Last day

I can't believe that I just finished my exams. I'm back from the IES farewell luncheon and some walking with Megan (we walked around the area near school, went to Trocadero to say goodbye to the Eiffel Tower, and then walked around Neuilly for a bit), and I can't believe that tonight our host parents are taking us out to dinner and then it's all over. What a semester. Even though I'm excited to go home, leaving Paris is making me so unbelievably sad. It's really like another home now. But I found a really great French song about Paris! It's called "Paris, tu m'as pris dans tes bras" (Paris, you have taken me in your arms)

J'allais le long des rues
I went along the streets
Comme un enfant perdu
Like a lost child
J'étais seul, j'avais froid
I was alone, I was cold
Toi, Paris, tu m'as pris dans tes bras
You, Paris, you took me in your arms

Je ne la reverrai pas
I will not see her again
La fille qui m'a souri
The girl who smiled at me
Elle s'est seulement retournée et voilà
She only turned around and voila
Mais dans ses yeux j'ai compris
But in her eyes I understood
Que dans la ville de pierre
That in this city of stone
Où l'on se sent étranger
Where one feels a stranger
Il y a toujours le bonheur dans l'air
There is always happiness in the air
Pour ceux qui veulent s'aimer
For those who want to love it
Et le cœur de la ville
And the heart of the city
A battu sous mes pas
Beat underneath my steps
De Passy à Belleville
From Passy (neighborhood near the Eiffel Tower) to Belleville (in the eastern part)
Toi, Paris, tu m'as pris dans tes bras
You, Paris, you took me in your arms

Le long des Champs Elysées
The length of the Champs Elysees
Les lumiéres qui viennent là
The lights that came there
Quand j'ai croisé les terrasses des cafés
When I crossed the terraces of the cafes
Elles m'ont tendu leurs fauteuils
They gave me their armchairs
Saint-Germain m'a dit bonjour
Saint-Germain (abbey in the Latin Quarter) said hello to me
Rue Saint-Benoît, Rue Dufour
Rue Saint-Benoit, Rue Dufoir
J'ai fait danser pendant toute la nuit
I made dance during the whole night
Les filles les plus jolies
The most beautiful girls
Au petit matin blême
Pale in the early morning
Devant le dernier crème
In front of the last cream
J'ai fermé mes yeux là
I closed my eyes here
Toi, Paris, tu m'as pris dans tes bras
You, Paris, you took me in your arms

Sur les quais de l'île Saint-Louis
On the bridges of the Ile Saint-Louis
Des pêcheurs, des amoreux
The fishermen, the lovers
Je les enviais mais la Seine m'a dit
I envied them, but the Seine said to me
Viens donc t'asseoir avec eux
Come and sit down with them
Je le sais aujourd'hui
I know that today
Nous sommes deux amis
We are two friends
Merci au fond de moi
Thank you from the bottom of me
Toi, Paris, je suis bien dans tes bras
You, Paris, I am well in your arms
Toi, Paris, je suis bien dans tes bras
Toi, Paris, je suis bien dans tes bras
Toi, Paris, je suis bien dans tes bras

back to Richmond?

Today Megan and I got our housing assignment! We are going to be roommates in Richmond in a suite in the Freeman dorm! It seems a lot more real that we're leaving and going back to Richmond now that I know exactly where we'll be living. The study abroad office also sent us an email with re-entry materials, including the date and time for a pizza party, haha.
But it still does not seem quite real that this entire experience is wrapping up. 4 finals down, one more tomorrow morning, then a farewell luncheon. We had our last dinner with our host family in the house tonight. Tomorrow night they are taking us out to dinner, and then Thursday morning we are up at 8 and leaving for the airport by 10. It's really, really strange, to say the least. Our host dad asked us if we'd had a good experience at dinner and when we said yes, he said that it was good, because we did something courageous and we were rewarded.
Paris has just become so normal that I can't believe we're leaving. I know the city better than I know New York...I've memorized the metro map, pretty much, haha.
I am looking forward to getting home but not to a flight that appears to be 8 hrs and 55 minutes long!! boooo. Hopefully the TVs will work.

Finals=reflecting on cultural differences

So I have two finals and two papers down, three finals to go! My poli sci exams today were easy but tomorrow's French grammar and history should be harder.
Some cultural differences to reflect on...
--in France they don't preserve food. At all. Leftovers get left out on the counter or on the stovetop, sometimes in the refrigerator, but without a covering. I think this is due to the freshness of most food here. They don't like to eat preserved things. Food here is much fresher and less artificial, even when Megan and I buy frozen meals at the grocery store they can only be frozen for 3 days.
--although we were told at IES that the French are very private about their homes and their personal spaces, and that guests are rarely invited over, this does not extend to the significant others of children. French teenagers start having sleepovers with significant others at the age of about 16, and it becomes very frequent after that. Megan and I have noticed that our host brother's girlfriend is here a lot, but we figured it was just our family. A girl at IES who has a French boyfriend apparently shared that his mother told her it's very normal in France. Our host brother's girlfriend does everything from shower to do laundry here. Interesting, no?
--bathrooms. The toilet is in a separate room from the shower and sinks. And the showers have handheld shower heads but no hook on top so you have to hold them.
--customer service=NONEXISTENT. example: Megan and I waited for an hour in the post office today.
--smoking breaks...the staff at IES is never there because they are always outside smoking.
--PDA. All I'll say about that...
--Christmas decorations are much more prevalent which is fun!
--possibly more hatred of Arabs than in the US.
That's all I have for now. But this is technically part of my studying for my French exam! (our essay is on cultural differences) Check out new Picasa pics!

One last Parisian weekend

This was our last weekend in Paris, which is sad. :-(
Friday Megan had a class visit, so I decided to wait for her by taking myself out to lunch at Angelina's, one of Paris's most famous tearooms. It is most well-known for its very dark, rich, African hot chocolate, and its millefeuille pastries, and I decided it was time to try the hot chocolate. Going to a cafe or tearoom by yourself is very French, so I took my copy of Orgeuil et Prejuges (Pride and Prejudice) and went out to lunch. I ordered the hot chocolate and a croque-monsieur, and took my time admiring the tearoom and reading my book. The menu said that people like Coco Chanel, Marcel Proust, and some other famous people had eaten there several times. The room itself is absolutely beautiful, and really big. Ornate decorations, a pastry counter, etc. I had a great time people-watching, reading my book, and enjoying my delicious hot chocolate and sandwich. The hot chocolate was just as delicious as its reputation would have you believe. The cafe is on the Rue de Rivoli, in between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, so I decided to walk up to the Christmas market on the Champs-Elysees. I walked from metro Tuileries all the way to George V (about 6 metro stops, or maybe 1 1/2 miles) in about 30-degree weather. Looking at the shops on the Rue de Rivoli and then the market on the Champs-Elysees made it go by fast though, and I felt very Parisian with my tearoom lunch by myself and my walk. Then I went home to warm up and wait for Megan, and later that night we went out to dinner with the rest of our crew, Becky, Hayley, and Maria, at a really good Chinese place in the Latin quarter. Then we met up with Maria's cousin Orlando, and went to Shakespeare and Company (the English bookstore near Notre Dame), before heading home.

