I have a sister, her name is Amy, and she would like for me to talk about her.

proof.

After all, she's part of the family, too.

We did not get along as children, and now dealing with two children who often don't get along, I have a bit more sympathy for our parents.  I also tend to side with the younger of the two children and attribute most of their fights to her older brother being obnoxious, but I have a feeling she'd have a different perspective.  She is also apparently wearing the clothes I left back home, to the rest of you: please make sure she takes care of them.

Amy: Thank you for commenting on my legs, for the first time since I've been here I think I'm losing weight (mostly due to brokeness I think) so it's good that someone else noticed too.  And if we did go to Mr. Dunderbak's, we would probably again be the hottest sisters in there (duh).  I kept the trench but it's in the wash because I spilled ketchup on it; looks great with my new boots :)

Anyway, for the rest of everything, I've been slacking a bit on posting photos but I've had a good weekend, high number of posts tends to correspond with boredom and therefore bored eating so I see it as a good thing that it's been 4 days.

Day 35: Amurica.

 In yet another food-related picture (eating is one of the highlights of my days, could you tell?) I took a break from my exploration of cheap French food to indulge in an all-American classic.  The hotdogs here are AMAZING, or maybe they taste the same and I am just remembering them nostalgically.  They only have dijon mustard here though so I skipped that part.  The bread was so-so, which is a little disappointing but they were prepackaged supermarket buns, not bakery buns or anything (I don't think they have those).  Just for reference, French hot dogs look like this and are affectionately called "le hot dog," so it was nice to see something a bit more familiar/appetizing.  And apparently, for your edification and delight, the Swiss have a French Hot Dog that is apparently just a hot dog stuffed into French bread.  These people are destroying classics...but we do it to their food with French Fries and French Toast so I guess they owe us one.

Friday night Alex and Kristin and Claudia and I tried and failed to go to a new bar, but we did discover Rue Mouffetard with Matty and Emma and some others, it's pretty much a street with a lot of bars and drunk-food vendors.  Sounds like my kind of place, I'll have to head back there sometime that's not so close to everything closing.

Day 36: boots

So as I mentioned, I kept the trench, and it looks great with my new boots that were 150 euros but on sale for 60 (God bless les soldes).  But could I stop there?  No, of course not.  I had to take a trip into Zara on my way home where I found this dress that I had wanted online.  And I had to try it on.  And I had to love it and spend 50 more euros on it.  On the bright side, though, I got 35 back from H&M when I returned the white dress and belt there.  So it wasn't so bad.  And the dress is really sexy.  So despite the fact that I'll probably be eating less fabulous French food and a lot more hot dogs in the coming weeks, and foresee some rather antisocial evenings in the near future, I feel like it was a pretty good investment.  I'll keep telling myself that.

Day 37: the people who enable my alcohol-related spending habit.

Sunday was Superbowl Sunday, so where else would an American expat in Paris spend the evening (and by evening I mean middle of the night, when the game aired here) than the official Packers bar of Paris, the one and only Wide Open Spaces of which I am a frequent patron.  Somehow the French owner Pierre (left) developed a healthy mancrush on American football, more specifically the Green Bay Packers.  Matty (right) who also likes American football knows who signs his paychecks and therefore supports the Packers as well.  Needless to say it was a pretty good night for Packers fans, started out wayyy too crowded to be comfortable but it thinned out by the end of the game (4 am-ish, so of course it cleared out after all the sensible people went home to bed and left us whack jobs).  It was another classic night of staying out too late and probably drinking a little too much, but honestly, despite the slight tinge of moral and health-related guilt, I have a feeling these will be the nights I'll remember most fondly and the people I'll miss the most.  Worth it; I won't be able to do this forever.

Day 38: my lucky day

So just as I was waking up (around 3 pm) and walking to work disgruntled about being tired and late and spending far too much money on clothes and drinks and considering being more responsible in the future and thinking I was going to have to go on the too-broke-to-buy-food diet (admittedly the only one that works), I looked down on the sidewalk and found a crumpled and almost-unrecognizable 50 euro note ("50 euro bill" sounds weird to me so I adopted Leanne's vernacular for that one).  Seriously.  That's not one of those lines people give to make their stories sound more exciting than they really are.  The anti-anorexia gods were smiling down on me today and blessed me with some grocery money for next week when the family is on vacation and I don't get my nightly dinner (even when it consists of scrambled eggs and/or ham cold cuts, and plain penne pasta with no sauce...crazy people).  Thank you anti-anorexia gods...that would not be a good look for me.

Well, I have a rule that whenever anorexia gods enter the picture it's time to wrap it up.  I'm also hungry.  I would make a horrible anorexic anyway.