Who's Reading This, Anyway?

Yesterday I tried to organize a trip to the Sewer Museum, but after changing the time to accommodate more people, I ended up there by myself. Also, I accidentally forgot one girl could come and I never went to the Métro stop where everyone was supposed to meet, so we didn't get to meet up. My bad. I walked all the way there (and back). Four miles each way. The museum was pretty cool. There was a weird smell, though, and it was kind of muggy down there so I wasn't a huge fan. I think it would have been more interesting if I was more interested in engineering. Also the English translations were pretty bad, but it was funny. The French sewer system is quite complex. There are so many different facets that have been improved and perfected over the years. And apparently there are fish in the Seine. Even though you can't see an inch under the water. It was also kind of gross to see what used to be done with the waste. It went from "tout à la rue" to "tout à l'égout" which means, from all in the street to all in the sewer. It sounds better/rhymes in French haha. There were also these giant balls they used to clean the sewers, which I thought were kind of funny. I still think the most interesting part about the sewers is the Victor Hugo aspect. In Les Mis he pretty much documented the entire sewer system (cut out from the version we all read). I did feel a little like Jean Valjean going through, too. But it smelled a little bit better and I wasn't hiding from the cops. When I got home I was exhausted and starving, so I did my homework, watched some TV, and went to bed. I've been walking to school, too, which hasn't been horrible. It was kind of cold on Monday morning, but today it was pretty nice. Also, on Monday, I found 5 euros in the street. I was like, "oh karma, you think you're soooo funny...." I also saw the biggest dog I have ever seen. It was literally a giant wolf. On all fours it was well above its owner's waist. I'm sure if it stood on its hind legs it would definitely be taller than me. It was kind of like a blend between Sirius's Animagus and Lupin as a werewolf but grey and even bigger. I was so mad I didn't bring my camera that day. Now I'm at school, getting through these last few days before break. Hopefully Bruges happens and if not it's OK because Mara is coming on Wednesday and it's going to be great. I'm also watching The Rocky Horror Glee Show between my classes and Glee really does make everything better. I was smiling like an idiot in the cafeteria haha.
 
In my art class, we had a sub. She was completely clad in purple, it was absurd. Pants, shirt, coat, scarf, even her bag. We went, yup, you guessed it, to the SAME MUSEUM WE WENT TO LAST WEEK. I snuck onto the bus because I still don't have a pass. Also, it turns out that I did my homework wrong from the week before. We were supposed to do it on paintings in one certain room, but I thought we could use any of them. But I used paintings we were supposed to write about this week. Oops, hopefully my teacher doesn't know the museum by heart. This teacher was a little more interesting than our normal one. She took us through the part of the museum that had to do with the French Revolution. They have a mini-Bastille that was carved out of an actual piece of the real Bastille--pretty cool. After class, I started walking towards where our cooking class was for that night. On the way, I got sooo hungry so I got a sandwich and scarfed it in about two seconds. I also got tortilla chips and funny dinosaur shaped gummy snacks haha. Excellent meal. I got to the Cordon Bleu really early because I just walked straight from class, so I found random WiFi and watched some TV sitting on a ledge outside an apartment building lol. The class was pretty fun, I was just exhausted. Also I will never ever be able to make what the chef did (he also didn't follow the recipe at all). It was delicious, though. We only got to taste it, which might have been worse than not getting to try it because we all just wanted more. Even though they didn't give us real forks. (What the heck is that thing?)Also, they put guinea fowl in a blender and then through a mesh thing to make it even finer, and it was called "forcemeat," but we all thought they were saying "horse meat" and having a panic attack. We figured it out, though, which was good because I wasn't going to eat it otherwise. Even if horse meat is "sweet, rich, lean, and soft" according to Bones. No thanks. After the class, I squeezed onto the Metro with the other girls, and then got interrogated about my germ issues when I didn't sit down like I always don't haha. I've decided I think I need therapy.

Today I didn't really do a lot, but my new debit card came so things are looking up! I was able to get my train tickets and reserve my hostel for Bruges this weekend. What better way to spend Halloween than in a Medieval city? Stoked. Hopefully all the trains work and the hostel isn't horrible. Last day of class tomorrow before vacation. Picking up my tickets and also hopefully buying a new wallet. Also, found out we're going to a France vs. England soccer game while we're in London, so that will be awesome :)

Finally, I saw my blog had 37 hits yesterday, and it's been getting that traffic pretty consistently. From what I can tell, not very many of my friends actually read this, so I was wondering who does. If you could just leave a quick comment or somehow let me know, that would be awesome!! Just want to get an idea of who actually reads this thing :)

