about day six....

SO I MISSED A BIG PART OF DAY SIX: before class sami and I are having a meeting with our landlord to draw up the contract. After much confusion as to where exactly we were meeting, Samantha and I finally sit down with M. Aimard at the Grand Hotel. Which was hysterical for sami and I because we were just at that hotel a month earlier for the gala. And it was nothing but debauchery then. Pushing and shoving to get in, more shoving to check coats. Drunkenness, and when it was all said and done, a lot of passed out French kids. All over the fancy hotel reception. This time around it was nothing but class. Minus the fact that Samantha and I are carrying our very large bags with all of our clothes that we’re living off of with us. c’est la classe. In any case, we show up to the meeting and make up the contract. And then when he hands us the contract he says okay, so the money. Samantha and I look at each other. And then back at philer. (NOTE: at this point he is asking us for 9000euros, or $12,000 in cash.) We explain to him that we didn’t know we needed to get the cash. To which he replies that if we don’t have the cash, then he can’t give us the contract. He was also a bit angry at this point because we had misunderstood. In any case, we reschedule a meeting for the following night, and say goodbye. This means that Samantha and I have to come up with 12,000 dollars in one night. And day. And to top it off, it’s martin luther king jr. day in the US. So naturally, all banks are closed. Great fun for us. after calling back home and figuring some things out, I decide that I’m going to just do a money transfer. Samantha on the other hand is going to try to get cash from her relatives since he wanted it all in cash anyway. Also, the banks here don’t let you pull that much money out at one time. You need to give them a 36 hour notice before you do that. We didn’t have that kind of time. Regardless, here is where our night with the boys starts. (the other day six entry) now onto the eventful day 7…

clarification of big spoon and little spoon...

so, it came to my attention after i posted the blog, that some of you may be unaware of what big spoon and little spoon are. here is the dictionary definition according to urban dictionary:


1. big spoon little spoon

When spooning; the spooner on the outside with there back being untouched is known as the "big spoon" usually this person is bigger...The spooner on the inside with their stomach being untouched is the "little spoon" usually this person is smaller in some way.

clear? i hope so.

day six : chez nacho.

DAY SIX: we wake up with good spirits and head off to our first day of class. This is sami’s first day of French class at all, because she didn’t have any French classes last semester. She was a bit nervous, super cute. in any case the class goes off without any issues, so we decide to celebrate by heading down to the school bar! We have a few cheap beers. Love the school bar and its cheapness. Then we get a message from our friends that says, hey, want to come get dinner with us. sami and i agree that that sounds like a brilliant idea. So we wait for them, then head off to find something to eat. And of all the places that we could go in this wonderful city, we go to macdonalds. Sami and I sit and watch the boys eat (neither of us were in the mood for macdo) and the boys and us wind up talking for about 2.5 hours. Ridiculous. All the while sitting in mcdonalds. After that, we get on the metro and sami and I mention that we need to go back to the banlieue still tonight, and one of the boys we were with throws a fit. Tells us we can’t and in his words exactly, ‘IF YOU GO HOME LIKE THIS, YOU WILL BE RAPED OR ROBBED.’ etc. etc. super sweet and cute. so sami and I, after much debate, decide to stay the night in paris at our friend’s house, Nacho. So in any case, we head back to Nacho’s to drop our stuff off, and we decide that since we’re staying in paris and we don’t have class until 130 the next afternoon we may as well go out and celebrate! Clearly. So we change clothes, and head out on the town. Making a stop at our friend Omar’s house so he can change too. After much hilarity on behalf of cultural miscommunications we were finally off to the bars. After a few drinks, it was back to nacho’s house for the big sleepover!!! Samantha, me, Nacho, and our other friend Edu. So after sitting around and hanging out for a long time, it was finally time for bed. We pulled out the couch and all settled down to sleep. Sami and I sleeping normally on the bed with edu sleeping at our feet. (see diagram below)