Saturday Megan and I decided to explore Chinatown. Yes, Paris has a Chinatown. We checked out my guidebook and went to a restaurant (that actually turned out to not be that good, but it was still interesting to go!), and saw one of the strangest McDonald's I'd ever seen. It was shaped like a Chinese temple and had a take-out window on the side. The highlight of the trip was that we got to take the tram home. After a few hours warming up and getting dry at home, we went out to see some Christmas lights! (even in the rain) We started at the Champs-Elysees to see the lights on those trees and the Ferris wheel at the Place de la Concorde, then went to the Hotel de Ville to see the lights show there, and finished up at Notre Dame to see the big lit Christmas tree. Then we went to our favorite Latin quarter hang-out, Indiana's, for our last Mexican-food-in-Paris, haha.

Today we went to the Louvre for the last time, because our host dad had been telling us we needed to go see Napoleon III's apartments, and I wanted to see some Italian paintings that weren't the Mona Lisa. Not only did we see all of those things (Napoleon III's rooms were beautiful, his interior decorating style is really nice, and full of lyres, yay for Alpha Chi!), but we almost walked into a fight...After pressing the button for an elevator to head up to the Italian paintings, the door immediately opened onto three guys wrestling and yelling "Bouge-toi!!" and "Ne me touche pas!" We walked away really fast so we wouldn't get hit as the noise spread and Louvre workers came running...we still don't really know what happened but we saw one of them walking away in handcuffs about 20 minutes later. Good stuff. After that, we finished up our souvenir shopping, and went looking for some of the chocolatiers that were in this NY Times article that Gabby sent me, but of course they were closed :-( I figured since they were near the Louvre they might not be closed on a Sunday, but ah well.

And now I have no more procrastination methods to avoid studying for my first two finals and finishing the bibliography for my last paper...
Last night/this morning Megan and I were very happy to learn that UR football won the semifinals game against Northern Iowa!!! The championship game is against Montana on Friday night and I am so glad I'll be home to watch it! Even though I hate football it's still exciting that UR is in the championships!
4 days til home...both a sad and happy thought.

No more pencils, no more books...

Well, not quite, but I can dream!
Today was the last day of class! After a long week of classes, last lectures, reviewing for finals, and paper-writing (I am ALMOST done with my 10-page single-spaced paper, and my 5-page 1.5-spaced paper has been done since Monday, luckily), classes are fiiiiiinally over. Plus, we got to fill out evaluations for all our classes, our host families, and the program itself, which is always fun. Oh, and I almost forgot--it snowed this week! When I left French on Tuesday I was greeted by ice falling from the sky, which quickly turned into thick flakes that lasted an hour or two...unfortunately nothing stuck but it was really pretty!!

So I decided to celebrate the end of classes by going to the Grand Palais. It's a big exhibition hall with a glass room at the very end of the Champs-Elysees, that was built for the 1900 World's Fair. Chanel hosts many fashion shows there, Wikipedia just told me. Currently they're showing a very popular exhibition called "Picasso et ses maitres", for which they have stolen many paintings from many large museums--the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, etc. My art history professor advised us to go and even arranged for IES to reimburse us, so I decided to head over there today. However, I couldn't figure out how to buy tickets online, the websites were really confusing and seemingly didn't allow you to buy tickets in December, only for Jan and Feb. Even though my friend Hayley had waited 3 hours when the exhibit first opened, I decided to go. (Before I go on I have to note that the HIGH for today was 35 degrees, and this is not counting wind chill or being in the shade of a large palatial building). The line didn't look too long, so I put on the Les Mis soundtrack and chilled out with my Ipod. After an hour I was just about frozen. (and this is with a trenchcoat, scarf, gloves, and two shirts on) My feet got that painful too-cold-and-immobile-to-circulate feeling. Everyone was complaining and freezing together. But at that point we'd all waited too long to leave, so after an hour and 20 minutes we got let in, finally. It took me the entire half hour I spent inside the exhibition to thaw out (it is BRUTAL out today, there was still a thick frost in the Bois du Boulogne when I left the house at 10 am).

Anyway, enough about the cold. The exhibition itself was really cool. The main focus was Picasso and who he drew his inspiration from. I hate modern art and I'm not really a huge fan of Picasso, but seeing what his cubism was imitating made it a lot easier to understand and sort of like him. And I saw a ton of paintings I studied in art history this semester but that we weren't able to see because they'd been stolen for the exhibit, (I keep thinking of the French word enlever instead of the English word) like Nicolas Poussin's self-portrait, Manet's Olympia, a painting of a woman in a cafe by Degas, etc. There were also a lot of paintings by Goya, Ingres, El Greco, etc. Lots of famous artists, but most of all Picasso. The exhibit was organized into sections like portraits, the blue period, nudes, etc. It was pretty cool! And then I went outside to the Champs-Elysees's Christmas market and bought a Nutella crepe. I only have a week left to eat as many as I can!!!

So as far as work goes: my art history paper (due today), done. My history paper (due Monday), almost done. 5 exams, 3 of which will be easy. I can't believe I'll be home in a week. Well, more accurately, this time in exactly a week I'll be on a plane, but who's counting?

An odoriferous day, to quote my guidebook

an actual Parisian sewer tunnel

Megan did not like the smell...

First off, YAY for the last week of classes! To celebrate, Megan and I did something we have been joking around about doing since we got here. We went to the Musee des Egouts de Paris...aka, the sewer museum. Yes, Paris is the only European city that offers a guided tour of its sewers. It was the most amusing 3 euros/20 minutes I have spent in awhile. The first thing we noticed was the guidebook telling you not to eat in the museum and to wash your hands after finishing your tour. Joy...then the smell hit us. Definitely smelled like a sewer. Other than that, it was pretty interesting and amusing. They had a small exhibit about Les Mis, which was cool. Other than that we were educated about the water cycle and the way water is cleaned, and got to see actual water going through the actual sewer, because yup, that's where we were. Definitely an interesting experience.
Then we made possibly our 4th or 5th trip to the Longchamp boutique before going grocery shopping. We made delicious pasta all'arrabiata! It was almost as amazing as it was in Rome. Love arrabiata sauce.
Anyway, now I'm listening to Christmas music, secure in the ideas that I do not have to go purse shopping for another ten years because now I have two Longchamp bags in different sizes (haha), that my boyfriend can definitely come to Ring Dance, and that I only have to write 3 3/4 more single-spaced pages for my history paper in the next 6 days. Not bad, right?
3 3/4 pages, 5 exams, and 10 days between me and the USA!

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes...

Christmas market at La Defense

Becky, me, Maria, Megan, and the tuba player from the band...

my host mom's nativity!