Amboise

Friday we had a test in my Paris Cinema class. The instructions in there entirety are translated and reproduced for you here: "Write some words about the movies we've seen." That's all. We watched 5 movies so I just started writing (in French) about each of them. I have NO idea what the teacher was really looking for. Some of the movies we only watched 5 minutes of (we only watch excerpts of the films), so I kind of forgot the whole point of them. And another, we watched about half of, and I didn't know if he wanted us to talk about everything we had seen or just one scene or what. I just wrote until the time ran out and what's done is done and I don't really care haha. After that, we started another movie called "Les Ripoux," which my teacher said there is an American remake of but we couldn't find any evidence of such a thing online when we got home. I was confused by the title of the film because it wasn't in my dictionary or anything, and it turns out, it's a product of a French word game called Verlan which is not unlike Pig Latin. Basically, you take the syllables of a word and flip them. Even the title is switched. It's from L'anvers (the inverse), so you swap it and say "verlan." Being the extreme nerd I am, I was SUPER excited because I had heard about this game in my Ling class in session A! So once he started talking about it I was like "OMG JE LE CONNAIS!" (omg I know what that is). For those of you who care, "ripoux" would be "pourri" in actual French, which means "rotten," and the movie is called that because it's a cop movie and one of them is kind of dishonest. Moving on....

After class, I went over to Mado and Michal's because we were all planning on going out for dinner at some point and I didn't want to go all the way home just to go out again. It ended up being just me and Mado and Lara for dinner, and we went to this amazing sandwich place called Cosi pretty close to school so that's awesome. I had a tomato mozzarella sandwich and the bread was to die for. After, we met up with Sergei and Oday and got some wine and went down to the Seine and drank it on the bank of the river across from the Louvre. It's amazing we can just do that (well, technically I think it's illegal, but no one cares). It was freezing, though, and I couldn't feel my hands. Next purchase: gloves. We didn't stay too late because we had to be at the train station at 7am the next morning for our excursion.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:30 to get ready to leave for the train station. I had to take three different Métro lines to get there, which was kind of annoying. And I thought I was going to be late, so I was like running through the stations which I'm sure was entertaining. It was so early and freezing cold and still dark. I have to admit I was impressed that everyone made it to the train on time haha. It was about a 2 hour train ride to Amboise, and it wasn't that bad. We got to see the sunrise over the country which was cool. We got there around 9:30, and it was FREEZING and soooo windy. I shoved my hands in my pockets and buried my face in my scarf and started power walking to our destination. We crossed 2 bridges to get to the main town, and found a cute little cafe called Café Bigot ("bee-GOH"). We stayed there for a while and then headed up to the chateau. On the way, we passed a store selling swords, and yup, you guessed it, suits of armor. I was like wow thank GOD I found this I've been in the market for a new one. I crack myself up sometimes. Actually, most of the time, and usually I'm the only one laughing, but whatevs. At the chateau, we got these little self-guided tour pamphlets, which were awesome. You could read all the cool facts and go at your own pace it was great. You're supposed to be quiet in there, I was talking quietly with one of my friends and I laughed like one small chuckle and the security guy like stared me down and gave me the evil eye. I was like whoa sorry calm it down buddy haha. Anyway, the castle started being built in the 11th century, and was expanded many times. Now, only 1/5 of all the construction still exists, and it's a combo of Gothic and Renaissance architecture. A number of kings and French rulers lived there over time, and it was really cool to just walk around and see the Loire Valley below. The gardens there were amazing, too.

 

After that, we all got lunch at a cute restaurant in town. Tawna let us splurge a little bit and we got the first prix fixe menu. My meal started with a salad with roasted chicken and a raspberry vinaigrette, then I had a type of whitefish called hoki with mushroom risotto with an olive oil sauce, then we had a cheese course, and then dessert. The dessert was called "mini-vague du lait" which translates to "mini wave of milk" and none of us were really sure what it would be. Turns out it was a little cake shaped like a wave kind of. And it was amazing. We were at lunch for probably two hours, and we could hardly move after, but it was great. When we finally got out of there, we went to Clos Lucé, which was where da Vinci lived and worked. Apparently it's attached via an underground tunnel to the chateau (he was a good friend of the king). At this point it started raining. We walked through his house pretty quickly. His bedroom and office were under renovation so that kind of sucked, but it was still pretty cool I guess. There were mini replications of his inventions all through his house, and it's crazy how much stuff he invented. He came up with the most innovative technology for everything! It amazes me how someone can think of and create something that doesn't exist. Even though it was raining, I wanted to see the grounds because I thought, "I'm never coming back here so I might as well." I was walking around with a girl in our group and she didn't have an umbrella so I let her share mine. She said she could hold it since she's taller, which makes sense, but then she proceeded to hold it over herself and about 1/3 of me. I was soaked by the end of the walk. We met up with everyone in the café and everyone was like what happened didn't you have an umbrella? Yeah.... No big deal though, it's just water. I was just kind of cold and my backpack was soaked. We walked back into town and hung out there for a little bit longer before crossing back over the bridge to the train station. Then, because of the strike, it turned out our train back was canceled, so we had to wait 2 hours until the next one. A few of us headed back towards town to try and find a bar or something. Literally this must be the most boring town in the entire world. Nothing was open anywhere and there were about 3 other people in the whole place. We had to walk forever to find a place to go, it was ridiculous. We finally found one and stayed there until we had to go back to the station. It was warm and had a clean bathroom so I wasn't about to go searching for anything else to do. Not that there would be anything haha. I can't imagine what the people who live there are like. Anyway, I didn't get anything to drink because I didn't want to have to pee on the train. I started cleaning out my backpack and saw one of my pens had exploded so there was blue ink everywhere, so I dealt with that situation lol. We got back to the station in plenty of time (no way were we missing that train) and started our return journey. It seemed to take 12 times longer than the trip there. Probably because we were all freezing and soaked (my Uggs were soaked through and my feet were SO cold). I played Bejeweled on my phone pretty much the whole time, and I'm now on level 29...I'm starting to wonder how many levels there are.