So, now that you understand how things were laid out in the bed, you will understand our issues better. So sami and I weren’t really tired so we were doing what any normal girls to at a sleepover, goofing off, gossiping and giggling, and edu really wanted to sleep but we weren’t letting him. But that’s besides the point. Sami and I quieted down for a bit, and then all of a sudden we hear this rustling sound. So sami and I say, ‘Edu???’ and he says, ‘yes?’ ‘are you making that noise?’ ‘what noise, this noise?’ and he rustles his feet again. So we say, ‘yes, that noise! Edu are you moving your feet?’ and he says, yes, it relaxes me. just like a 6 year old little boy. Too cute. so after a bit of time, sami and I finally decided that we couldn’t handle edu sleeping at the foot of the bed anymore. Mostly I couldn’t handle it because I couldn’t stretch out at all. So after a tickle match between sami and I versus edu we tell him that he should move and come sleep in the middle so that way we could all stretch out. After some argument we finally succeed in making him move to the middle. All was fine and dandy and off to bed we went. Until sometime in the morning, or the middle of the night when I get hit repeatedly by edu. I roll over and say ‘what?’ ‘what do you want?’ and in response I get edu fanning himself and sort of grunting, in an attempt to tell me that he’s hot and needs the covers off. Since he woke me up I was a bit grumpy so I respond with a, ‘so take your pants and sweater off.’ He does and after a quick rustle of his feet he’s back to snoring the night away.

Oh! I forgot something. Big spoon and little spoon. Samantha and I were discussing big spoon and little spoon before we went to bed. Edu, being from spain, and Spanish being his native language, did not understand that. Our friend Ignacio, who’s house we were staying at attempts to explain it in Spanish, but edu is still a bit confused, so in order to clear up exactly the difference between big spoon and little spoon, Ignacio came out of his room and his bed, and decided to demonstrate to edu (using him as little spoon) just exactly what big spoon was.

day five. dear god, i have so much to update still...

DAY FIVE: So this day was mostly a lost day for us. The party from the night before ended at 5am, per a normal ESCP party, so it was down to the metro to wait for the first train to arrive. This is where we seem to make a lot of friends. 5 or 6am while waiting for the metro. At this point sami and I are in our, ‘hey do you need a roommate?’ phase, where we keep asking everyone whether or not they need a roommate, and if they do, if they want to live with us. tonight was no exception. While waiting for the train we meet these boys named Yoann and Jean, brothers in fact, and we get to talking to them. They seem nice enough, and we talked to them for about 45 minutes while we were waiting for the train. So we ask them if they would want to live with us, to which they both then began to fight about which one of them would be able to live with us. after about 10 minutes of argument they settled on a rotating schedule of week on and week off. Meaning: one of them would live with us for the week, and the next week the other one would come. Brilliant plan at 5am I tell you, brilliant plan.

In any case, we make it back to our current home – the hotel – and ask the deskman (the nice one) what time checkout was for the following afternoon. He says noon. It is currently 630 in the morning. so in response sami and I say, ‘can we have a wake up call at 1130 please?’ he laughs, and agrees. And it’s off to bed. We get the wake up call in the morning, and start rushing to get out of the room and shower in time. Still with no idea where we’re going. We get all ready, and packed and sami and I look at each other and say, I really don’t feel good…. Wanna just get another night? Yes, yes we did. So we head downstairs, tell the front desk person, and the cleaning ladies that there’s no need to clean the room, and head back to bed. 4pm rolls around and we decide we best be getting up for the day.

Sami’s cousin calls and we decide that we should move our luggage out of sami’s old apartment and into Tanti’s (sam’s cousin) house in the banlieue (the suburbs). So we head across town to go do that. The new girls in sam’s apartment open the door and proceed to give us a death stare. Like what the hell are you doing in my house again. SCARY. In a valiant attempt at gaining brownie points with the girl I tell her I think her shoes are cute. NOTE: They were not. And she was not amused in any case, so alas, no brownie points awarded this round. So sami and I quickly packed an overnight bag for the next night in the hotel, and then started to re-organize all of our stuff to pack up and take out to VAUJOURS. The new home of our luggage until we move into the apartment on the 2nd of feb. so we drag everything down and pile it all in the entrance to sami’s old apartment. And the amount of stuff we’ve managed to accumulate is just obscene… so in any case, tanti comes, and we pile everything into the car. It was like a real live jigsaw puzzle. Hilarious trying to watch tanti drive away with everything, and just enough space in the car for her to sit in the driver’s seat. Soo funny. So off she goes, and off we go to Royal Pereire to celebrate one more step on our ridiculous journey toward apartment living. After a few beers at our favorite haunt it was back to the hotel to go to bed at a reasonable hour for our first day of classes the next day.

below is a photo of where vaujours actually is. it's the little yellow part. paris is the white part in the middle. it's one hour outside of paris by metro. ew.