Europe Day 50: Home-ish

One of the things everybody loves about being home is the feeling of familiarity.  You know where your favorite restaurants are, the best ice cream, and the most ideal place to spend an evening.  It only takes a moment to settle in and feel perfectly aquainted with your surroundings once more.  Returning to Paris this morning felt very much like that.

I do not actually like the FIAP so much, with it's uncomfortable lobby furniture and impossible children who push all of the elevator buttons, but I happily joined the applause celebrating our return when that boring building in an odd part of town could be seen down the road.  We have been here before, we know the layout and already understand how everything works.  It is almost like coming home.

Our rooms were not quite ready for us, so Kayla, Josh and I went for lunch while we waited.  Just around the corner we found a kebab place.  Cheap, good food with fries and a drink.  Perhaps not the most healthy, but wonderful none the less.  We finished just as it was time to get our rooms, and happily returned to settle in. The hotel is completely full, so our rooms are scattered across several floors.  Kayla and I are roommates again, and we spent the afternoon unpacking in the provided waredrobes and working on homework.  We will be here for almost two weeks, so we prepared for the long haul.

Dinner consisted of mushy vegetables, very salty ham, and rice that wasn't quite cooked all the way.  Yep, cafeteria food.  While we are here, we get breakfast and either lunch or dinner. It was less than satisfying.  I thought I was getting tired of eating out every night, but I would go back to that in a heartbeat than continue to consume less than appealing FIAP food.

After eating my sort of good meal with Melissa, I got ready to see Pirates of the Carribean 4 "Stranger Tides."  Josh, Casey, Michael, Tyler, Kayla, Ashely, Rachel T., and I rode the surprisingly empty metro to a part of town I was unfamiliar with. We stood in line, anxiously watching the number of available spots shrink seat by seat. Luckily, we managed to get the last few places available.  Even better, the front few rows were still open and we all sat in one long line. The French know how to make their theaters-even in the third row, I did not have to uncomfortably crane my neck to see the screen and everything was squishy.  The seat back, the seat bottom, even the arm rests, wide enough for two elbows to rest, had a three inch layer of padding.  It was fantastic!  The movie was in English with French subtitles.  It was fun to watch with a French audience.  Some times the entire theater erupted with laughter, while other times only our row of Americans caught the pun.  Even though it started poorly, by the end of the movie I felt better educated in Pirate lore and was satisfied with the movie.

I felt like a rogue on the metro ride back.  But, this is France, and acting out like a pirate would have been unacceptable.  So, I sat politely in my seat and discreetly played the movie score with my air violin.  The music continued to roll through my brain as I got ready for bed and finally went to sleep.