Paris Cell Phones

Amazingly, a day after ordering it, Kara's SIM card from B&You came in the mail, so we can finally stop living in the 90's, and can text each other on the go. Having a smart phone with an Internet connection has already made walking around so much easier since I can now bring up Google Maps (for some reason the map caching feature wasn't working at all on my US phone). I took advantage of it by wandering around our neighborhood tonight to look for some à emporter (to-go), and found some delicious panini.

One of the things I didn't really realize would change by living in France: Twitter and Youtube give me ads in French now. I mean it makes sense, it's just not one of those things I expected.

The guy at the grocery store today had a whole conversation with me in French without me saying a word.  I wonder if he knew I didn't speak French? I just let him keep talking, he seemed excited to have someone listen. It reminded me of my experiences in Tokyo where they would do the same thing, and say WAY more than the transaction required and I'd just smile and nod.

Speaking of groceries, Kara keeps wondering why French yogurt is so much better than anything we can get in the US. It really is quite spectacular. Considering we live in a flat world nowdays, it makes me wonder too. This is a missed opportunity! 

Also I figured out how get my phone to work properly in French. I wanted to have my phone language settings set to French to help me practice and learn vocabulary (you quickly learn that "annuler" means "cancel" and "rechercher" is "search" for example). The problem is that when I typed text message or emails, it auto-corrected to a random French word instead of what I'm actually trying to type in English. But after some Googling I found the solution and now all is good in the world. 

I have to say, I never imagined I would ever learn French. I thought Spanish would be my (very poorly spoken) second language, but alas I already speak, read, and write French WAY better than I do Spanish, even with the 3 years I studied it in school. It does help that at least for reading it, French is way easier than Spanish too. 
  
The first photos are finally uploaded as well. Check them out!