Sliding unobserved into my first class of the day, I flick a glance at my instructor. Unsteadily standing at the front of the class, she bears an expression of sheer bewilderment; she does not know why swarms of morose adolescents are approaching her classroom. Anxiously drumming the sole of her loafers on the tattered linoleum, she observes pupils filing into their desks, and plans to pull out another of her infamously tiresome lessons. As the room quiets, a thickness of boredom oozes into my thoughts. She begins her predictable droning lesson of seemingly pointless and vague topics.

Once she dispenses today's assignment, I pull out a worn, dull-tipped pencil and begin, hoping I can plow through the heap of tedious worksheets before the hours end. She peers over students' shoulders, curtly pointing out every detail we may have missed. Worse yet, she reads over our shoulders, remaining in one spot for an awkwardly long time. Waddling to my desk, she launches into the project of reading my work. After a moment's silence, her tongue starts to cluck. The pure aggravation of its sound causes me to lose my concentration; I stop my work. Annoyed, she spits out a gurgle, a sort of command to remain on task. Yet she ignores the gang of disorderly students slapping each other with the school's meter sticks. Moments later, realizing that she cannot think of anything to do, she moves to her desk clutching a mound of papers and begins idly shuffling, re-shuffling, and re-arranging what she has done, only to start this process over on a different pack of papers.

Resuming her cycle through the classroom, she seeks to be sure that she has given us all the correct answers to her day's task. She has become aware that if she does not bluntly tell us the answers, by the end of the year the school board will have noticed the extensive flow of abysmal grades in her class and finally realize that she cannot teach. My fellow classmates and I have become increasingly impatient with the final elastic minutes of class time; we anticipate the plastic tentacles of the clock ticking lethargically to their final destination. The ring of the bell shoots through our skulls, declaring our freedom from the teacher's classroom. As I exit, I notice her visage in an identical expression to the one she sported when we first entered her class. She sways, waiting for her next mob of scholars.

"Boulangerie, Patisserie, Boucherie, Fromagerie. Where do I go to buy my food?" This was one of my first questions when I arrived in Paris. My family and I would go out to the market street, which was very near our apartment, to buy food for that nights� dinner. Unlike in the United States, we would have to go to three or more different little shops to buy everything we needed. Shopping for everyday necessaries was almost a full day job that needed future planning. Not only was the shopping time consuming, but the walk to and from took fifteen to twenty minutes each way. After about a week of living in Paris, my mother�s arms were killing her from carrying the bags of groceries home, so she did what every other Parisian did: she bought a little roller bag created for carrying the bags of food.

Many people have heard that Parisians are not the friendliest people to try to get to know, so my mother and I made a promise to each other that we would get the ornery little man at the Fromagerie to smile at us. Every week we would walk into the cheese shop hoping for at least a small grin, but every week it was the same frown. My mom tried talking to him to see if that would put him in a better mood, but it never really worked. One day, after about six months of returning to the same Fromagerie, we finally made the little man smile at us. We had walked into the shop, with no hope in sight of a smile. The thick aroma of cheese filled the air; everyone inside was quiet to the point where it seemed creepy, but outside there was a different feeling. Children ran and laughed as their parents shopped. The walls of the store were covered in shelves that had nothing but rows and rows of cheese. The man was standing at the back of store, waiting for us to make our choice, but my mom wasn�t sure which cheese she wanted. After some time I talked my mom into buying goat cheese, which is my absolute favorite. We told the man which cheese we had chosen, so that he could cut it, and out came a smile. At that point though, we weren�t trying to make him smile, it just happened. It might be the fact that he had finally become used us going in everyday, but we are not completely sure. We had fulfilled our mission!

The French have to be the best bread makers in the world. A huge hit in our family was the baguette at dinner, and we tried every Boulangerie in the area to test who made the best one. Finally, we found it; it was called BE, which stood for Boulangerie et Epicerie. On the days that I had soccer practice after school my grandfather would give me one Euro to buy a baguette on my way home. I was always so tempted to take a bite out of it while walking down the street, because it was always fresh right out of the oven, but I knew that I should not unless I had permission. A few times I was allowed to and it made me feel extremely French. If one were to stroll along the streets of Paris before dinner, you would see many Parisians with baguettes in their hands. One picture that stands out in my mind was when I saw a little boy running down the street with a baguette that was almost as tall as he was. Little memories such as these remind me of how much I enjoyed the different life styles of Paris.

Though shopping was a tedious task, it was well worth the experience. The food in Paris was fresh and every dessert was delicious because each store had its own specialty. Just the memory of a whole street being dedicated to nothing but food is something that still baffles me.