Yesterday when I was in the kitchen drinking coffee from my bowl and reading my Paris autobiography, I heard a huge amount of almost torturous sounding meowing. It turned out Charlotte, the cat from next door, had wandered in the open terrace door. I was none too phased by this, as it had happened two times earlier in the week. I sat on my stool ignoring the ruckus, and suddenly I heard from the other room, "Bonjour Charlotte, ca va?", which prompted more meowing. After she finished meowing, my host mom replies (in French, of course) with "What does this mean, Charlotte?". This exchange went on about three more times until I heard them go out on the terrace together. It was pretty much the sweetest thing.

Yesterday, I also heard a not so sweet thing. After the meowing exchange ended, I heard an extremely violent fight occurring over my head, on the ninth floor. It was so bad that I thought someone was actually dying. I asked my host mom about it, and she told me that it is a couple in the middle of a divorce and that they have fought like that for three years. Apparently it is an African woman married to a Frenchman, who is trying to process their divorce in an African court, so that he gets everything. I read an article in the Economist about this some time before I left....they're trying to pass a law that forbids it, but I'm not so sure how it's progressing.

Today I walked past my host mom watching TV in the living room and went into the kitchen to make coffee and toast. A few minutes later she walked in and said (I thought) "I'm living with a little party". I got embarrassed and assumed it was a reference to my coming in at 2am last night. She started at me and said "You know what this means? (nodded my head) You walked passed me and I didn't even hear you". At this point I realized she said "I'm living with a little mouse" (souris) , rather than party (soiree). Ha.

This past week hasn't been too too exciting. I found some awesome vintage shoes for five euro. When the RER workers went on strike and I had to find an alternative way to school, the heels of my shoes sunk in the mud. I ate a lot of figs and sneaked some couscous into a bar for dinner. I saw some people act ridiculous. I was tired, all the time, as usual.