I took the Métro home, which is a decision I regret, even though I wouldn't have made a different choice if it was warm out and my feet weren't about to fall off. Somewhere between Gare Austerlitz and Porte D'Orleans, my wallet was either stolen or somehow fell out of my backpack. I got on the 3rd train and someone was like oh your backpack is open. Freaking out then commenced. I called Tawna in a panic, and mainly just in a stupor that it had actually happened. Thankfully I only had 40 euro in there, and I keep most of my money and my passport at home, but I had my Métro pass in there ($80/month) and it was a new wallet. Also my bank cards and my license were in there. I care about the money, but I'm more just so mad at myself. When we got here Tawna was like "every semester someone gets pickpocketed so be careful" and I was like wow no way that's going to be me I'm not an idiot. And there ya go. At least I'm the statistic for this semester and no one else in our group will get pickpocketed.... We even watched a movie called Pickpocket in my film class and I just kept thinking how stupid those people are. I guess it's my fault for having it in my bottom backpack pocket, but I thought I was paying attention. I stand against the walls on the Métro and when this shady guy got on the escalator behind us I was watching him. At least I thought I was. Lesson learned I guess. After I got of the Métro I was really upset and angry and just wanted to get home and wash this day off me. It usually takes me about 15-20 minutes to walk home from the Métro stop, but I was so ready to be home I sprinted. The entire way. I felt really rude when I got home because Olivier's parents were here and I was like "sorry enchanté I need to go upstairs now before I have a mental breakdown."I called my mom and had my moment of hysteria, and then I took a shower which kind of helped. Turns out she couldn't get ahold of my dad to cancel my cards, so I called to take care of that. They hadn't used them yet, so that was good. It was such a pain because I had to change my address so the new ones get mailed here, and I had to talk to three different departments for some reason. Also, I was calling from Google phone because I can't call the US from my cell phone here, and the guy in the credit card department was like "Um, we can't talk to you when you're on speaker phone" and I was like sorry what do you want me to do about that? Everything got canceled though and is in the process of being mailed here. I guess new boots will have to wait until my cards get here because I'm not about to spend my euros before I can take more money out of the bank. All in all, kind of a good day. Would have been a pretty good day without this unfortunate event. Even though Amboise was cold and rainy I had a pretty decent time there and a great time with everyone in the program. But then we came back from the town were I'm sure the crime rate is around .01%.

Today I felt a little better, but not much. I did my homework and everything, and then had lunch with the family. I'm understanding still better every day, which is exciting. And they say I'm speaking better and better. Also the baby is here so that makes everything better. He got so big already! He was here just two weeks ago and now he's huge! He also has started to make more sounds and he's pretty much the cutest thing ever. It's hilarious how one little baby can captivate four adults (all the grandparents are here and fight over who gets to hold him). Not looking forward to my six hours of class tomorrow, and potential walk to and from school without my Métro pass. Yay. Thank god next week is vacation. I think I'm going to go to Belgium. It's impossible get anyone to finalize any plans, so I think I'm going to end up going by myself, and I'm kind of excited about that. I realized I need someone to buy my tickets for me though, since I no longer have a debit card. Hopefully it all works out. And then Mara comes and after that most of the weekends are booked and then I'm home!

A Test, The Social Network, and the Centre Pompidou

Today I had a test, and it went OK. By OK I mean I think I understood the majority of the writing part, and I think I did the conjugations of the three different types of past tense (one of the three I had never heard of before coming here, thanks high school French class), but there was also an oral comprehension part, which is where everything went downhill. We listened to a tape twice, and I barely heard anything both times. We were supposed to write down what we heard, and my chart was almost blank. I made stuff up...it was pretty bad. I hope I did well on the other parts to make up for it. Everyone else was saying how hard they thought the rest of it was, but I thought the rest was easy by comparison.... Good thing my grades here don't affect my UCLA GPA. After that, I had my current events class, which is the only class I actually like. I like my teacher a lot and she seems to really know what she's talking about. She corrects our pronunciation and isn't condescending or anything which is nice. It's interesting to learn about things that are currently happening, too, since a lot is. The strike is still going on, and we talked about why today in more detail than I knew. There's a vote on Wednesday that will determine the direction the strike will go. Hopefully they work things out....

