirt, always has a boom box in one hand and a bottle of some sort of alcohol in the other and he just...dances. I kid you not, that same morning I thought about him and I was hoping he would be there when Ewelina and I were on the tram. Most people say there is one real attraction in Gre: the Bastille. But I think there are two, the Bastille and the shirtless dancing man. 
The dancing man! Thanks Ewelina for snapping that photo
That same morning V. and P. left for Thailand, and I'm not going to lie, it's really, really nice having the place to ourselves.

After we got home, though, there were problems. I hadn't had time to go home after work that day, so I didn't have any dinner ready. I put on some water to boil pasta and left the kitchen to blow up the mattress, failed to blow up the mattress so Ewelina took over, then I went back into the kitchen and noticed that it smelled like gas, and there was no more flame under the pot. I tried to restart it. Nothing. I tried the other burners, nothing. The gas tank was empty. Literally the DAY my people leave, and the gas tank is empty. The problem: I didn't know where the gas tank was, I don't know where they keep their tools, and, oh yeah, I don't know how to change the kind of gas tank they have (psh, let's be honest here, I don't know how to change a gas tank at all). I was a bit desperate, so I went over to my neighbor and told him the situation (Hi, sorry to bother you, you don't really know me, but I live next to you and I need your help...please?). He came over and took one look at it, "hmm... I don't use this kind of gas tank, I'm not sure how it works." But the man tried...and tried and tried for nearly an hour. Nothing. There was one part on the old tank we had to remove, the part that connects to the hose, but we just couldn't get it undone. He called something like eight people, only two picked up, and none of them had gas tanks like that. FINALLY he went downstairs to get the other neighbor, and thankfully he actually had a clue what he was doing. But even then it took us another half hour or so. One part had gotten stuck in another part,but it was so tiny we didn't see it, then the thing kept coming loose so we couldn't put it in the other thing and so the whole thing didn't work and argh. In the meantime I had given up on feeding my friend real food like a good host and I ended up making an impromptu sandwich thing (at least there was a baguette and cheese...welcome to France). In the end we finally got it all put together. I was slightly (very) annoyed I hadn't been warned that the gas was low and that I wasn't told anything about how to change it. Not what I wanted to deal with after minimal sleep and a day of work and a new guest.  

After all that I finally managed to calm myself down and Ewelina and I talked for hours then watched some anime (that nerd). Finally she gave into her exhaustion and went to sleep. I, at this time, started feeling insanely tired. I quickly prepped myself for school the next day and went to sleep too. I felt my skin sort of start to hurt and when I was under my covers I was really cold but also kind of hot. Yeah, I was definitely getting sick. Honestly, putting yourself around kids all day is like licking a public toilet, you're bound to get sick. 

This morning I woke up and I felt like I had been run over by a truck. I slept in for 45 minutes then somehow managed to put clothes on and get to school. I went to my first class and the teacher started talking to me "Bonjour, ca va?" I told her "emm...non, pas trop." Je pense que je suis malade," and that I didn't think I could make it past lunch. She immediately told me to just go home, no biggie. I didn't argue. I came back and laid down, then took all my covers and plopped down on the living room floor next to Ewelina and we talked for a few hours. It is now... haha, geez, it's nearly 1:30 pm and I have done next to nothing. I just hope I get better before our trip to Spain. 

But worries aside, I think February is going to be awesome :) A bunch of people half-jokingly said they wanted to come visit me when they heard I was going back to France, which irritated me because I knew they would never actually buy the ticket and come. I'm really, really glad Ewelina did. 

Good snowy morning. View outside my window. 

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