Author: kyle

Now only a weekend and three glorious days separate me from separating with my job. This past two weeks has been the longest of my time here it seems. And that is saying something! It is funny all of the strange things we have missed over here. I for one cannot wait to get back to cheap material goods and souless gadgets! Over here, the comibnation of no money and a lack of a cheap-plastic-garbage electronics market means that we have missed an entire generation of cool toys. I can honestly say I never really overtly cared that much about any of this stuff before we came. But over here I have had a lot of fun dreaming up a great wired world for our next home. Satellite TV, digital video recorders, wireless internet access, and VoiceIP phone service. I can’t wait to get back and have fun with all of this stuff. It must sound really sick. Sorry! It’s just some kind of freak gen-x reaction! I don’t suppose we’ll have a lot of money to throw around when we get home anyway. But it’s been fun to distract myself. The MBA program I’m doing requires a notebook computer, so at least that part I’ll be able to indulge. Of course Sara will probably use it more than I do. This is the real secret: she’s the big computer/tech junkie! It’s true.

We are in the home stretch now. Just about through all of this. My eyes are on next Wednesday at 5:00pm. Then Freedom! I spoke with our landlord tonight (I just start up in English and don’t give him a choice) and let him know of all the problems we have been having. He seemed to lose interest after about the third bullet point, but at least he is aware of everything. I am pretty much resigned to the fact that many of these repairs will be coming out of our pocket. Did I mention how I can’t wait to get out of this place? Today the weather was sunny and warm while I walked to work, rainy and windy while I walked to work, and cloudy and cold while I walked home. Typically late March weather I guess. But they have at least turned the St. Michel fountain back on. It”s great! We are lucky to live next to that thing.

Also, Sara keeps telling me that everyone should leave comments on here. We would love to hear them. Just click on the “comments” link at the bottom of any journal entry and write something to let us know you were here. Thanks.

Tonight we spent half of our food money and went out to a movie. We saw In America, a story about an Irish family immigrating to the U.S. in the 1980’s. It was very good- we both really liked it. Very sad but hopeful enough as well. I don’t know if this had a big release in the U.S. or not, but it is certainly worth watching. We saw it in an old theater a block or two from our apartment. For once it wasn’t too crowded and we actually had enough leg room to be comfortable. Anyway, check out the movie if you can. It’s really windy here now, which makes it cold outside most of the time. We seem to have had every type of weather this month, and not much of it has been nice. Hopefully soon.

Well after a couple of days of sunshine it’s now back to clouds and rain. The weekend will be a nice break, and only a couple weeks are left of our daily grind. Feels like it will never get here. What a long year! Well, bon weekend.

An interesting read on French-American innovation can be found here. Did you know that Airbus is a French company? Also, the French outlook on our presidential election can be seen here. My favorite part: Mrs. Borde said the French see in Mr. Kerry the kind of leader they are more accustomed to. “He is the closest thing that you will have to a French politician, with a certain diplomacy, a certain elegance,” she said. How privileged we are! (note: I am very pro-Kerry but very anti-nonsensical vanity).

Well the luxury of hot water is no longer one that we can lay claim to. It’s been out for almost a week now, and so it’s a real joy to try and take a shower. We will have to call our landlord about this tonight, but unfortunately there are also about five other things broken in the apartment. So it could be a pretty long conversation. Among the highlights: Only one of our electrical outlets currently functions, so we can no longer cook food and be on the internet at the same time. In fact, we can’t do anything having to do with electricity while we cook food. The ceiling is starting to peel in the bathroom, much like what was happening to our wall when we first moved in. The end result of the wall being in this condition was that half of it fell off and the dry paint stained a lot of our clothing. The shower now pumps out about a fraction of the water it should. Instead of shutting off the flow of water to the bathtub, it does about half and half. So if you want to take a shower, you end up about ankle-deep in recycled water. Finally, the vacumm that we “found” downstairs decided to blow up the other night, and, had Sara not seen the large glowing light forming inside, probably would have taken off more than one of my limbs. But we do at least still have the burnt rubber smell to hang onto. There’s nothing the landlord can do about this one, but it might be fun to let him know about it. Well, that’s it for the weekly apartment update. Early bets are being taken for the next catastrophe; so far the heater going out is at 5:1 odds.

We are both very glad that the weekend is finally here. Sara’s new job has been tiring her out and mine never seems to get any easier, so we are both going to enjoy the rest and time to sleep in. Hopefully the weather will get a little bit better at least. Today it was not only cold but pouring down rain. If that keeps up, it might be a long indoor weekend of online CSPAN viewing for us. Everyone think sun! We are working hard on grad schools for Sara next year. We have some leads that look promising. After I got some good news this week, we are hoping that we can both get through next year without going into too much debt. It’s very exciting even thinking about being home again. Neither of us can wait.

Good news is on the way! It’s still colder than heck here though. This makes our trip to Stockholm look like paradise. Punishing cold it is. Oh well, less than three weeks left of work now. I’m looking forward to doing nothing from April 1 to April 8 when my parents arrive. Nothing includes not going to work. Yeah! Well, like I said, good news to come.