Strasbourg and other stories.

Last Thursday I went to the Musée Marmottan and l'Orangerie with my friend Roanne. The Marmottan has a huge Monet exhibit, and it was wonderful. They had so many of his paintings of the water lilies and his gardens. It was so amazing to see them in person because I totally recognized where in the garden some of the paintings were painted! They also had Impression: Sunrise, which was amazing to see. Monet also used to do caricatures apparently, and they had a bunch of those on display which was pretty funny. After that, we went to l'Orangerie, which has Monet's HUGE water lilies. Like they take up entire walls. I can't imagine painting something that big. I would fill maybe one square foot and then be like, ok what am I supposed to put in the rest of the space? Even though they're all of the same subject, they're all so amazingly unique. It was a Monet-filled day. After the museums, we went to this movie theater to watch HP7, but we had the time wrong so we didn't end up seeing it. However, the theater was in a cute little outdoor shopping area that was all decorated for Christmas, and I don't know what it was, but it smelled great, too haha. After that, we went back to Roanne's foyer to hang out until Thanksgiving dinner. I definitely tripped going up the Metro stairs, too. It didn't hurt, but I fell on my hands, and I was kind of freaking out about germs the rest of the way back to the foyer. A foyer is like a dorm, but anyone between 18-25 can live there for two years before they have to find other housing. It was a very interesting mix of people. Dinner was pretty good, but it was chicken instead of turkey and there was no mushroom stuffing made by my mom, which I had been thinking about all day. It was pretty fun still, though. During dinner, the beginner students had to put on a skit about the pilgrims and indians. It was really short, and definitely was nowhere near topping THIS. Love Spring Sing. After dinner, they had an "American Night" party. They had a huge cardboard cutout of Obama, signs shaped like arrows with cities and miles on them (pointing towards cities in the US obv), and a poster with the Pledge written on it. A lot of the French kids were like, "You had to stand and say this every day? What about the 'under God' part?! That caused controversy, right?" It was a decent party, but I wasn't drinking because we were leaving early the next morning for Strasbourg. I ended up talking to this French guy for awhile so I could practice conversation haha. Turns out, he's coming to Irvine next August for school. I had to leave at 11 according to foyer rules, so I headed home around then to pack for Strasbourg!

Everyone made it to the train barely on time once again. About half of our group had a little mini-compartment which was cool. Definitely like the Hogwarts Express. Which was funny because we pretty much went to Hogsmeade. But before I get to that, on the way there, it started snowing!! We saw so much snow out the window of the train it was crazy. And a few people in the program have never seen snow before, so they didn't even know how to react. It was quite entertaining. And then, one kid in our group was like, "Oh, that's definitely frost." And the rest of us just looked at him because it was definitely snow. A lot of snow. We teased him the rest of the trip. When it was snowing in Strasbourg someone would say, "Man, the air is just so frosty right now!" Didn't get old. When we got off the train, it was lightly snowing :) We walked to our hostel to drop off our bags, and after we did that, it started snowing harder. By the time we had walked back into town it was definitely a steady snow. I always forget that snow is just as wet as rain so it would have been wise to use an umbrella because my clothes and hair got kind of wet. Good thing I bought waterproof stuff for my Uggs. Saved my life. And my toes. We had a tour of the city by this French lady who gives tours in English, French, German, and Italian. Amazing. She said that in school there, you learn a new language every two years. I wish the system was like that in the States. So useful! The tour was interesting, and the city is beautiful. I'm convinced that any city with a canal or river running through it is awesome. We then went inside the huge cathedral (not warmer inside), and learned about its history. There is a huge clock in the back corner that is super complex. It tells you the day, where the planets are in their rotation around the sun, what sign of the zodiac it is, and, of course, the time. It also rings every 15 minutes. It was quite the clock. After that tour, we had a bateau mouche tour (boat tour). It was pretty dark at this point, and over half the group fell asleep I think. I listened in French and I understood most of it, but definitely not all of it. Also, it was exhausting and I totally dozed off a few times. Especially when we were in the lock, which took about 8 minutes to fill. It was kind of cool, though, because they have locks like that in the Panama Canal I think. After the canal tour, it was pretty freezing outside, and I've never seen our group move so fast. We basically sprinted back to the hostel. Dinner was ok, but I think everyone thought it was delicious because we were all so hungry. After dinner we went down to the basement game area and played this game where someone named a movie and the next person had to name a movie that had any of the actors of the previous movie in it. That lasted us a solid hour. I think a few people went out, but I went back up to my room to go to sleep because we had to be up around 7 the next morning for breakfast. Breakfast was horrible. They had croissants, which were delicious but definitely not what I want to be eating for breakfast. Also, the fruit they put out wasn't really ripe. Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for. And breakfast was free. We had a tour of the Kronenbourg brewery, which was all in French and the girl did not seem very into it, so it was kind of boring. We got free beer and cookies after, though. The cookies made it all worth it. I tried the Christmas beer, which actually wasn't bad. From there, we headed back into town on the (very late) tram and got lunch at this place called Le Petit Ours. It was super expensive, but that's where our reservation was. We were only getting reimbursed 15 euro, so I chose one of the cheapest things. It ended up being delicious, though. It was some kind of fish underneath puréed sweet potatoes. I basically licked the plate. After lunch, we had free time to explore the Christmas markets. Aka drink vin chaud and eat a TON of delicious and very bad for you food. Including waffles on a stick. I bought a few Christmas gifts for people and something for myself (which I promptly dropped and kind of broke when I got off the train in Paris...at least it was the one for me, though). We had these chocolate covered marshmallow things which were called Boules de Neige (snowballs), cider, a soft pretzel of course (Strasbourg is very heavily influenced by Germany), and a pizza baguette (aka a piece of bread covered in cheese). Even though it was freezing, it was so much fun. And all the Christmas lights were so beautiful! There was a light snow after the sun set. If the snow had stuck, you would have had a hard time convincing me I wasn't in Hogsmeade. We eventually made our way to the train station to head back to Paris, and I read the entire way back on the train. When I got home I took a super hot shower and passed out. Amazing but exhausting weekend.