Yup, I really want to watch Love Actually, but with finals there is no time. This is a sad byproduct of school.
It's been really nice to have a weekend in Paris without either guests or travel plans. It's the first time in ages. Friday Megan and I tried a Moroccan place in the Marais that our professor from Richmond had recommended, Chez Omar. We both ordered chicken couscous, which consisted of a huuuge platter of couscous, two chicken breasts that were marinaded in really yummy spices, and a bowl of vegetables in a spicy broth. It was yummy, not my favorite ethnic cuisine but good. And the waiter really liked us so that was fun. Next on our list was the Musee du Vin. My high school teacher told me about this little wine museum hidden away a few metro stops from the Eiffel Tower in a residential neighborhood. It's a short museum about the history of wine and process of winemaking, and at the end you get a free glass of wine. After seeing a lot of different corkscrews and wine bottles and presses, we got to taste a glass from the southwest of France that was a mix of 5 different kinds of grapes, I don't remember all the kinds but it was pretty good.
That night we had dinner at the French version of Friday's, which is called Hippopotamus (which cracks me up because the French don't pronounce the letter h, so they say it more like "eeeppo"), and I tried New Orleans chicken, which was a nice spicy chicken breast. It's always funny to try "American food" in a French restaurant. Then we met up with Becky, Maria, and Maria's cousin Orlando at les Feeries d'Auteil, a Christmas fair. What was special about this one is the "Mille et Une Creches", or 1001 nativities. There aren't really 1001, but there are a lot! My host mom teaches at a school nearby, and each class in the school had to make a nativity scene. Florence has been going crazy working on her class's creche, because it's a contest and she really wants to win. So we finally got to see the fruits of all her labors, and vote for it, too! But in addition, we got to: see firebreathers, hear a French gospel choir, try hot spiced wine (not a fan of it, but everyone else liked it), see nativities made in gold and silver all the way from Poland, see all the other nativity scenes, shop in craft stores, hang out with Maria's fun cousin, listen to a band that kept following us around, meet up with my host parents, and buy chocolate-covered marshmallows! mmm. My host dad was so cute, he kept following us around to check in on us and then came in when they got home to make sure we had gotten home OK.
Saturday Megan and I went out to lunch with our friend Amy, then spent most of the day doing work, since we have a lot of papers to write, and catching up on American TV. I can't believe that I'm only going to have to watch 1 more episode of Grey's on a semi-legal website.
Today was fun too! Megan, Becky, and I went to a Christmas market at La Defense, which was really fun. It was a gigantic craft fair, tons of stands and food everywhere, lots of shopping. I might go back there with a list of stuff I still need to get for people. It was very Christmasy and fun. And now unfortunately, back to the grind of papers....
I can't believe I'll be home in 11 days. I'm stocking up on Nutella crepes because I'll really miss them, haha. It's hard to believe I'll be home soon because I just finished a paper and still have one long paper and 5 exams to go. It seems like there's a lot to do before we leave!

Noël

post office box to write to Santa

Rue Daguerre shops

near my house in Neuilly

tree in front of Notre Dame

mall at La Defense

So even with the stories of homeless people freezing to death in the Bois de Vincennes, and Wal-Mart workers being trampled to death on Black Friday, it's still Christmas in Paris!

December?!

So apparently I woke up yesterday morning and it was December? Megan bought both of us Advent calendars from Monoprix a month ago and now we were finally able to open them! Yummy chocolates to count down the days of Advent.
There are Christmas decorations all around Paris--lights on the Champs-Elysees and several other streets, a huge Christmas tree in front of Notre Dame, Christmas trees in lights in front of most of the stores. Florence, my host mom, is preparing for a holiday pageant at her school, where each class makes a nativity and there's a contest for the best one, along with a craft fair where all the proceeds go to charity. I think we're going on Friday. I also saw pigeons kissing at my French university the other day...even pigeons have Christmas spirit?
Unfortunately the end of the semester always means lots of work! Several papers and presentations and stuff like that. Fun, fun, and more fun. We have another week and a half of class and then three days of exams, then they kick us out of Paris.
Megan and I are currently figuring out how we can smuggle our host parents out of France and into America in our luggage. We seriously want to take them home....we totally lucked out with our host parents. They're so funny and nice. Last night dinner turned into a quiz show on European capitals, thanks to Paul-Henri. He was impressed with our knowledge.
I don't really have much else to say other than that, so hope everything in the US is going well!

Rainy Roma

I'm back from Rome (and finally dry!). Megan and I got up incredibly early Friday morning to catch a taxi to Orly airport, where our Roman adventure began...we arrived in the middle of the pouring rain surrounded by people speaking a language we couldn't understand at all (a new experience for us). After getting a bus to Termini station and walking to our B&B, the owner didn't answer the buzzer to let us in, so we had to call the company and have them call her while we waited outside the building in the rain. She turned out to be a very nice elderly Italian lady named Anna Rosa, who immediately noticed my Italian last name, asked where in Italy I was from, and commented on my "bella capelli" (beautiful hair). The B&B is basically her owning a few apartments in an apartment building near the Colosseum and renting out the bedrooms.

We started out our weekend by going to another country, aka taking the metro to Citta del Vaticano. Since it was so rainy, we decided to start out at the Musei Vaticani and see the Sistine Chapel. We got there with an hour and a half to go before closing. Luckily, the path to the Sistine Chapel takes you through most of the museum, so we got to see a great deal of artwork on our way. A lot of ornate ceilings, paintings, sculptures, frescoes. No wonder the Vatican is so rich. Just as we were starting to doubt the existence of the Sistine Chapel, it finally appeared. It is really incredibly beautiful. It's impossible to believe Michelangelo actually painted that entire ceiling--it's huge!! The sign said no pictures were allowed, but everyone else was taking them, haha. So we spent awhile gaping at the ceiling before we left. Lunch was at a restaurant my guidebook recommended, which was cheap AND delicious. Basically, there was a glass case with three pasta dishes and a meat dish, you chose which one you wanted, and they cooked it fresh. Megan and I chose a pasta that looked like penne cut in half that was in a tomato sauce with spicy peppers, and it was delicious. Next was strawberry gelati, then on to San Pietro! There was a long line for security to get into the basilica, and of course the downpour began again. But once we got inside, it was gorgeous. We saw Michelangelo's Pieta, which was wonderful, and it's just a really huge, ornate, beautiful church. The square in front is pretty big too, which I guess it needs to be with all the people that show up when the Pope is around! After that, we went to the north of Rome to the Villa Borghese park to see the Galeria Borghese, an art museum. First we couldn't find our way out of the Spagna metro for awhile, then once we did, we found out that Villa Borghese is the creepiest park EVER, dark and creepy and full of crows and other ominous birds. The Galeria Borghese is also the museum with the most rules I have ever seen. You not only are not allowed to take pictures, but you have to check all handbags and cameras. Art history IDs are not accepted from non-EU citizens, and entrance tickets are only valid within a certain 2-hour period, which in our case began 40 minutes after we arrived. Fun. Once we did get into the museum, though, it was gorgeous. It is the private Borghese collection, including a lot of Bernini and Caravaggio works, which were beautiful. We finished up the night with pizza near the Spanish Steps before finally getting to bed (after watching some really funny Italian TV).