After school, I had to wait an hour for my friends to get out because we were going to go see a movie, so I walked around rue de Rennes and went shopping. I didn't buy anything because the stupid euro is worth 1.4 USD now which sucks. I'm looking for boots, though, since my converse are not going to get me through the winter. I didn't find any that I would be willing to spend so much on, though. Also, I think my legs are disproportionately short compared to the rest of my body, and the taller boots make them look even shorter. Might be just me, but I had a hard time finding a good boot height haha. They finally got out of class, and we went to see The Social Network. First of all, the previews were the weirdest previews I have ever seen. There were a bunch of ads for other countries and then a bunch of weird ads for TV shows I am not inclined to watch after seeing the ads. Then we saw a bunch of previews for foreign movies, including one in Portuguese with French subtitles...there was just too much going on there for me to try and understand haha. I thought the movie was really entertaining. I wasn't bored at any point, and it was interesting to see the back-story.

Yesterday I did absolutely nothing, so I'm not going to talk about it haha. I did book my trip to Bordeaux though, which I'm stoked about.

Today, we got our tests back, and I actually did OK! I did poorly on the oral comprehension, but did really well on the other sections and got a 14.5/20, which apparently is a good grade here. It's impossible to get 20/20 and a 14/20 is good and a 16/20 is great, so I think I'm in good shape! For now, anyway. In my art class, we had a field trip to the Musée Carnavalet, which I definitely have to go back to. I have to be in a certain mood to go walk through a museum, and I generally don't go after 3 hours of French class that started at 9am. We got to class and the teacher just gave us the address and was like "Ok, see you there." I'm so used to filling out 8 permission slips and waivers I was really thrown off by the "get on a bus and I hope everyone makes it" mentality. Everyone did make it, though, and we followed our teacher around as she told us about some of the paintings. I'd like to point out that my art class is not learning about famous works or different genres of painting, really. It's about what color the paintings are and how the artist filled the space. So we walked around as the teacher said "See, this is blue, and this is red, and these colors contrast." I was dying. It was in French so I guess there was a little bit of a challenge, but I kept zoning out. I can look at a painting and tell you what color it is. She also didn't say who any of them were by or the titles or anything, so I'm not sure if we're supposed to know them for a test. I ended up walking around a little bit on my own, and then left early.

This morning, I woke up planning on going running, and then I checked the weather. It was a toasty 32 degrees. So I decided to stay in the warm house until a little bit later and then walk to where I was meeting my friend instead of take the Métro. A little group of us went to the Centre Pompidou today. The building itself is soooo cool. It's very industrial looking, and the stairs are on the outside so you can see people going up and down. Also, all the different pipes are different colors based on what's in them. Like the blue pipes are for air, green is for water, and then red is for the elevators and escalators. It's awesome. It's another national museum, so it was free for us, which was a nice surprise because it didn't say anything on the website about free entry for students. The first floor we went to was kind of weird. There were a lot of cool pieces of art, and then a lot of disturbing things, too, so I wasn't a huge fan of that floor. Some of the sculptures were cool, but there was a lot of nudity and weird violence in a lot of the art, too, so I was kind of uncomfortable. Two of the girls left after that floor. I think they definitely missed the best part, though, because as strange and not great as the first floor was was how amazing the second floor was. It was full of Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Pollock, Miro, and my favorite, Kandinsky. I had no idea all that was there so it was the best surprise ever! Also, the view was amazing. You could see the entire city. Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower on one side, and Sacre Coeur on the other. It was funny the girl I was with called it a Basilisk and I was like "basilica?" It was hilarious. I saw one of my favorite paintings ever by Kandinsky. I always forget about him when people ask my favorite artist, but now after seeing his work in person I don't think I'll ever forget. I could have sat in front of "Rouge-Jaune-Bleu" (Red-Yellow-Blue) forever. It's so beautiful. I also didn't realize how much I liked Braque. He's kind of Picasso-esque but I think more refined. I also saw the urinal that Marcel Duchamp wrote "R. Mutt" on and called it art. Awesome. All in all, the visit was definitely worth it. After walking most of the way there and then around the museum, I was soo hungry so we decided to head home. Plus I have a test tomorrow I hadn't started studying for. We went down to the Métro a different way than we had come up, and it was literally a labyrinth it was kind of ridiculous. We spent about 10 minutes trying to navigate our way down there it was absurd. I finally got home and ran to the store to get breakfast food (since I ran out of my .65euro corn flakes) and to get a quick snack. There aren't as many salty snacks here as in the States and I really miss it haha. In the chip aisle I found hamburger flavored chips. I didn't get them, but I'm definitely intrigued haha. I got home and started studying, but I don't really know what he's going to ask about the movies we watched, because he tended to ramble a lot about the directors and similar American films and who was married to the directors and actors, etc. Should be interesting. I did talk to Bibiane tonight more than usual in French, and I think I'm doing better. I followed the news pretty well the other night, which was cool. One more week of school and then vacation!!

