Today was icicles.

Blankets of powder. Snow salt sprinkled against my pepper black coat. I like snow, usually. But today I'd had enough. Snow used to be winter wonderland. A rare meteorological blessing. Oh, special little snow bunny hearts and angels. Frolic in the pure white sparkly goodness. But it's different when you have to walk for an extended amount of time up in that stuff. And avoid slipping on those chic, narrow, stone-tiled European sidewalks and dodge frozen dog doo, which looks so much nastier sprinkled with snow. It looks obscene. Like a violation of nature. Like if Miss Havisham's molded, spiderwebby, decades-old wedding cake were topped with fresh buttercream icing. That's just wrong.

Today was midterms. Written comprehension—an article with the questions in order. Fantastic. Written production—write about whether you think the phenomenon of immigration will increase, decrease or stay the same. Fabulous. I did my presentation on immigration. But oral comprehension was a total catastrophe (it's pronounced caht-ah-STROHF in French, don't forget to pronounce the 'r' like you're hawking up a loogie), but at least it seemed to be for everyone involved. All I caught was something about some rivers and some salmon. Oh, and oral production . . . eh, not quite catastrophe, but close to it. It's kind of the luck of the draw. I happened to choose the subject of cyber-defamation. Okayyy . . . I mean it's a current topic, but hard to talk about in French. I did mention my blog, though. Hee, hee. J'ai un blog.

Scene: Girl, hurriedly running around trying to find R23 for her oral production exam finally finds the way after asking at the front desk. She ascends a flight of stairs, breathless, praying she isn't late. When she rounds the corner to climb the second flight, bam, there he is, sitting languidly and confidently at the top, the beautiful Colombian. He's unworried. He knows his French is perfect, his accent crisp, his speech fluid. He doesn't look as one would suppose a Colombian to look. His honey skinned face, very slightly dusted with freckles, sits beneath closely cropped, but still distinguishably curly, deep, golden, almost coppery blonde hair. His eyes are olive green and his smile is startlingly white. She's afraid to attempt Spanish, knowing she will embarrassingly mix it with francocisms, so she sticks with her halting French. They chat about the catastrophic oral comprehension. They both admit to making up answers.

Yesterday, I had coffee (okay, it was hot chocolate) with the young lady who found my wallet. At first I thought she was older because she left her card touting a massage business (meaning, apparently, that I equate business ownership with age), but it turns out that we're the same age and the business is more of a side job. I was calling her Madame over the phone and she was like, um, I think we're the same age.

I wanted to get her a little gift of appreciation, so I went to a chocolaterie recommended by my host mom (everyone likes chocolate, right?) and found myself in a chocolate dream land. I wanted to stay in there for the rest of my life. It was beautiful. There was every kind of chocolate imaginable to mankind in there. I finally settled on a little variety box. When I gave it to her, she was super excited and said it was the perfect gift because she absolutely LOVES chocolate. I'm glad she found my wallet because she turned out to be quite an interesting and friendly person. It's good for me to meet other native speakers around my age who I can talk with from time to time. I mean, I speak French every day, but the only native speakers I interact with regularly are my host mom and professors. We agreed to meet again next week when we both have a little more time to chat.

Here are some pics of my little international family. French host mom and Italian and Taiwanese sisters. I'm the American big sis. I really do feel like a big sis sometimes. Next week, after the Italian young lady leaves, there will be a few Japanese girls coming to stay just for 4 days. I'm in France, but getting a total international experience. Yay!