You know what's weird here, is that while everyone else is complaining about how this is different from how things would be in America, I'm always thinking to myself how different it is from Japan. I only ever compare stuff here to Japan, it seems, and I'm not really homesick to be home in the U.S.; if I get that longing feeling it's more like I kinda want to be back in Japan! People complain about taking the train and I'm like "So what?" but lament to myself how dirty it is and how there are no bathrooms, like a NORMAL train station would have. Or I'll learn a new French word/phrase and think "Oh, so that's the equivalent of [Japanese phrase]" and write that down in my notes. It really does feel sometimes like I'm a Japanese person here. It's so weird. And cool. And weird again. I mean, I did have less than a month to adjust to America again, it makes sense and all. It's just very strange...

Last night was fun. Some cousin of Jack's host dad guy had his 21st birthday party at the COOL MULTI-STORY HOUSE Jack lives in, so we fiiiinally got to meet and talk to some French people our own age. There were also crepes because it was la Chandeleur (Candlemas, or, as it has evolved in the U.S., Groundhog Day), which = awesome. According to tradition, you're only supposed to eat the crepes after 8 p.m.; I just love that there's a holiday in France centered around crepes (why not?!). So we just hung out at his house, talking to each other and sometimes to the French people, taking over DJing duty because French people have bad taste in music, etc etc. Then we all stayed over there so we didn't have to mess with taking the last Métro. Very fun! Mm, crepes holiday.