Also, I finally saw the cotton candy pink Fiat when I had my camera! Score.

Dia de los Muertos? (yes I realize that's Spanish)

First of all I just have to say I think it's funny that my post titled "Uneventful" has the most views.

Anyway, yesterday was a long but really fun day. I went running at the Parc Montsouris near the dorms. It had hills, so that was rough haha, but it felt good to get up and go be active. Since we didn't end up going out the night before, it was great to be not hungover and exercise as opposed to being hungover and sleeping in. Good life choice. I came home and got ready because we were planning on going to the Catacombs that afternoon. I met up with a few of the girls at the entrance, which is literally across from the Metro exit (only 4 stops away). We had to wait in line for a little bit, but it wasn't too bad. We finally got in, got our tickets, and started making our way down. The Catacombs are under the Metro and under the water and sewer lines. And it's a small spiral staircase all the way down. I got soooo dizzy and I felt like the descent was never going to end. It finally did, and we started following the dark tunnels underground. I have to admit I was kind of creeped out. I'm glad I was there with other people. We ran into a girl who had come by herself. Never ever haha. There were a lot of tunnels gated off because apparently there is a large network of tunnels down there and you could get lost if you wandered down one of them. We stayed on the (dimly) lit path and followed the main tunnels. Again, it seemed to go on forever. We passed a lot of inscriptions on the walls, some telling us which streets we were under. So weird to think that this is just underneath a main square in the city. Then, we got to the actual bones. I was nervous we were going to turn a corner and then see skulls all of a sudden, but there was a doorway that warned you haha. I didn't really know what to expect. We walked it, and the sheer number of bones was unreal. The walls are just lined with skulls and what I think were femurs just stacked on top of each other. I took pictures, but you weren't allowed to use a flash so they're not very good quality. We just wandered through, looking at all these bones from anonymous people. They used to be buried in a cemetery, but then the people who lived nearby started complaining of rampant disease from it (I think?) and so they dug everyone up and stacked them underground. There weren't any railings or barricades down there or anything; you could reach out and touch the bones if you wanted to. I wanted to, but I didn't. I felt like Bones, it was awesome haha. The bones were also kind of designed. There was a column of bones that you could circumvent, and there were a bunch of skulls in a wall in the shape of a heart. I wonder who put all the bones down there that way. It was really cool until (hopefully) water started dripping from the ceiling, and then we were ready to get out of there. We climbed the 83 stairs back up and ended up on a random street kind of far from where we had started. We did a little shopping and then Mado and I went to the Père Lachaise cemetery, where SOOO many people are buried. It's not exactly laid out on a grid, though, and we didn't have a map, so we only found Oscar Wilde's grave and then Jim Morrison's, which was pretty cool. At Jim Morrison's, there were a bunch of kids just sitting there getting high, so I didn't stay over there for very long. It closed just as we found the exit, and we headed to Bastille to get dinner. We were going to get Indian food, but the place was closed which was a bummer. Also, I forgot about the protests for the retirement age, which take place at Bastille. Should have connected those dots better...there were a ton of people with flags and signs everywhere. Luckily the area by the restaurants wasn't too crazy, and we ended up at a random restaurant and had the most delicious pasta ever. Maybe it was just because we were starving, but it was sooo good. After that, we both headed home, and it was FREEZING. It was so windy I popped my collar haha. I couldn't take myself seriously for the next half hour getting home, but whatever, I was a little bit warmer. All in all, it was a fun day, even though we spent the majority of it with dead people.

This morning I woke up early and instead of studying for my test I'm going to fail tomorrow, I finally watched Dear Jack, Andrew McMahon's documentary about when he was in the hospital fighting leukemia. It was soooo amazing. I cried the entire time, but it's such a great story. Everyone should go watch it!! Then I actually started studying. Hopefully Bibiane will check my answers on my practice sheet so I know where I stand. I'm very unmotivated to study because you can only conjugate so many verbs.... Also I just want to go back to sleep. I would want to go out and do something, but it's currently 43 degrees outside, high of 48 for the day. I think the AZ/SoCal girl made a bad choice coming to what appears to be the Arctic. Definitely getting boots and a warm coat stat.

Happy people just don't shoot their husbands.... They just don't.

