anna rides a bike!

bonjour tout le monde. anna here. still in france. still alive. sort of. yesterday i bought a one day pass for the "velibs" and well... im still questioning why i have a pulse. basically, for those uncultured swines who dont already know, a "velib" is paris' answer to the question "how can we really piss off all the taxi and bus drivers in the city while systematically murdering innocent environmentally conscious civilians trying to get to work on time?". velib = velo+liberte=> in anglais==> bike+freedom==> ca veut dire: public transoportation on bikes. There are "velib stations" all over paris where u can go, swipe ur card, pick up a bike and ride it around for free for 30 minutes, at which time if u dont want to pay u just stop at the next velib station (which are literally on every other block)and switch bikes and get a new one. its actually a really cool idea... or so i thought until i actually tried one.



after class yesterday roberto said, o hey why dont we ride bikes, and i, anna, said "hellz yee". then we walked to the velib station.. all bikes were gone. walked to the enxt one... all bikes were taken out. walked back to the original and luckily there were two empty ones with our names on it. first problem.. the last person who rode mine was probably the world's tallest man because the seat was set to about 67 feet high in the air and then i lowered the seat but couldnt lock it soooo it was rotating the whole time i was on the bike... not very comfortable on the fanny and a serious safety hazard. but im thug so i sucked it up... but anyways, it also happened to be rush hour and like rats fleeing from a sinking ship every parisian in the entire city was scurrying to get home to their baguettes and red wine dinners and small french children named camille et thierry. anyways, to get to my house you have to cross this square called "la place de la concorde". sounds pretty oui? NON! pas jolie. its this giant black hole where there are no lanes drawn, no speed limits, cars coming from the right, the left, behind, up top, going every direction, buses cutting in front of bikes who are cutting off pedestrians who are jay-walking to begin with, giant flying taractal dinasaurs swooping in from above to pick up their prey (anna on velib), the flames of hell rising ominously from the ground... seriosuly though. dont let the ferris wheel fool u... this place is scary. particularly on a velib at rush hour. in fact i died. im not alive. im writing to u from heaven. o wait no i dont believe in that hell-heaven mumbo jumbo. im writing to u from some research laboratory in switzerland where the ambulance took my body after they found me lying prostate in the middle of la place de la concorde, flattened under the weight of bus number 24 heading towards Gare St Lazare, and my last dying words were "donate my body to science". then i died. and my corpse lead scientists to find the cure for cancer. all types of cancer: brain, breast, skin, etc. then i won the nobel peace prize. they took it away from al gore and gave it to me for being so generous with my remains.



so yeah, velib was scary but it didnt stop me from using it again this morning. i enjoy the near death experiences.. it makes me feel more alive. although later oon in the afternoon, i was crossing a street by sciences po and i saw a guy who had fallen off his bike (probably a velib.. those death traps) and there was blood gushing from his forehead and leaking all over the curb and there was a huge crowd of french people standing around him just watching his misery. i hate when people do that. maybe a couple people can stand around for good measure - those who are actually helping - but everyone else who just gawks and murmurs to their neighbors needs to go. granted, i stood there watching for a while too, but i was in the back of the crowd so dying concussion man couldnt see me, so its ok, right?



anyways, i cant wait to get my year long velib contract... i have to wait til my bank account is made first... yeah ive been waiting about 5 weeks now. im starting to think i will never have a bank account, which i would be fine with, but i cant subscribe to the death on wheels without one so alas, i wait.



other than that... had no class today. The teacher decided to be sick. he didnt show up last week either. people do that in france and it just flies. i think hes sick but i actually dont know.. i didnt understand that part of the email that well but i DID understand the part about having to MAKE UP the classes at a later date. boo.



so, without class i decided id catch up on some work i have due monday, since i wont be here this weekend to do it (belguimmmm heeelllzzz yeeee!! note to all waffles, french fries, chocolate and beer: be prepared to be consumed by yours truely). i really hope while im in brussels war will finally break out between the flemish and the frenchies. Since belgians are too pacifist for guns and tanks they would just throw waffles and shoot waterguns filled with beer and then french fries would fall from the sky like raindrops on roses and then everyone would ocme out into the streets and dance in all the waffle/beer/french fry ecstacy. but, i digress. belgium is this saturday and if i come back out of the treacherous war zone alive i will recount the trip to all those interested in hearing about my insuing glutany.

but, back to today: i had no class so i worked on my russian paper.. that class is so hard. too hard. i dont wanna talk about it but what i will say is that i will not pass my year in france because of my RUSSIAN class, of all ironies. whatevs, im over it. well, not really but maybe if i dont think about the class itll cease to exist.

after that i went to the seine to read this french book called "kiffe kiffe demain" which i bought today at fnac for 5 euros... what a bargain right? well, 5 x 1.4 exchange rate=not so much a bargain as i initially thought. but anyways, it was very parisienne of me and the book is really funny. like laugh out loud funny. def some rofl action. well not literally rolling on the floor cuz that would be kind of gross to do by the seine. although picturesque, the place is a little dirty. not in any conspicious sort of way.. theres no used condums/crack pipes/heroin syringes lying around... but dirty in the kind of way that when the breeze blows you get a nice healthy whiff of urine-smell. i dont mind the urine smell though cuz i like to think it keeps me grounded. it brings me back down to reality from my spoiled-american-girl- in-paris cloud that i have been sitting upon for the past 5 weeks. (wow i cant believe its been 5 weeks already.. o wait no, going on six weeks. YIKES my life is passing me by). I mean honestlyy, who do i think i am, free reading (yes, alysa, free read is a real term and all my new jersey peeps will appreciate its use) along the seine on a thursday afternoon with not a care in the world?? i deserve all the whiffs of pee-pee that come my way.

ok i have to go becayse its late and i am leaving for belgium in umm... 5 hours. (!!) but i will leave you all with one thing i like about france and one thing i dont like so much

like about france: mayonaise! they put it on everything and its so fucking good, o my goodness gracious its the best condiment in the world and if u dont think so then ur just plain wrong

dont like so much about france: no helmets. now, im not trying to be a nerdy nancy but i think that concussion man who lost 5 pints of blood from the forehead this afternoon would have seriously benefited from some helmet action. and secretly (uh oh secrets out!) i wish i had one to wear on the velibs because ive already falled off once ... thats another story for another day... and i caught myself before my skull smashed into the concrete but next time i may not be so lucky. french people should stop trying to be so cool and join the helmet crusade.