“I’m not kidding! Today an older woman actually jumped back and put up her umbrella to ward me off. I was just being friendly.” Not being raised in a barn, I tended to nod and smile at anyone whose path I crossed. This provoked surprisingly panicked reactions in Parisians, as if they thought I was insane.

On the other end of the line came lots of choking sounds, as if my sister were coughing up a hairball. This is possible. She has lots of long curly blond hair, and when we were little one of our brother’s friends mistook her for a poodle. Really. I wouldn’t mention it, but she was mocking my pain. “Sorry,” she said, finally spitting out the fur. “I really shouldn’t talk to you while I’m eating. Any other woes you want to tell me about today besides terrifying old ladies?”

I pulled the phone far enough away from my ear to glare at it, my phone card clicked down to its last unit, and we lost the connection. I stepped out of the phone booth, past a waiting fellow student who gave me an intolerant look for talking so long, and looked around at the Cité U, my home sweet home. The Cité Universitaire is a giant collection of student dorms on the south side of Paris, across from the Parc Montsouris, the only park in all of Paris that rambles instead of following classical geometry. Evening was settling in, and students traipsed to and from their various houses and the main building, where our student status qualified us to eat very bad food for very little money. I had a credit card and planned to win the lottery in a few years to pay it off, so I didn’t take advantage of this privilege nearly as much as I should have.