The 1st and the 11th of November are holidays in France. It means that I’ve been able to get out of one day of work and one of class. In addition, last week was the internship fair at school – and since I’ve been working at an internship I really enjoy since October…there was no need to go. So I’ve had a lot of down time to catch up on work, to run errands and (in theory at least) do some household chores.

Sadly – or maybe unsurprisingly for those who know me really well – the highlight of the past two long weekends has not been wild parties or grand adventures. The weather has been cold and very wet. And I’ve been feeling a bit poorly – leading me to be even more of a homebody.

But I did do a little shopping and spend a little money…on two small appliances. I bought a mini-four (basically a toaster oven with just oven capabilities) and a printer. Even I can admit its pathetic how truly excited I am about these purchases. In fact I would consider their purchase some of my November highlights. Like I said pathetic. Now I just need to go buy some baking dishes and cookie sheets.

In addition, one of my major errands was to France’s biggest mobile service providers, Orange, basically the French equivalent of AT&T (mobile, internet and TV). When I first was looking at cell service providers I decided to go with Free – it was about 10 euro a month cheaper and included unlimited talking, texting and internet. Supposedly, I should have been able to use my phone to call directly to the United States and I was also to have 3G connectivity for my smart phone. Neither of those things worked and there were massive delays in my service. The most memorable incident was receiving a text message about 12 hours after it was sent.

So last weekend I trekked downtown to the Orange store. And waited and waited and waited. (Two guesses as to what I’ve decided the theme of life in France is.) But I signed a contract for phone service and was able to save my number (so those of you have it can still call/text me no problems). After …you guessed it: three more days of waiting my service finally switched over. While my internet connection still doesn’t seem to be quite up to 3G standards – or maybe I’m just spoiled in the US –  I am now actually able to use my phone to access my email, Facebook and other important functions. And my texting/calling capabilities are now up to par! To be honest it feels like I have reentered the land of the living. So those with iPhones can send me iMessages from the US and we can chat or you can download WhatsApp to text with me over the interwebs!