The next day (Sunday), I slept in until 11 it was wonderful. I didn't do much that day, but at 4 I had my little session thing with the French girl. This week, we practiced her pronunciation. It was really entertaining. There is no "th" sound in French; they pronounce it as a "z." So, every time she said "the" it came out "ze" and "father" is "fazzer" and on and on. I had to stop her every single time and make her say it right, which she really struggled with. Also, if there was a "th" sound right before an "s" sound, it was like her tongue would get stuck and she would lisp the "s." Must be what I sound like to her when I try and speak French. After that, I went and walked around the Champs Elysées, which is all decorated for Christmas. They have a Christmas market like the one in Strasbourg, but it just wasn't the same. The Champs Elysées was beautiful, but once again it was freezing and my hand got too cold to take pictures. I headed towards where I was meeting people for dinner: a Canadian bar called the Hoser Hut. Just kidding. It's called The Moose. But I wish it was called the former haha. I had a hamburger which was soooo delicious. Haven't had one since I've been here. Figured I should top of the weekend with a final unhealthy meal. I've had salad for many meals this week. The bar was really fun. It was mostly Americans I think, and there was football on TV. They also were playing cricket and the score was 307-1 or something like that. Not really sure how that game works. It was really fun, though, and we were there for awhile. And then, it was snowing when we left! I got home around midnight and still had a little bit of homework to do.

School the next day was uneventful, and Tuesday it was freezing so I stayed inside and finished The Lost Symbol. It was ok. Not my favorite, but the climax was super intense. Other than that, though, it was just decent. Today, in my dumb art class that I really don't like, I got in trouble. Last week, we went to the Musée D'Orsay as a class. But our teacher said we couldn't walk around as a huge group and she'd have to take us around in small groups because she didn't have a little badge authorizing her to give tours. So, I walked around and did my assignment, catching up with the group every now and then. We had to meet up at 5 with everyone so she knew we didn't just peace out early. After I finished, I walked around a little bit with another girl in my class, and then we sat for a little bit waiting for it to be 5. At 5, we went towards the front of the museum, but we didn't see anyone. Then we saw our teacher and she was headed for the door, and I'm pretty sure she left. We saw a few other students leaving, so we left, too. Then, this week, she was like, "And where were you two last week? You weren't with the group and we went and saw the Gerome exposition and you weren't there." I tried to explain that she had said not to go as a big group and that she should have said to meet at the Gerome exposition at a certain time or something if she wanted us to see it. She was pretty mad, but that class is so poorly structured I don't even care. We watched a video today, and when we watch videos she stops them every 30 seconds to explain what they're explaining. It's SO annoying and completely pointless. Either teach or let the video do it for you, don't try and do both. Then we were in little groups and one was speaking English and she had a fit. She yelled at them a bunch of times and then started yelling to the whole class how this one girl especially out of everyone should be practicing because she's the worst in the whole class on her writing assignments. Not something you should be shouting to the whole class, I think. Anyway, that was the extent of the excitement for this week. Not sure what I'm doing tomorrow, but Bordeaux is Friday!!