Saturday

I mainly puttered around the apartment, feeling almost domestic. My director came by with my gsm phone and I amused myself all afternoon by imputing everyone's contact information.

Remember in Sex and the City, when Carrie decided that she had learned enough French to brave a day of shopping in Paris? Well, I decided I was brave enough to brave a day of grocery shopping alone. Luckily, it was a beautiful day (so I couldn't slip on the floor) and there is a little grocery store at the corner of my street.

The staff must have thought I was handicapped. I alternated between huge smiles (a la "wow! I didn't know you could get this here!") to fear (when I realised that the standard English-French-Spanish-German-Portuguese-some Scandinavian language product information labels didn't exist). It's pretty bad when I have to rely on a language I have lived in for 2 days to make out ingredient lists and product guides. Here, I have the choice of Romanian-Bulgarian-Serbo-Croatian-Russian-Ukrainian-Hungarian-Lithuanian-Latvian-Estonian. Romanian is the most comprensible only because it's a Romance language.

You know that scene in Clerks where Dante and what's-his-name make fun of the milk maid? That's me. I was taking everything down, reading it carefully, turning it upside down. A sales associate asked if she could help me and I told her I didn't speak Romanian. After that, they left me alone to do my observing in peace.

I was psyched coming home. Until I realised I was locked out of my apartment. I still don't know how it happened. Apparently, the inside lock got turned. However, when that happens, usually you can't close the door properly. Oh well. I had a neighbour talk to my director and his wife had to come over and let me in. At least my yoghurt didn't spoil.

I bought 16 containers of yoghurt. Seven of which were Keffer. I love Keffer (Keffir). A container of it at home is almost $4.00. A container of it here is $0.40.

I called Delphine, the French intern, finally and we made arrangements to meet. She is working in a project to encourage Roma children to take part in sport. There are around 20 other interns from various European countries taking part.