So it's about 6pm here in Gay Paree, and in the fight to stay awake I've decided to cat-blog...putting everyone else to sleep.

After stumbling home last night in the drizzle and gloom from some pub in Montmatre or Pigalle or wherever-the-fuck, Boss-one and I averaged about three hours of sleep. Hole, on the other hand, slept soundly through the night. Hole also snores like a motherfucker. You do the math.

When not wandering the streets in a daze - being about as productive as FEMA, you can find us three in our giant shared room, no light except the warm din of our three repsective laptop monitors. Watch about 10 seconds of French television and you'll understand why.

Quick tangent: Have you seen this? They actually include the correct pronounciation for my last name...on the home page of CNN! ("KRON-kite") Rock on! Things are looking up - no more hospital waiting rooms where a nurse enters and calls for a patient named Horny Ray.

This morning we had our first global meeting, and on the Whelmed Scale I found myself more Under than Over. A writer from Jeune Afrique stopped by for a chat. I'm sure she had some very insightful things to share about reporting from Africa, but on three hours' sleep about the best you can do is sit looking interested while contemplating whether she's actually Hot or Not. (I gave her a 7.75)

This afternoon we managed some productivity, however, trekking alongside the Seine. Turns out the notorious French bureaucracy extends even to simple apartment key duplication. We went to a key-copying booth outside the Hotel de Ville, which informed us they could not duplicate our key...something about needing to bring in a paper from the key company authorizing the copy...it would take a week just to get the stupid form. Another booth told us the same thing, so the three of us are leashed together for the next two weeks.

I wish I were kidding. Of the little French I can pick up, none of it's been good...

We did learn two key words today to make life easier: A portez ("to go"), and "supermarche" ("supermarket"), which allowed me to finally piece together my triumphant sentence: "Il y a du supermarche ici, dans le Gare?"

("Is there a supermarket here in the train station? That is the rumor in our travels, for many people along our path have made that out to be the case. Please, do tell - we Americans are a curious, inquisitive people, despite our aggressive policies. In return, we shall sing tales of your generosity across land and sea.")

The lady at the info booth said many things in response, but I only understood "down and over there," as in, she was motioning "down and over there" the whole time she blabbed in French. I'm practically fluent, bitches.

Sometimes I find myself staring in awe at a French person for their capacity to speak...French. Imagine everyone on the Island of Cuba suffering a stroke at the same time and then speaking Spanish and boom: You've got French. Voozhevouzicommecicommecamaitenatmaisouisilvousplait?

By the way, did I get this wrong? Isn't London the gray-gloomy-rainy city while Paris is generally considered crisp and sunny and romantic?

Really? Are you sure?