We woke up the next morning well-rested and ready to start our day of Roman ruins! (Friday was our Roman art and church day) The sun was out at first, so we started off to Palatine Hill, less than a 10-minute walk, and along the way caught our first view of the Colosseum. Palatine Hill is one of Rome's 7 hills, and also the city's birthplace (according to legend it's where Romulus and Remus were nursed by the wolf). It's more or less a gigantic archeological site, where you walk around among the ruins. It was really nice and cool to see. After an hour or so, we wandered over to the Colosseum (where the rain immediately started again). The Colosseum was magnificent, especially once it stopped raining. It was huge, and so close to our hostel. We walked around the whole thing and bought a few souvenirs before having paninis for lunch and proceeding to the Jewish Ghetto--we thought going to the Jewish neighborhood in Rome would be funny, and it definitely was! We saw the synagogue, which has a really strange square dome, and is right by the Tiber River. After that, we headed into the center of Rome, passing the wedding cake along the way (aka the monument to Vittorio Emanuel II), and walking through the streets, stopping at the Pantheon (which was very wet on the inside due to its open roof), the only building from ancient Rome that has survived intact. Then we saw the Trevi fountain, which is really gorgeous. We both threw coins in because legend says if you throw in a coin you're destined to return to Rome. Next was the famous San Crispino's gelati, which lived up to its delicious reputation. After that, the Spanish Steps, home of the MOST OBNOXIOUS souvenir sellers in the world. Then we walked around the center of Rome for awhile and looked at the designer stores. At that point a clown pulled a curl of my hair and said "bella capelli!" again...I really thought my hair would be more normal in Italy, but apparently not! We walked around a little bit more before having dinner (the most delicious penne all'arrabiata) and gelati and heading home, but not before walking right into the middle of an anti-Israel demonstration, or I guess more pro-Palestine demonstration, which was really looooong and loud.

This morning after a huge hassle of airplanes and airports, and a creepy walk after a huge thunderstorm, we made it home by 2:00 and ate lunch, yay! All in all, I don't love the city of Rome (although I liked it better once the sun came out!). The sights were beautiful and the food was delicious, but the city was really dirty and sketchy. There was graffiti everywhere, even near the historical stuff, and the men were very aggressive, and it just really did not feel safe. Although it was nice to have 60-degree weather! Anyway, time to go readjust to Paris life. I'll put pictures on Picasa tonight!

Thanksgiving in Paris

Today was kind of weird, what with having class on Thanksgiving and all. Megan and I decided to sleep in and skip our French class, because it's useless, so we got a bit of a treat.
After class I went to climb the towers of Notre Dame, because I hadn't done that yet and it was on my list of things to do before I left. 400 steps is a lot, let me tell you. They break it up on the way up, which is kind of cool...the first room you get left in is all about the book, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and then you go outside pretty far up the tower to see the gargoyles and the big bell, and then you go all the way to the top of one of the towers. Obviously Paris from above is a sight I was very familiar with, but the gargoyles were super cool! I got to get very up close and personal, haha. You could even see which ones they modeled the ones in the Disney movie after.
From there, I could see this church my French professor had recommended visiting, Ste-Julien-le-Pauvre, so I went there next. It is in this gorgeous park with a really pretty fountain. The church itself is tiny, 1000 years old, with statues that are 1200 years old. Pretty cool.
After treating myself to a crepe with Nutella and a walk around the Latin Quarter (my favorite part of Paris, definitely going to miss it), I headed home for awhile before Thanksgiving dinner! IES sponsored a Thanksgiving dinner for us, even hiring American caterers and treating us to turkey, green beans, pumpkin pie, etc. It was actually a really good meal! It was great that they did it because otherwise it would have been a pretty lame Thanksgiving. We had a great time, spending Thanksgiving with good friends is almost as good as being with your family. And for dessert we had the most delicious brownies...
Anyway, Megan and I are leaving for Rome REALLY early tomorrow morning, as in leaving the house at 5 am, so I am going to bed. Have a great weekend, everyone, and happy Thanksgiving!

London!

This weekend was Megan's and my long-awaited trip to London! (to see one of our sorority sisters, Elizabeth!)
We left early Friday morning and had the fun experience of going through the Chunnel (apparently just missing a fire), and arrived in King's Cross-St. Pancras Station. Sorry Dad, you were wrong, Waterloo Station is only national trains. Of course, since we were in King's Cross, we had to go find Platform 9 3/4 (Harry Potter joke, for those of you who don't get it). They actually not only have made a Platform 9 3/4, but have a luggage cart sticking out from the wall! So of course I tried to get to Hogwarts, but it didn't work.
After the hostel, our first stop was the British Museum! Since it's pretty large, we decided to just go down the list of the "must-sees" on the map. So first stop, Rosetta Stone! It was really cool to see, and right in the center of the Egyptian wing. We also saw a lot of statues from the Parthenon (and read a pamphlet about the debate between the British and Greek governments), a Scottish chess set where every piece is different, lots of mummies, a lot of African masks, and many other archeological interests. Next up was the obligatory red phone booth photo, then fish and chips for lunch!
After lunch we were finally able to call Elizabeth (travelling leads to lots of phone problems) and meet up with her to get tickets for Wicked for that night!!! Then she showed us around to Buckingham Palace (sadly the Queen wasn't home, but we got to see the guards!), Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, and that central area of London. We also passed the palace where Prince Charles lives, St. James's Park, Waterloo Station, and some other lovely landmarks.
To finish off the day, we had tea and biscuits at Elizabeth's flat in the East End, went to a pub for dinner, and then headed to the theater to see Wicked!!! Since I saw it with the original cast and no one can compare to Idina Menzel, it wasn't quite as good as New York, but Wicked is still amazing no matter who is playing the roles. It was weird to hear all the actors (except the Wizard, oddly enough) with British accents. But we had a great time.
The next morning Megan and I woke up and went to Westminster Abbey. It was really interesting. No pictures are allowed, but you get a free audioguide with admission that tells you everything you need to know as you examine the huge church. We saw where Queen Elizabeth I is buried, as well as Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, and many other characters. The church is absolutely beautiful, and I really liked having the audioguide. It's still a working church used for coronation ceremonies. (We saw the really old coronation chair too!) It was really cool but I am still sad that I wasn't able to take pictures (although I did get a little book about it that has a lot of pictures in it).
Next, Megan and I decided to walk to Trafalgar Square, and I was excited to see all the lion statues, haha. After lunch we walked to Covent Garden, a giant marketplace and mall. There were street performers and Christmas decorations and all sorts of cool stuff going on.
We then met up with Elizabeth to go to the Tower of London, definitely my favorite thing about the weekend. Aside from all the interesting history about it to begin with, you get these really cool tour guides called Yeoman Warders. To be one, you have to have had 22 years of service in the Royal Army. You also live inside the Tower (where you are locked inside at 10 pm every night). But they are really charismatic and funny and know almost everything there is to know about British history. We heard stories about Anne Boleyn and Sir Walter Raleigh and all the other famous prisoners in the Tower (including seeing where Anne Boleyn was executed, and then her burial place). After our tour, we saw the Crown Jewels, which are impressive to say the least. No pictures allowed of those either, but I got one.
Then we walked over to see the outside of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Globe Theatre (which was really cool!), and after that sat in a Starbucks until it was time for Megan and me to go home, because it was freezing!!! We made it home late last night. Elizabeth was a wonderful tour guide and I am so glad we got to see her!
One of the things that struck me about London was how much like home it felt. It could just be because everyone spoke English, but there was also an abundance of American chain restaurants (example: Megan and I ate in Burger King AND Subway) and stores. We even found American Cosmo for almost the same price as it is at home (in Paris you can find it but it's about 7 or 8 euros, aka twice the price). I also noticed how much cheaper everything is, even with the difference between the euro and the pound (although the pound now is thankfully much lower than it was when we got here). Food in Paris is so much more expensive, particularly when you are eating at a restaurant. It was really strange having everything be in English, too! When the waitress gave me my fish and chips on Friday, I said "Merci" instead of "Thank you."
And now, I'm in Paris and Megan just informed me that it's SNOWING!!!! Just a little flurry but I haven't seen snow yet this year and it apparently almost never snows in Paris!
I'll put my London pictures on Picasa later today, there are a lot of them!