So endorphins definitely make everything better. It was an interesting run, though. I turned a corner and there was a barricade of police with those big plastic shields, and some had tear gas guns and others had real guns I think. There were a bunch of students outside, too, and I'm not sure what happened. I just kept running and no one was stopping me so I figured it was OK. Then, as I was passing the cemetery, I found out there is a funeral today. There were tons of people, and then I saw the hearse. With the coffin in the back. Good start to the day? I ran the same way I went the other day, but ended up making a kind of circle because I wanted to go to the big market they have on Thursdays and Sundays. It was so great. It was like the one we went to last weekend, but it's all in this giant warehouse. I bought a lot of fruit and a flower for my room :) Everyone was so friendly it was ridiculous. Every stand owner said bonjour or started talking to me. At the place where I bought the fruit, one of the guys was talking to me and I really couldn't understand all I know is he was talking about strawberries but I just kind of nodded and smiled and walked away. Also some people were asking if I was freezing because I was wearing shorts from running. Hope that's not why they were all talking to me...pretty sure that's why the guy in the regular supermarket asked me how I was from halfway down the aisle.... I had gone to the grocery store to get garlic and anchovies for the Caesar dressing I made. I couldn't find anchovies, though. I asked one of the people who worked there and she looked at me like I was from another planet. I figured the French word is really different. It's not. It's "anchois." Oh well, I figure not too many people are going to complain about the lack of small salty fish in their salad dressing. It was hard to make the dressing because there was not a measuring cup to be found, so I kind of had to wing it. I think it worked though haha. I also made croutons, which made the house smell bomb. Hope everyone likes everything!

Well dinner was a hit. I ate wayyy too much, as usual. And the ice cream sundae bar at the end was delicious, but I have such a weakness for ice cream I literally had to move it across the table to stop eating it. After, we decided to go to the Pantalon bar before maybe going to this club called Erasmus, which is an international party with free cover before midnight but drinks are really expensive. We were waiting at the corner by the aparmtment for another girl to meet us, and this guy came up to us and asked us for a cigarette. It was super awkward and it looked like he had a black eye and most of us were pretty sketched out. Then one of the girls went around and introduced everyone with fake names. She should probably work on thinking on the spot because I ended up with "Rodriguez"...not even a first name. Or English. Or for a girl. But whatevs haha. When the last girl finally showed up we booked it out of there. Pantalon was fun as usual, but we didn't stay for long because some of the girls wanted to get to Erasmus. I, on the other hand, wasn't super stoked on going, so I wasn't in any hurry. We started walking there, which was fine because I was in my comfy shoes and it wasn't too cold last night. Two of the girls were in heels, so weren't walking as fast, and then apparently it was getting to be too late because they started looking for a cab (which I didn't want to pay for or sit in). They eventually found one, but there were six of us and only four could fit. Me and Mado opted to walk, and we didn't get there on time. Again, totally OK with that. It was around midnight at this point, and we were both tired so we went home. I was going to take the Metro but after my massive feast of a dinner and since it was such a nice night I decided to walk home. It was just under three miles from where I live, and it took me about 40 minutes. It felt really good just to walk through the city. More of those endorphins I guess :) When I got back, I thought to myself "what did I think about for that entire walk?" and I couldn't find an answer to save my life haha. I did manage to keep myself entertained but I literally must have been just rambling on in my head. Kind of a weird feeling. All in all, I probably worked off about a quarter of my dinner, but that's more than if I had taken the train!

Today I got up and tried my .65 euro cereal for breakfast. It was about as good as could be expected haha. It was "corn flakes" that, in the words of TBBT, quickly "lost all structural integrity" (aka, became soggy). But it was less than a euro for the box, so I'm not going to complain. I watched Bones and then found out it's not going to be on until November, which I'm upset about. Stupid World Series. I guess I'll just have to find other things to do with my time haha :) Class was ok today. I'm getting better at comprehension every day, but the class is just kind of boring. We watch film clips and then talk about if they were in color or of the camera moves or is fixed in one spot or if the actors are famous, etc. It could be more exciting. We also don't get to watch movies all the way through, and since I've never seen them before and they're in French it's kind of hard to follow and I'm often confused about what's happening/which movie is which. My teacher is kind of awkward, too, and I think he's kind of creepy.

Also, I brought the croutons in a tupperware to dinner last night, which I left there because they said they would bring it to class today which didn't happen, and I guess Bibiane needs it tonight. Triple fail.

Uneventful.

