Target me manque

Well today was my first complete day in Paris! I slept very very well last night after hardly sleeping at all the night before on the plane. When I woke up I was dreading going out and speaking french for some reason, but after I laid in bed for a while my hunger got the better of me and I went out to find breakfast and got over my temporary fear of speaking French. After breakfast I went out to do some shopping, my host mom had given me some recommendations and directions to l'Arc de Triomphe which is only about a 10 min walk from the apartment. I decided that the shopping could wait and walked over to l'arc. In that 10 min walk I went from a normal Parisian feel to a completely tourist feel, which wasn't all bad but I definatly liked the feeling of Paris without the tourists. It was quite exciting to be able to walk around Paris and take things in without having to worry about making sure that I cram everything into a short vacation. I ended up walking aimlessly down les champs-elysees until I bought a map. I then was very tempted to walk over to either the Louvre or the Eiffle Tower, both of which were about 20-30 mins from where I was. I ended up just finding a bench on les champs-elysees and people watching which was very facinating. I decided to leave the major tourist attractions to this weekend when I have more time and don't have to worry about getting my shopping done. I had a very good lunch in a little sandwich shop, it was a great deal actually everything else around was advertising lunch for about 15 euros ( about $22) and this place had a sandwich + drink + dessert deal for only 8.50 euros so I was happy. As I walked back to the appartment after lunch I went to the streets that my host-mom had recomended for me. I guess I should have told her more explicetly what I was looking for because everything seemed to be food and shoe stores which is great, but not exactly what I needed. After several unsuccessful stops I started to miss target very very much, all the stores that looked promising that I went into seemed to have only shampoo and maybe really expensive soap but none had conditioner, nailpolish remover, or hair blowdriers. I was shocked with the ration of shampoo to conditioner and I guess maybe the french are really into shampoo....in any case I finally asked a lady who worked in one of the shops if they sold conditioner, she looked at me like I was crazy and said yes. Than she asked what kind of hair I have to which I replied....uh normal hair? Apparently there are different types. Anyways long story short it turns out that they had about 50 types of shampoo and only one type of conditioner so I bought that. The toiletries were rediculously expensive and I definatly wish that I had just brought them from home but c'est la vie. When I arrived home I realized I had absolutly nothing to do. I was hesetent to head back out since I had just gotten in and my feat hurt a little so I just hung out at home until the kids got back from school. The 11 year old boy got back first and he chatted with me for a bit and than invited me to play a game of darts with him. Having never played darts before I decided to try it. After getting a bullseye on my second throw I proceded to suck the rest of the 3 games that we played so that he won all of them except the first. He was very nice though, and just came in to give me a kiss goodnight which was very sweet. At dinner the girl (who is studying english at school) had a fun time asking me words in english and than asking how to spell them and how to use them, which I thought was really funny. Her favorites were "awesome" and "freaking cool". It was a little bit reassuring to see that her and her parents also struggle a bit with english and it reminded me that I am trying to speak a foreign language and that it is difficult for (almost) everyone. Well tomorrow is my first day of actual IES programs. My host-mom showed me a great web site that shows you the fastest way to get somewhere using the metro so that helped me plan my commute. I have no idea what I am doing for orientation, but hopefully it will be fun! At the very least it will be nice to meat the other students. A bientot!