Alpha Chi reunion!

This weekend was a lot of fun! Elizabeth and Kailey came from London and the Netherlands to see us Parisian Alpha Chis!

I picked the two of them up on Friday and we went to see the Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Latin Quarter, as well as stopping in at Breakfast in America, the favorite refuge of expats. Saturday we went to Versailles, then came home and did the Arc de Triomphe/Champs-Elysees and then the traditional letter shirt picture in front of the Eiffel Tower!

Saturday night was really fun. It was our friend Maria's 21st birthday, so we decided to celebrate by going to this restaurant that a lot of people in school had been talking about. It's in Montmartre, and it is famous for serving fondue and giving you wine in baby bottles. It was an experience, to be sure! We arrived and met the very brusque and no-boundaries-barred owner, who proceeded to seat us (but not until Hayley arrived, and he lectured us until she did). The tables were long, along benches on each side of the wall (small restaurant) and he then helped me and three others stand on a chair and climb over the table to get to the other side. We were then served an aperitif that was either kir or Sangria, not really sure, along with some snacks that were kind of like antipaste. Next came the fondue! Cheese with bread and potatoes to dip, along with meat to cook in juices. I skipped the meat because raw red meat really grosses me out, but the bread and cheese was so good! The fondue came with a full-size baby bottle full of red or white wine! This led to everyone being pretty silly by the time we were finished eating. We were sitting next to some Spanish guys who were very friendly (maybe due to the close quarters) and talked to us a lot. Hayley and Elizabeth also got into a good-natured argument about the Kappa Sig email and the repercussions for campus, which was funny to watch because Hayley was sitting closest to the fondue and would just dip people's bread, hand it back to them, and not stop talking the whole time. After the fruit salad dessert, we got the whole restaurant to sing happy birthday to Maria, and then the owner kicked us out, almost without giving us our change, haha. Then we wandered around Montmartre a bit and headed home (but not before taking the funiculaire! Fun way to avoid the hill of Montmartre, I refuse to ever climb it again).

However, today is a homework day so it will not be nearly as much fun...oh well!

Computer problems in France=no fun

So the rest of Kara's visit went well! We spent Sunday wandering around Montmartre admiring painters and street performers, then learning about history and window-shopping in the Marais (and enjoying some of the best Nutella crepes I have tasted while in Paris). Then Monday we decided to be total girls. After a trip to the Orangerie, a smaller museum of Impressionism that includes panoramic water lily paintings by Monet, we went shopping Paris style...Galeries Lafayette, Le Printemps, the Rue Saint-Honore, everything. Kara was shopping for a Longchamps bag, and even though designer bags aren't normally my thing, I ended up being convinced. They're very simple and classic, much cheaper in France, will last forever, don't have the designer label all over them, and mine is RED! hehe. it's awesome. We finished off the day with an aperitif at Harry's New York Bar, which is where F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway hung out. The mahogany countertop was brought over from Manhattan, and there are pennants of American colleges hanging all around. Then Thai food and bed!

Kara left Tuesday morning :-(, and I went to the Musee de Quai Branly to make Paul-Henri happy, haha. It's a museum of non-European cultures, including Africa, Oceania, America, and Asia. I wasn't crazy about the organization, it was hard to see everything without backtracking, but it was really interesting. There was even an exhibit on the way dye is used in different cultures. On the walk there, I also got to see the Flame of Liberty Memorial. It's a replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch that the US gave to France in 1989, the 200th anniversary of the revolution. But since it is right above the bridge where Princess Diana was killed, it's become a sort of memorial for her...people put letters and flowers all over it. It was cool to see, and it has a great view of the Eiffel Tower!!

So then the stressful part of the week started...on Monday the AC adaptor to my computer broke, so I called IBM France and ordered a new one, and Megan has the same computer so I was able to charge it at night and at least use it a few hours a day. Well, IBM sent me the French AC adaptor but not the part that plugs into the wall. Which was useless because the two parts wouldn't connect. When I called back, they told me that it was not their business, they only sold French parts because they were the French office, and they had no idea where I could get the connecting part. They gave me a website where I could have it by Monday for 90 euros (which sucks because I have warranty on my comp so everything is free). This resulted in much frustration because I have an incredible amount of homework to do. So after a few frustrated phone calls to Robi, I decided to try out the French version of Best Buy, Fnac, even though the woman at IBM had said she had no idea where I could get the cord. I showed the guy what I had and what I needed, and he immediately brought me the correct part...for 7 euros...in the most well-known store in France...so yeah. French customer service people are imbeciles but at least now I have a working computer!!! Which is good cause I need to watch last week's Grey's...and oh yeah, do my homework...

This weekend two Alpha Chis are coming to visit! Elizabeth and Kailey get here tomorrow, and this weekend should be lots of fun!!

Lots of visitors

So the family left on Friday, after I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in class. Thursday we went to the Musee d'Orsay and the Cite d'Architecture and Patrimoine (museum of French architecture), and then Kara, one of my sorority sisters, arrived from Spain! We took her out for some nice snails for her first night in France.

In the morning, Kara and I went to say goodbye to the family, and then started out exploring Paris with visiting the graves of Sartre and de Beauvoir (yay for Core), and then the catacombs. So, it may or may not have been raining and I may or may not have slid for about a foot and almost fallen in the catacombs...I'm a klutz, what else is new? Then we spent the rest of the afternoon in the Louvre just wandering, which is a good Louvre strategy, haha.

Yesterday we accomplished a lot! We spent most of the day in the Latin Quarter, and saw Notre Dame, the Ile Ste-Louis, Ste-Chapelle, and the Musee de Cluny. After dinner, we finished the day at the Eiffel Tower, where it was so cold and windy we almost froze/flew off the tower, haha. But we survived. We saw several interesting characters at Notre Dame--and by characters I mean characters, as in dressed up in funny suits. One guy was dressed as the rabbit in the advertisements on the metro and was yelling "Je t'aime, Caroline!" Another was dressed as the Abominable Snowman, and accompanied by a husky, was advertising a ski resort, I think? Oh, and we've also been taking pictures with every Obama ad in Paris.

Today, once we're all ready, we're going to head out to Montmartre and the Marais. Yay for fall break!!

OBAMA!!!

So since Saturday the family and I have done lots of touristy stuff. Sunday we went to the Basilique of Ste-Denis, which is where all the kings and queens of France are buried. Megan and I have been wanting to go there for awhile, but since it's in kind of a sketchy suburb, we didn't want to go alone. It was an amazing trip, the area was not nearly as sketchy as I expected. The basilica was beautiful and it was so cool to see the tombs and monuments to all the French monarchs I've learned about for years! And I survived my trip to the French "banlieues"! One of the cool things we saw there--the preserved heart of Louis XVII, the son of Louis XVI who died at age ten for the crime of being the king's heir after the king was guillotined. After that we ate lunch and went to the Eiffel Tower! The line was incredibly long and it was cold, but it was cool because we got to see the view during both day and night, since it was dusk when we went up!