So not too much has happened since last weekend, I guess. Sunday we went to an open air market, which was really cool. It as all fresh fruit and fresh fish and ... fresh rabbit? Yeah, whole rabbits on ice.... There were also a lot of little stands where you could buy precooked food. I bought the most amazing mango, some figs, and hummus and pita :) I also saw a stand with a bunch of homemade pasta, and saw mine and Nick's future. They need some competition and we make some awesome pasta from scratch. There's a market down the street from my house that I need to get to one of these days. Such a struggle to get out of bed though haha, especially when it's currently 46 degrees outside. It's only October I may not survive this winter. After the open air market, I went with a few of the girls to the Bastille area, which was really cool. There's a huge pillar in the center of the roundabout as a kind of memorial to the French Revolution. I had to explain to some of the other girls what the Bastille was/what happened.... We went to this thrift store that is apparently amazing. It's three stories of old clothes and smells weird and I'm sure is full of germs. I'm sure there was good stuff there, but I'm sure you're surprised to hear, I was kind of freaking out haha. I did kind of look through all the floors, but I ended up back near the front door pretty quickly lol. It was overwhelming and there was a reason people gave most of those clothes away. One of the floors was entirely Converse shoes. Would have been cool if they weren't all used.... I went home after that because I had some homework to do. In the Metro station where I switched trains there was a small orchestra warming up. I swear you never know what you're going to see. The train was super crowded and there was a screaming baby who would not stop crying. The train couldn't have moved slower haha. Then, two other kids I know got on the same car as me at some point, so random!

School this week has been OK so far. I forgot to do some homework, so I did it right before class so it wasn't very good. It was only 4 lines about an article though, so I might be OK haha. For that class, we have to do a 5-10 minute speech about a topic in the news. I don't think I have enough vocabulary in my French lexicon for that to be possible. I have another month, so hopefully that will be enough time to practice. We'll see. In my French class yesterday we had to do mock interviews and then present them to the class, which was awful. My partner was from Mexico so he has another accent plus French so I really had a hard time understanding him. Kind of like the Ukrainian kid in my other class. And most of the kids from Asia, too. Parisian French is hard enough. Anyway, it was embarrassing. And then some people didn't even have to go because we ran out of time! Not fair. Then in my art class we watched a video again, and the teacher stopped it literally every 20 seconds to talk more about something. I was like, why didn't you just make a slideshow of pictures you wanted to talk about and then do that instead? A 25 minute video turned into an hour.

Last night we watched the saddest movie ever. Here it is called "A Winter in Central Park," but it's actually called "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits." I did understand most of it, though. Kind of wish I hadn't because it was so depressing. Then I came up to my room and tried to plan two trips. One to the south of France, and the other to Brussels and Bruges. Hopefully other people want to come haha. But if I did successfully go by myself I would give myself a prize or something lol. Tonight is cooking night, so I have to go make Caesar dressing! After I go running. (If I write that here, then hopefully my few readers will hold me to that and I'll actually go). I did realize, though, that I think the reason I'm semi-sad sometimes is because of the lack of endorphins in my life. Working on the remedy!! haha.

Au revoir!

Monet's Gardens!!

Today was amazing. Even though we had to get up early and get to the train station on the other side of the river by 10am. Soooo worth it, though, so I'm  not complaining haha. So, after snoozing my alarm for the shortest half hour that has ever passed, I got up and got ready to head out for the day. It was our first excursion, so I was really excited--a bike tour of Giverny and a trip to Monet's house, gardens, and studio. Everyone was on time at the train station, so I was really impressed. Our resident director, Tawna, brought her little boy and I know I've said this before but he is the cutest thing ever. Her husband came, too, to accompany some of the kids who can't ride bikes. The train ride was ab0ut an hour, and when we got there we got the bikes and headed to an open air market to get food for our picnic lunch. We got 10 euro from Tawna, which was funny because it felt like getting lunch money from our mom. Then we were let loose in the market for about 45 minutes. I got a sandwich and a few clementine oranges. A lot of people just got baguette and cheese. And ate a whole baguette and all the cheese haha. While it looked delicious I was glad I didn't choose that option. Then we rode our bikes to the beautiful picnic spot, and ate lunch by a river. The weather could not have been better, it was amazing. It was also funny because a lot of people were dressed for "last week in Paris" weather, which was kind of rainy and cold. I was in shorts and a tank top lol everyone was like "I'm so jealous of your outfit" haha I came prepared :) After lunch, we got to ride the bikes for longer than 2 minutes, and it was SO much fun. I forgot how much I love bike riding. We all had beach cruiser type bikes, and the path was mostly flat and so beautiful! I ended up taking pictures as I was riding haha. There was a "hill" at the end and most of us college kids dominated it, and it was funny because there were some other people on the tour, too, who were older and they were like "how long is this hill?" It was barely an incline. At the top, we locked up our bikes and walked a little bit to the gardens. They were sooo beautiful. Monet built it all himself. There are the Japanese gardens with all the water lilies (one kid didn't know about the water lilies I was like who are you?) and the other garden was in the more traditional French style, semi-organized. Monet arranged the flowers according to color, though, which I thought was interesting. I felt like I was in Ferngully the whole time. And the pictures just can't do it justice. Then we went into his house, which was so cute. All the rooms were painted a different bright color, and there were so many windows! There was a bunch of (copies of) his art hanging everywhere, along with the original Japanese prints he had all over the place. After (even though I probably could have stayed there another hour) we went to a café and got coffee before taking the bikes back toward the train station. We also got to see Monet's family grave. Our guide told us a really confusing story about how everyone was somewhat related to each other and like step-siblings got married and if someone's spouse died they would just marry a sibling of their dead spouse. I don't know, it was all very confusing. I needed some sort of visual diagram in order to follow the relationships. One thing, though, on the grave one of the couples was "Jim and Lily" and my mind was instantly thinking "James and Lily, we found Godric's Hollow!"I know, I'm a freak, self-proclaimed, so you don't have to tell me haha. Riding back to drop off the bikes was fun. A few of us flew ahead of the group, and I got to ride with no hands like I used to LOVE doing. Tawna's baby, Skye, fell asleep in the little seat on the back of the bike, and it was so adorable. He was wearing a helmet so he was literally slumped over in half because it was heavy. It was the cutest thing. After getting snacks for the train ride, we got on board. The ride back seemed faster than the way there, which was nice because I was exhausted. I took the Métro back with Kristen and Kelli, and we all just kind of stood catatonic the whole time. Tonight we were going to try and find the UCLA vs. Cal game at a sports bar, but I guess it wasn't broadcast here. Probably for the best since I'm GameTracking it and I definitely would not want to be actually watching this.... I think tomorrow we're going to a flea market or something, so hopfully they have good stuff!

