Oh Tuesday. So full of potential thwarted by rain. But it’s okay. I made my way out of the house pretty early so that I could get a French sim card for my phone. I got to the Orange store closest to my place just before they opened at 10, so I took another lap around the block. That’s when it started raining. I feared for my afternoon plans to wander the Latin Quarter before going to work, but it was only a light rain…
There were two people in line ahead of me when i got back to the Orange store. The older lady had a bag filled with something that smelled all at once fresh baked, meaty and TOTALLY delicious. It was hard not to club her like a baby seal, steal her bag, and run off into the night… but since it wasn’t night, I didn’t do that.
When it was finally my turn, the gentleman at the counter explained that his store was too small to deal with sim cards, and directed me to the Orange store on rue Rivoli, at number 43. So I headed back out into the (now signigicantly more daunting) rain in search of N° 43 rue Rivoli.
You would think this wouldn’t be all that difficult. I walked down rue de Temple until I hit rue Rivoli. The building I was next to said N° 62. So I went left, since that was the way the numbers decreased. But when I got to N° 42 and crossed the street, I was in front of N° 19. Muh? So I turned around and walked BACK the way I came, passed the place I started, and went just as far in the opposite direction until I got to N° 43, which was across from N° 80something. No cross street synchronicity with numbers. WHO KNEW?!?!
The young lady at the new Orange store hooked me up with a new sim card tout suite, and I was on my way with a new phone number and €14,90 less in my wallet. That would keep my phone active for a week. Once it expires, I can recharge it at will (supposedly).
By this point, the rain was pretty much telling me “You’re going home to start work early today.” Which is what I did. But not before stumbling upon la place Igor Stravinsky next to the Pompidou Center and the Cloister of St. Mary’s, where I took a handful of photos, which I present to you here.
I stopped at the felafel place on the corner before heading back to the apartment and spending the rest of the day video editing. I actually ended up working from about 2:00 till about 11:30. But I got a lot done!