Monday we went to L'Arc de Triomphe (and climbed 284 steps to the top--cool view though!) then walked down the entirety of the Champs-Elysees, to the tune of Alexa's complaining, and then to the Opera Garnier, which made Alexa happy because I told her it was where the phantom lived. Next, the Galeries Lafayette, already decorated for Christmas, then Notre Dame and the Ile-Ste-Louis. We finished off the day with dessert in my host family's apartment! Everyone got along really well, which was fun.

Yesterday and today I had class, so I just met up with the family for dinner, but yesterday was SO EXCITING! Unfortunately, we don't have a TV and I did have to go to class today, so I didn't stay up all night, but Megan and I did set alarms for 3 am and 5 am to get up and check our computers. When we woke up at 3:15 it was 177-63 Obama, so we woke up again at 5:15 to find out that McCain had just conceded and the race was being called for Obama. I was SO happy. I wore my T-shirt today and was so proud. I felt really, really patriotic for the first time ever. Being in a foreign country, we can sometimes get anti-American sentiment, but today all of France loves America. I am so excited for the next four years!

Halloween in Paris

It's been a busy few days!
On Wednesday and Thursday I had four midterms, three of which went really well! The good part was that I got to leave Art History super early when I finished my midterm, and go wander around Paris for hours! I started at Ste-Germain-l'Auxerrois, the church where Eva Longoria and Tony Parker got married. It's really old, right across from the Louvre, and absolutely gorgeous. I was going to head straight to the Louvre but then I saw a sign saying Ste-Eustache was in walking distance, which I hadn't known, so I went there too. It's gigantic and gorgeous, about 500 years old. Louis XIV received his first communion there, Mozart's mother's funeral was held there, and Richelieu, Madame Pompadour, and Moliere were baptized there. Next to Ste-Eustache was Les Halles (or under it, I suppose). It used to be a big aboveground covered market, and now it's a huuuuge underground mall. I walked around in it a little bit, and got ice cream and took in just how huge it is. It's pretty huge, just for clarification. Next up, I went to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, which my host dad has been recommending for the last two months. It's basically all about interior design and furniture and art from the Middle Ages til now. It was pretty cool to see. Finally, since I'd wanted all along to spend a rainy afternoon in the Louvre, I made visiting the Code of Hammurabi my last stop of the afternoon.

Friday was Halloween, obviously, and Megan, Maria, Hayley, and I went to celebrate! We went to Disneyland Paris, which was having a special Halloween celebration, and basically had the time of our lives running around, acting like little kids, going on rides, eating junk food, and taking pictures with pumpkins and Disney characters. It was so much fun!!!! When we got back to Paris, we tried to go get rush tickets to Edward Scissorhands: the ballet (for real, yes) but it had already started, so we got a Pariscope (a little magazine with all the shows and movies in the city that week) and checked out the movies. We found a showing of the Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D!!! (and in French, which was just amusing) We finished off our Halloween with an amazing movie...after some guy tried to pickpocket me on the metro, but he was unsuccessful.

Today Mom and Dad and Andrew and Alexa arrived! I went to pick them up from the airport, and then we checked in at their hotel and ate lunch. Since it was raining, we decided to go to the Louvre instead of the Eiffel Tower. Poor Alexa was so tired it was hard to keep her focusing on the stuff in the museum, they were all jet-lagged and hadn't slept at all on the plane. So eventually we put her out of her misery and went to dinner and then I sent them to their hotel to go to bed. Then I met up with Megan and Maria and we succeeded in getting rush tickets to Edward Scissorhands this time! It was sooo good. The ballet was choreographed by the creators of Swan Lake, and we paid 15 euro for 3rd-row seats! Gotta love student rush.

Anyway, I'll upload the Disneyland pics soon, so check them out!

avoiding midterms studying

So, this week is midterms, I have two tomorrow (my 2 poli sci ones) and two Thursday (French and art history). I don't expect tomorrow to be too hard, hopefully that doesn't jinx me, but it's poli sci and most of the students in my class aren't poli sci majors and don't know much about the subject. Thursday will be harder.
Yesterday Megan and I created our own Halloween mood by going to Pere Lachaise, the most visited cemetery in the world. I had been there about a month ago, but unfortunately was wearing heeled boots and did not make it very far. So we went back for try #2 in more comfortable footwear! We saw the graves of Heloise & Abelard, Chopin, Jim Morrison, Balzac, Moliere, Lafontaine, Gertrude Stein, and I revisited Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde to show Megan. In addition, we found a cat right near Jim Morrison's grave! The most gorgeous cat I've ever seen, white stomach with a black and orange back...the perfect Halloween kitty! But yeah, very Halloweeny cemetery. Then we came home and cooked ourselves some amazing chicken pesto paninis. We're so good at this.
Today I went Christmas shopping and got everything done before the family gets here Friday! My backpack was really heavy though, lol. I also went to see Madeleine, or the church of Mary Magdalene. There was a British choir rehearsing for a concert while I was walking around, I seem to have a knack for walking into places while people are rehearsing. It was really pretty, and the choir definitely added a great atmosphere! The outside is modeled after a Greek temple, and is only a few blocks from the Place de la Concorde (and thus has a great view)
Anyway, just a short rant. I hate smokers when I'm at home, but at home, they aren't that prevalent, except for some dumb people at Richmond and my piano teacher. (through which I realized that I have a slight allergy to cigarette smoke...it irritates my eyes, and in cases of longterm exposure, seems to make me congested, which I discovered in Paris). So yeah, I have seasonal allergies and it is normal for me to be sniffly all the time. But the flowers are dead, the leaves are falling, my room is clean (no more dust) and there is nothing left for me to be allergic to. So what is it? The stupid idiots who smoke all the time. Not just Parisians, that's to be expected, but about half the students I go to school with! And for some reason, the people who have just come in from smoking always choose to sit next to me in class, and as they sit down give off a cloud of their disgusting odor of cigarette. I can cut the elderly some slack, when they were young we didn't know how bad it was and it's hard to quit, but people my age have no excuse to be such idiots. And plus, I suffer too for their bad decisions. And I am tired of feeling like crap during class because my program includes a bunch of druggies and smokers (the drugs thing is not an exaggeration) who have fried their brains with alcohol and cocaine.
OK, I'm done ranting now, other than that everything is good, time to go study for midterms!!

Christmas already?

