It's quite chilly and windy outside this morning. I believe it rained quite a bit during the night.
I moved from one youth hostel to another yesterday. I am in a four-bed room here, but last night there was only one other person in the room, and he is quite an odd duck. He's French, very skinny, and he has a terrible cough. He coughed so much during the night that I was wondering if I were enclosed in a room with someone who has tuberculosis, but this morning he apologized and said he has asthma. He said the coughing fits come on when he eats something that he shouldn't.
He also talks in his sleep. He seems to be unemployed. He says he spends his time traveling around France and living very modestly.
He is very opinionated. On this trip, he is only the third person who informed me right off the bat when we met that he doesn't like the United States. He claimed that Americans are so fat that we weight 300 kilos (about 660 pounds). He wouldn't believe me when I told him that I had never seen a person THAT fat and he wouldn't accept the fact that many French people also have a problem with obesity. When I mentioned that telling someone you have just met right off the bat that you don't like his country is an insult, he asked me to not take it personally and insisted on our shaking hands.
I find his opinions tiresome, but they don't seem to be expressed with any malice. He seems to actually believe the things he says and seems to want to be friends with me. I suppose I should be grateful for the opportunity to have someone with whom to practice my French .
I have no idea what I'm going to do today. Let's see how the weather turns out. -- Jack Quinn
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