yesterday k. and i both had doctor appts. at the local hospital as part of our "carte de sejour" process. the french government wants to make sure no foreigners are carrying tuberculosis so we had to have our lungs x-ray'd and later got to keep our x-rays. it's rather cool seeing a photo of the inside of me: my lunges, heart, shoulder bones, boobs. i might put it up in the window.
the two of us met another assistant at the hospital: h. from los angeles. after the x-ray, we all had to give urine samples. no problem except we weren't peeing in huge american courtesy cups; on the contrary, we were given these tiny little test tube sized cylanders. mmmmm. fun.
god, tho, the hospital had a really creepy feel; it's so old (compared to the ones in the usa) and was just full of sick people... duh! i know, but the sickies were being wheeled about in front of everyone instead of discreetly hidden away like in the usa. it makes me wonder, do we deal with sickness and death in the usa, or do we just hide it, afraid it will remind us of our own mortality? i guess it was good for me to see sickies wheeled about; it kind of got me over my own fears.
after the appt. we all agreed to meet up for dinner, but h. had to go to french class so k. and i headed downtown to kill some time. she'd never been to sephora (hello!!!) so on the way there we stopped in h&m, a swell clothing store based in sweden with excellent threads for not too much money. we ran into e. and c. so we all hung out before dinner. i bought a cheap scarf to add to my collection and ate a pastry with apricots and cream cooked in. these are the moments i love france. dinner was at a chinese place i'd been to before; considering it was all nasty and rainy and cold out, the chinese food was wonderful. i'm happy to eat other food than french once in a while.
today i have two classes. it's raining out and wicked chilly. can't wait to get down to montpellier. i'm hoping for some sun.