So this weekend has been pretty cool. We had our first out-of-town visitors! Megan's friends Katie and Steph came from Dublin and Oxford to visit Paris for the weekend, so we showed them around a bit. Friday we met them at the Eiffel Tower and then went out for lunch in the Latin Quarter, then showed them Notre Dame (where there was a mariachi band playing...oh, Paris). Then they had a walking tour scheduled, so Megan and I wandered around the Latin Quarter by ourselves. We saw the famous English bookstore Shakespeare and Company, and wandered around inside--it was pretty cool!! Stacks and stacks of English books. We did a little souvenir shopping, and checked out the Eglise Ste-Severin, and walked around the Latin Quarter a lot. Then we met up with Cristy and her mom to eat dinner, which was really cool!
Saturday we met Katie and Steph for lunch again, and then went to the Musee Rodin. It was really amazing--there are gardens and an indoor museum. Rodin was really talented at expressing emotion through really simple sculptures, or really complicated ones. We saw the Thinker and all of his other famous works. Then Megan and I went to les Arenes de Lutece, which is a 2000-year-old Roman arena that was used for gladiator fights back in the Gallo-Roman days. It was discovered 200 years ago and is now used for kids to play sports in, pretty much. Last on the agenda was the Jardin des Plantes, which is really pretty to walk around in--it also has the Paris Museum of Natural History, but neither of us were dying to see that so we skipped it this time around.
Today we went to lunch near Place de la Bastille, so we got to see that, and then went to the Marais to see the Musee Cognacq-Jay. It's basically a museum in one of the private mansions in the Marais that houses furniture, paintings, jewelery, etc, to show off upper-class French tastes from the 18th and 19th centuries. It was nothing too intriguing but still really pretty. Now we're back at home and settling down to do some homework before dinner with our host parents.
The family is arriving on Saturday so that should be cool!! Megan and I also just booked a hostel for our trip to Rome Thanksgiving weekend, which is walking distance from the Colosseum! We're also starting to plan our trip to London the weekend before that. November should be a pretty cool month!!
Oh, and if you thought Americans got Christmas decorations out early...Parisian grocery stores already have Advent calendars and Christmas chocolates ready for sale! When Megan and I were eating lunch today, the restaurant had a TV tuned to kids' morning cartoons, and it was a cartoon all about Santa...scary, hmmm? I guess when you don't have Halloween or Thanksgiving it's easy to slide straight to Christmas!
I just finished uploading all the pictures from this weekend, so check them out!

Institut du Monde Arabe and some churches

Another week of class is over...next week is midterms! Fun. I have 4 midterms next Wednesday and Thursday, but none in my Cato class...no, there I just have to write two 10-page single-spaced papers before December 9...at least one I get to choose the topic for, so I can start it soon. But yeah, ouuuch.
Today I finally got to do something enjoyable...I had to go to L'Institut du Monde Arabe to see the Bonaparte in Egypt exhibit for Art History (at first I had no idea why I was there, but since we just finished studying art during the Revolution, so next up is Napoleon, I suppose). I ended up buying a ticket to the whole museum, since I'd wanted to go anyway. The exhibit was really cool and interesting, it included a lot of effects with light and projection. The actual museum was slightly less interesting but still decent--it went through Arab artifacts and history starting from the days of Carthage and going up to the Ottoman Empire, including everything from Persian rugs to astrolabes. I was so sad that pictures were not allowed because I really wanted to show Robi everything I saw!
So after I finished that I decided to head out to the Latin Quarter to see the insides of some churches I'd wanted to see for awhile, Ste-Sulpice and Ste-Germain-des-Pres. Ste-Sulpice has a lot of Delacroix paintings, and we just finished learning about him in Art History. Apparently it used to be a little-known church that only people who loved Delacroix went to, but ever since The Da Vinci Code was written it's become full of tourists who flock there to see the Meridian line. So yeah, I was in two hemispheres today! It totally had not occurred to me before that I lived in a different hemisphere now...but yeah, the church was pretty. It was built in the 1600s and is the second-largest church in Paris, after Notre-Dame.
Next up was Ste-Germain-des-Pres. There was actually a small concert going on while I was there, a small string orchestra and three opera singers. It was really amazing to listen to, and the church was pretty. It actually dates back to Merovingian times in France, about the year 550, and it's right in the heart of the Latin Quarter.
Then I went to the mall at home to go shopping! always fun. This weekend two of Megan's friends from Richmond are coming to visit! It should be fun to practice showing people around.

Musée Cluny and L'Institut de France

So today was Monday, boo for that. I had class, and then Megan and I decided to go to the Musée National du Moyen-Age, aka the Musée Cluny. It's called that because the private mansion it is housed in is named Cluny. It had a lot of really cool artifacts, including a famous tapestry called the Lady and the Unicorn, or La Dame et la Licorne in French. The paintings and artifacts they had were mostly religious, since that was generally the focus of the Middle Ages. The hôtel particulier itself was just a beautiful building, right in the center of the Latin Quarter. We had a nice afternoon break there before we had to get down to logistics like grocery shopping and planning meals for the week.
After that, I had to go to a visit for Art History at L'Institut de France. L'Institut de France is both a building and an organization. Typical of French bureaucracy, there is a government agency which houses things like artistic institutions and L'Academie Francaise, which controls and regulates the French language. It is generally not open to the public, but the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (school of fine arts) which is associated with the institute (basically where all the really great young artists go) was giving an exhibition on the human body. This apparently has something to do with what we are discussing in class, so we got tickets to the exhibition. First our teacher walked us around the building, which is across the Seine from the Louvre, and showed us where artists used to compete for the Prix du Rome (a prestigious prize for art students which allowed free art study in Rome), which we just learned about in class. Being in a city like Paris is so amazing because you get to see all the practical applications of something like art history. The exhibition itself wasn't thrilling, just a lot of sculptures of naked people. I found the view outside of the Seine at sunset much more interesting.
Anyway, check out the pics! http://picasaweb.google.com/amandamarz

Giverny and Brussels

So this weekend has been quite eventful. Friday started out with an IES field trip to Giverny! It was cold when we got there, so my group started out at the American Art museum with a guided tour that discussed American impressionism. It bored me a little because it was early but there was a cool painting of Coney Island! Then we had lunch, and then we got to go see Monet's house and gardens! The house was cool, very prettily decorated, and the gardens were amazing. There were two sections...the one near his house was full of flowers, even in mid-October. (however, it was also full of bees, which was not cool) Then there was an underground tunnel leading under the road to go to the water lily side...the huge water lily pond (there was only one flower left), and weeping willows and huge trees. It was really pretty but not really worth spending a ton of time. It was really great to see where Monet got the inspiration for all his paintings, though! Then when Becky and I got home, we met up with Megan to eat dinner and walk around in the Latin Quarter...we found the two warring philosophers' cafes, Cafe de Deux Magots and Cafe des Flores, and walked past a bunch of churches, and ran into a beggar who meowed at us to ask for change...
Saturday I left for Brussels to meet up with Cristy! Unfortunately I forgot my camera battery and hers was out of battery, which made us both really sad because we saw so many beautiful things. Even though I'd been to Brussels before we hadn't seen a lot of stuff! At first we just walked around a lot and saw the Ste Michel and Ste Gudula Cathedral. Some of the saints' statues were carrying weapons, I have to Wikipedia it and find out why. Then we found the Musee des Beaux-Arts, because I really wanted to see the painting "Death of Marat" by Jacques-Louis David (since we studied it both in high school and in art history). We finally found it and it was so exciting! (after we walked by the Royal Palace and some other really pretty buildings) Then we had some frites, and walked around a lot and saw some more churches, and the Grand-Place and the Manneken-pis (he was dressed up this time!). The sights we saw were so beautiful, I was so sad that I didn't have my camera! We also did a little shopping--we found a lot of really pretty shopping centers, and a store where everything was 10 euros, so we got dresses! We also unsuccessfully searched for cheap haircuts before dinner, but any cheap place was closed. We had dinner at this great Indian/Moroccan/Thai/Lebanese restaurant called Hemispheres, which was delicious, and then went back to the Manneken-Pis and bought massive amounts of chocolate for our friends. Our hotel was so nice--we stayed in a budget hotel that was only slightly more expensive than a hostel, and it was so worth it. It was in a nice area, 15 min walk from the city center, a nice room with a private bathroom and a TV! I'd never watched French TV before so it was so much fun! We had a really great day in Brussels, even though I am still so sad that we were camera-less. Maybe if I come back to Europe someday...
I really realized this weekend how much my French has improved...like everything has finally clicked. Cristy had a lot of trouble with her train ticket in Brussels and then her metro pass in Paris and I was able to talk to a ton of different people in French, even on the phone, and get things sorted out. I watched the French TV and understood everything too. It's really awesome to get the feeling of finally being truly bilingual.

