Coucou!

Because that's what all Frenchmen look like. They also can't stop leaning on columns. (Roomie is Very adamant about the fact that this charming monsieur doesn't look French in the slightest. I tried to tell her that not every Pierre wears designer outfits and carries baguettes, or is romance personified, but she refuses to listen, so help me out here. (Don't tell her that I don't view this fellow as particularly French  myself, let's all just exclaim what a formidable Jacques he makes.))

The pictorial update might come tomorrow, here's a short wrap up:

    ~Trip went well, for most parts

          + Paris was beautiful and the weather was mostly nice

          + The macarons, croissants, crepes and pains au chocolat were delicious

          + We found cheap wine and chocolate

          + The hotel room was pleasant enough

          - I got a cold right on the second day of the trip, yay!

          - Our second night at the hotel we didn't have any towels. The cleaner had apparently
           taken the old ones away and then there were no fresh ones to replace them with.. what a
           bummer.

          

 And the grande finale: The last night we came back to the hotel we were in a big need of a hot bath (the very bath we had planned taking the earlier night, but then we had no towels), it was a rainy day, we were soaked and tired and I still had a cold (still have, by the way). 

    But whoop-de-doo whadd'ya find? I saw the bathroom floor was wet, then Roomie discovered a wet towel under a leaky pipe. Guess which pipe it was? That's right, the hot water pipe, of course! It could have been fixed with a tool easy enough, so Roomie was kind enough to fetch the manager/receptionist/whoever. He was well prepared enough not to have a pair of pliers in the whole hotel, so his solution was to turn the little leaky valve in the other direction, shutting the hot water flow in our bathroom. Then he apologised, said that we can't use hot water tonight, that it would be repaired tomorrow, dried the floor and left. 

    At this point I fell into despair, because I was cold, tired and miserable and had a cold, but Roomie fixed everything and saved the day: she came up with the idea that we could just turn the valve back to it's leaky old self until we'd filled the tub, and then shut it again, and we did just that. A warm bath can make everything so much better! In defense of the manager/receptionist/whoever, he actually offered us another room, but that wasn't until we came back to the hotel after dinner, so we just smiled and said we wouldn't need one. His offer came a little too late.

Other current matters:

We haven't used our English phones in a couple of months so the SIM-cards have disconnected. It would've been nice if someone in the phone shop could have mentioned it to us foreign students who might not stay in the UK all year round anyway, but no. This probably also applies to you, Longhaired Roomie and Finnish Friend. So, you who are affected by this, prepare to recieve a new English phone number from me in the near future.