What's in the bag

So I'd thought I'd give you guys a look inside the bag I carry around everyday to give you a sense of the essentials.

First off, the bag:
I always carry two, but let's go through the one I never leave home without first.
It is small and compact. There is a pocket for keys, phone and money. I bought it . . . at a travel related store years ago, before I went to Peru. It's called a money belt/bag, I think.

In this bag:

 My apartment keys. With my key-chains, of course.

One of them is my host families'. The castle one I bought in the Loire Valley. 

My metro card.

You've seen this before.

2 debit cards. One for food money, courtesy of my program, and my normal one.
ID card, health insurance card.
FIVE student cards.
Chapstick.
Glasses cleaner.
Euros. No one will ever take the dollar, for obvious reasons and usually you have to have at least 15 euro bill to use your card in France. ATMs are also much cheaper than in the USA. Only .77 or so per transaction as opposed to the $3 for the ones back home.

Iphone. You know what these look like.
French phone

Very basic. But useful. You can buy fancy ones if you so desire. I didn't. 

The main reason I wanted to do this post was to talk about phone options in France. When I was in USA no one told me ANYTHING about them or what the options were, but I am here to tell you what every sane study abroad student does while in Paris. BUT, just an FYI, it is very expensive whatever you do. BUT if you want to be able to talk to people who live in France but also people in the USA, THIS is what you do:

You need two phones. End of story. "But what about SIM cards?" you all are thinking. Here's the thing. If you hope to chat with people at home on your phone at all, a sim card will not work for you. What a sim card does is it fiddles with your American phone so that it only can dial and receive french phone calls. If you want to talk to your mom, you'll have to manually take out the sim card. Impossible? No. A huge pain? YES! Btw, even though only the sales people are supposed to be able to take the sim card in and out, there's a super easy way to do it. Earrings. I used the strong backs of the ones my boyfriend gave me. No damage to earrings or phone. You just put the end into the small hole on the upper side and push gently. Voila.

Rapunzel's happy. Why aren't you happy?

BUT as I said, this is not the way to go. Instead, take the cheaper and better option. Buy an french phone at a store like Orange (though personally, I don't recommend them because they're not very nice, they do cover a lot of places and have stores all over). They'll cost about 30 euro. Then, you'll need to buy minutes on the phone. The best plan is the one for 20 euro that lasts a month and gives you unlimited messaging. However, these phones will run out of minutes eventually, so you'll need to do what the french call recharging your phone. You can go to a store and ask or call them. But if you're like me and don't like the idea of trying to ask for help in a foreign language, just look up their website and you can recharge online. Google translate included.
You'll need to have an international plan for your normal phone (and you'll need an iphone 5 or something that comes unlocked so you can use it abroad. Almost every company other than Verizon uses the same phonage things as a europe though) and you'll need someone in the USA to call and activate your phone one you get to France! After that, it's home free. Be careful though, phone charges for data uses of any sort will skyrocket quickly. Turn off data roaming (under settings/cellular/voice roaming) instantly and pray. And try not to use your phone without wifi. That includes Viber, Skype, or any other otherwise free program.

For my other bag (a backpack or over the shoulder bag. Both very old):

Depending on the day,
Schoolbooks and notebooks.

Gloves

It gets randomly cold in France. These are lifesavers. 

Headphones.
A book.

Right now I'm obsessed with this one. A birthday gift from one of my friends. 

Puzzles

I'm much better at Sudoku than Crossword puzzles, but I bring both. It's excellent to bring on the metro. 

Sketchbook

This is a must have. I've had so many ideas on these metro trips. I also often bring I notebook for writing, but I never leave home without my sketchbook. This one was bought from one of the amazing bookstores in Paris, called Gibert Jeune, which is this amazing place with 4-5 stories of books . . . -drools- 

About 20 pens and pencils. I kid you not. I have them in light blue, purple, pink, dark pink, normal blue, black . . . and I have a ton of pencils too!

That's it!

À tout a l'heure, as the french say!