A Very Victor Hugo Day

So this week has been pretty routine as far as school. Monday after class Megan and I went to the Memorial de la Shoah, the Holocaust museum in the Marais. It was small, very recently built (in 2005 when Chirac admitted the Vichy government's responsibility for deporting thousands of Jews in a collaboration with the Germans). The museum was interesting, but what I found more interesting was the amount of security around it. You couldn't leave the museum without stepping into a separate compartment and closing the door leading in before you opened the door going out. There's still a bit of anti-Semitism in France and the museum is afraid of attacks. I learned that there were 76,000 Jews deported from France through the collaborationist government.

As far as school, my history class is getting a little easier and we are also finally finished with introduction and getting into the actual topic of the course, Napoleon III, so that's cool. The other IES students and I are a little confused about the assignments, since we're leaving before the end of the French semester, but we'll figure it out. I had an oral presentation in one of my poli sci classes this week, and I think it went OK. I also had another visit to the Louvre for art history, we talked about the artists David, Ingres, and Delacroix.

Today Megan's last class got cancelled, so after my class ended I went to the Musee Carnavalet, the history of Paris museum, to see the special exhibit on Les Miserables! It was really awesome, they had a timeline of the characters, paintings of Paris at the time the book was written, explanations of the locations used in the book...it was basically really awesome. Then I went to all the parts of the museum that Megan and I apparently totally missed the first time, like the French Revolution and the Gallo-Roman period, it was interesting. Then once Megan got out of class, we went to Victor Hugo's house. Obviously they talked about Les Mis there too, so now I have the desire to reread the book. His house is located in the Place des Vosges (originally named the Place Royale), the oldest square in Paris and the model for all residential squares in Europe. It was built in 1612.

My host parents have the first student they ever hosted staying with them this week, she's 26 and a doctoral student. It's really interesting to have dinner now. I love my host parents in general, we had a really great dinner tonight. They keep lending Megan and me movies that I hope we'll have time to watch! Mostly French movies but some American ones as well.

This weekend should be interesting, Giverny and then Brussels to see Cristy for the first time since CTY!!! More on that the next time I update. By the way, the top photo is L'Institut Catholique and the bottom is Place des Vosges.

Normandy

So this weekend I got to go on a really great IES field trip, a weekend in Normandy.
We got up at 5 am on Friday morning to meet at a bus stop near school to catch our chartered bus. We were in Caen, Normandy by a little after 10 am to see the Memorial de la Paix. It's basically a big museum that focuses on World War II but has exhibits on WWI and the Cold War as well. They had a lot of really interesting stuff, since a lot of it focused on France during WWII, but there was plenty of stuff about the conflicts in Russia and the Pacific as well. Something really special that we got to see was a temporary exhibit on September 11th. It choked me up a few times, because it was so strange to see that kind of thing in a museum...they had fragments of the towers, a crumpled police van, posters of the missing, profiles of the hijackers (something you really don't learn about in the US), even the twisted remains of the sculptures that used to be around the WTC complex. it was really interesting to get a foreign perspective on the attacks. We had lunch and I got to try kir, which is like white wine with anise in it, it was very sweet. We also got to watch two short films about D-Day before we left in the late afternoon.
We then drove the half hour to our hotel in Asnelles-sur-mer. The main building is a castle that is right on the beach...you don't even have to cross the street, there's just a sidewalk and then beach and ocean. So after we put our stuff down, Megan, Becky, Maria, Amy, and I ran around on the beach for an hour or so, drawing stuff in the sand and wading in the water and jumping around and being completely silly. The water was much warmer than it would be at home this time of year, it was actually pleasant to put our feet in (and the weather in general was gorgeous all weekend). When we looked out into the water, we saw these big blocks of concrete and wondered what they were...we found out the next day. After the rising tide threatened to get our stuff wet a few too many times, we decided to go for a walk around the (tiny) town. Normandy in general is beautiful, if quiet. Then we ate dinner and hung out for a little while before bed.

Saturday morning after breakfast, we headed to Arromanches to go see the Musee de Débarquement. It was only about a 15-min drive away, and there we learned that the big concrete blocks we had seen the day before were the remaining bits of the artificial harbors that had been built for the landings on D-Day...the beach we were staying on was one of the D-Day beaches. We got a guided tour of the museum, where a lot of the logistics of the landings and the building of the artificial harbors were explained to us. They were the original idea of Winston Churchill, and they were built in only 8 months. We then got to walk around on the beach, see one of the blocks from the artificial harbors up close (I even got to take a picture of the inside), etc. Then it was off to an oyster tasting that our bus driver brought us to...I tasted one and it pretty much tasted like salt. Not a fan. Then lunch, then we went to the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-mer and Omaha Beach. There are almost 10,000 men (and 6 women) buried there, and that's not even all the people who were victims of the campaign, since some of them are buried in the US. The territory is technically US soil, a gift from the French government. It's a beautiful cemetery, with statues and a chapel and poppies (poppies are the first flowers to grow on a battlefield). Each grave is marked by a white marble cross, in neat rows for acres. We didn't actually go down to Omaha Beach, since we only had an hour, and it takes 10 minutes to get down and 20 minutes to get back up the steep cliffs. But technically it's the same beaches we'd been on all weekend, just slightly farther west. Looking down the cliffs, it's impossible to believe that soldiers climbed them, and that it was even possible for us to win this battle. The contemplative day ended with an amusing incident...the bus stopped working and the ten guys on the trip had to push it while it was in neutral. This resulted in a bang and a cloud of black smoke, which apparently made the bus work again...

Once we got home, Becky, Maria, Megan and I decided it was time to continue our day in America in France. We went to a restaurant in the Marais called Breakfast in America...a fifties-style diner featuring milkshakes, fries, chocolate chip pancakes, and all the other lovely American food we'd missed so much. We ate until we were stuffed, and it was cheap, too! We sat there giggling for about an hour after we'd finished eating...when you're overtired, everything is funny.

The weekend was really interesting, particularly in terms of US-France relations (the topic of one of my classes, sorry, I'm a dork). Yes, the relationship is complicated, but here's a news flash for everyone...65 years later, Normans are still grateful to Americans, who they see as their liberators. Normandy is a beautiful, quiet region of farmland. Even after seeing videos of battles on the very roads we drove on, it's impossible to believe that those actually happened in those tiny, silent hamlets, and on those beautiful beaches. I have a ton of pictures to share :-) the usual link. I also put it on the left side of the blog, above the slideshow.