Freewifi, the French take a page from American capitalism

So I have been up a creek the last few days do to my Internet connection at the hostel won't let my pad or phone connect to my email. Of course I can check Facebook, as I would honestly much rather not having access to that, but ce la vie. So when I saw freewifi pop up on my connections I was ecstatic! This is that amazing free wifi that I heard existed but had not found. Ha! Turns out that the companies name IS Freewifi, and it is in fact not gratuit.

So the hunt is still on for this gratuit public wifi, but I suspect I will be going to l'Orange again to see if I can buy a prepaid account to their wifi. But I'm being cheap because I have already blown through a fortune in setting up home here.

However there is a silver lining too this cloud, turns out that there is really good cell reception on the metro lines. I mean complete, no dropped calls, really really good reception. I am very impressed. Beats out the subway in NYC and Washington DC!

American in Paris, Part Un

Today is my first full day in Paris. Necessity calls for me to find a flat ASAP, as I am only in the hostel for 6 days.

So this morning I headed off to The American Church in Paris to check out their bulletin board which features ads for apartments. The board was kind of a bust, might have found a few on there, but I found one I considered more interesting, in Fusac, the English language paper in France. I am meeting the women to see her place in about 2 hours.

So since I hope to have my future home sewn up, I got on to the important things of people watching. Unlike the US where people keep to themselves almost to a fault, the French are rather social. Well, the men are anyway. I have had 4 different conversations with men in the last 24 hours, where all but 1 asked for my number and to take me out. The single one that didn't ask for my number happened to be going in a different direction from me, and I wasn't feeling so social, so I didn't stick around to make small talk. He approached me while we were walking in the metro tunnel, and started talking to me.

It's rather refreshing to be here where men actually act like me and approach women. So often the men of the US got it bred out of them to approach a women. Something about feminism and how women want to be equal. Well, I for one, kind of like it when a man wants to approach me and take me out. And apparently men in Paris like it too. Sweet!