Laundry Day

Currently (when I wrote this anyway), I am sitting on the floor of our laundry room, which in the somewhat eerie basement of the FBL. It's not quite like Walsh Hall where you can leave items of clothing drying for a week and know they'll still be there (or at least just be in the donation bin if SJ's been through recently), so I'm sitting down here while my clothes wash and taking the opportunity to do some handwritten blogging.

I have some company - Jim happened to be down here too - he's enjoying the riveting read of Strunk & White (mostly because he left his novel in my purse - that's what you get for having other people lug your stuff around for you. A related side note for guys studying abroad - get over yourselves and just invest in the man purse. You'll be so much happier and you'll blend in better.) There's another guy down here too - probably just a few years older than us - I call him "the Whistler." He lives on my floor you see, and is always whistling. At an impressively loud volume, I might add.. His generally cheerful a nature is also demonstrated by his regularly flamboyant choice of pants. Today, he's sporting Hawaiian swimtrunks, which I'll led slide given that it's clearly his laundry day. However, I can find no excuse for the vertically striped rainbow shorts that he was wearing in our kitchen the other night...

Moving on, laundry here is very expensive. Our building gives us a pretty good deal, but that "good deal" is 4euro per washer with free drying - that's about triple what I pay in Walsh :( But, as I said, that's a lower price than all of the street places I've seen and the convenience definitely can't be beat.

Another cultural note on laundry. Dryer sheets do not exist outside of North America. They are not sold in France and no one will have any idea what you are talking about if you try to explain the concept to them. People I've met from Australia are likewise flabbergasted by the concept. Personally, I don't know how these people deal with static cling, but I guess that's just one less expense.