- French people should never rap. Not in English, and especially not in French. French is a romance language. You can't be trying to cram a beautiful romance language into a gangsta rap song about b#tches n' ho'z. I've heard French rap blaring from tons of cars and it's silly.
- Somebody actually tried to steal my sandwich. Not my camera, not my money, not my passport....my sandwich. (I don't know why. Aside from the cheese, it wasn't that great.)
- It is possible to get lost even when travelling in a complete circle around the Arc de Triomphe. I won't name names. (Cough, cough...in my defense, the damn street signs here are impossible to read!!)
- Drunken young Frenchmen congregate around the Trocadero park on Saturday night. They like to grab random American girls, overpower us, kiss us on the cheek, and shout Obama's praises.
- I have an unhealthy obsession with photographing the Eiffel tower. Seriously, I need to stop.
Views from my hotel room:
Eiffel Tower at night
Eiffel Tower sparkling
In the shadow of a cool statue:
I'll upload some more pics when I get a chance. As you can see my camera sucks at night...it makes everything blurry...so I'll try to get some good daytime shots.
So I have to get this off my chest.
In one week I am going to Paris. (Paris, France...not Paris, Texas, you yokels).
This is great because I love Paris. It's my favorite city on earth except for Seattle and Rio. (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil...not Del Rio, Texas, you yokels.)
HOWEVER...
The Paris trip is also bad news because I'm a fatass.
It's true. All the running/biking/staring at my scale/hiking/walking hasn't lost me any calories and henceforth, it hasn't lost me any poundage. I'm WAY heavier than I would like to be, even though I feel like I'm in better shape than I have been in the past. I could lie and say that all the weight is from my incredible newfound muscles, but the sad truth is I haven't really gained much muscle mass. Plus, my pants are tight, and I don't think I can attribute THAT to a six-pack.
The last time I was in Paris I weighed about 20, 25 lbs less (see my "trying really hard to mock the French" pic below). And no, my eye doesn't really look like that. I was trying to wink for the camera. (French people wink and stuff.)
So...this is going to be a little hard for me. Paris is the city of fashion, the city of skinny snobby French people, and I worry that I'm going to stick out as a fat American everywhere I go. More importantly, I get to see Bas for the first time in months...and I'm at my least attractive.
To try to combat this, the past two weeks I've slashed my daily calorie intake to under 1200, and I've tried to walk 5 miles and run 2 miles at least every other day, as my tendon will cooperate. I thought this was going pretty well until I discovered I had only lost one pound.
So I am resigned to a fat fate. A faux-French fat fate. Which is why I stuffed myself on Chinese food tonight because I was at a giving-up point. I'm so frustrated that even though I'm working out and eating less, I'm not losing all the stress fat that's been piling up over the past year.
WHEN WILL I FINALLY BE A LEAN MEAN RUNNING MACHINE???
(You don't have to answer that. It was a rhetorical question. But if you have an answer, then I'd love to hear it. I will even give you one of my egg rolls if you have that answer.)