Paris and Toulouse

Well, Paris was fun. Staying at St Christophers was good but not as good as I expected. I figured I would meet tons of people and go out and party and enjoy the city. Negative. None of that happened. I met a few people, but they were generally lame. Then, no one wanted to do anything. So, I wasn't ready for that so I went out on my own. It was probably a good things because I had to get so many things done....which brings me to the stories.

First things first. I had to get a cellphone. The bad news is that I never ended up with a service provider. The good news is that I went around Paris to about 10 different places dealing with 100s of different French people trying to get them to unlock my iPhone. Supposedly, at Apples word, if you move to Europe and you exited your ATT contract correctly, they will unlock you phone. Well 1000 new vocab words later, I found out it is either not true of 100% of Parisian operators do not know about it. I was infuriated. I went to the Apple store and stood my ground as best as possible with my level of French. They were not having it. Until, that is, I met this girl behind their version of "geek squad" counter (Genius Bar). After a few bats of my eyelashes and a good white smile she asked me "you phone is having problems with its sound isn't it?" Uhhhhhhh, yes? Okay well great I can just exchange it for a brand new FRENCH iPhone. HAHAHAH FREE IPHONE TIME! Yeah, that is that story. Unfortunately, you cannot have a phone without a bank card. That leads me to my next story...

I went to different banks to get an account set up. I am pretty indifferent between each one since they are all the same, or so I thought. Finally I went to Societe Generale. They are awesome. They helped me every step of the way and since I am American they even let me get away without using a French Address. That is cool. Also since I am a ScPo student, I get 90 Euros in my account for free. Beat that. I know what you are thinking, I should have a card for a phone now. Well, I dont and since I can only pick the card up in Paris, I might not have one all summer. Which means no phone all summer. Which also means no music because until it is activated, you cannot use any features. LAME

That is pretty much if for Paris. I am in Toulouse now. I havent seen much so I cannot report much yet except it doesnt seem terribly exciting. The buildings are all pink, too, Yovan was right. Funny place, Toulouse.