Two more things...

For those of you unfamiliar with A Night at the Roxbury, this is pretty much what happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpwK3vFGJp0

Also, I forgot to tell this story. I was in the bathroom at a café after class today, and the light kept turning off! The first time I was like OMG it is SO dark I didn't know what to do because I didn't know where the lightswitch was and couldn't see anything at all. And then I was moving around trying to find it and I triggered the motion detector on the hand dryer so that turned on which scared me half to death. Then the light turned out again! I was in there for maybe two minutes, tops. I'd like to know who set the timer on that thing and/or why no one has complained enough about it for them to change it. That switch has to be SO germy I don't even want to think about it. Ok, that is really all for now. I think.

A Night at the Roxbury.

So last night we had our second weekly cooking night, and we made Mexican food. There is no Mexican food to be found in Paris, which is unfortunate to say the least. We decided to have a taco night because we (especially those of us spoiled in California) were going through withdrawals. It was seriously the most amazing meal ever. It was probably because I just haven't had it in so long (missing De Neve fiesta night for sure), though, since it was not up to the standard of real Mexican food since we still had to buy the ingredients here. And the taco shells were super stale. Because they had to ship them all the way from Mexico. And are probably from like 2 years ago since no one here apparently eats Mexican food. Anyway, there was a huge group of us this time, and one girl brought like three other guys that none of us knew and we were all like how did these people even get here. It was fun, though. After, we all went over to the dorms and one of the kids who is apparently a bartender made not great mojitos. It looks like everyone just hangs out in the basement of the dorms and drinks, which is really strange to me haha. There were these two kids there who go to UCSB, and they were kind of hating on UCLA (I later found out that they wanted to go there and didn't get in...yeah). But they were super obnoxious. At this point, we had separated from about half the group, so we went to find them over at another dorm building. It was supposed to be this "Tour de France" thing where each floor was a different city in France featuring the corresponding wine. We only saw one floor, though, and I didn't see any wine. They offered us drinks, so I meticulously watched the guy making mine, because I've seen Veronica Mars. Also I'm not an idiot. The party was kind of fun, I guess. It was super crowded and really hot, though. Also, it was the engineering building, and everyone was wearing lab coats and it was kind of weird. We also quickly found out that they LOVE "California Girls" by Katy Perry, because they played it at least 5 times (5 times at the party, not counting when the three random guys at dinner found a video of it with lyrics on the computer and sang along). Also, each time they played it they would point and sing to me and Kristen, the other girl from UCLA. I asked one of the guys if he knew what Daisy Dukes were and he was like, "Yeah, Daisy Duck, like a duck. Un canard." I was like, "Um...not quite" haha. We were kind of dancing for a while and then I looked up and saw two guys (in lab coats) doing the whole "A Night at the Roxbury" "me, him, him, me" pointing back and forth thing, and I was like "Oh no, here it comes...." And then the two guys just sandwiched me and started like bumpin' and grindin' and I was like "OMG I am extremely uncomfortable at this moment." Even though I knew it was going to happen, I did not have enough time to mentally prepare myself. I just stood there with my arms super close to my sides and kind of curled in on myself until they stopped after kind of knocking me into the coffee table resulting in a large bruise on my knee. Yeah, good times. The party got kind of boring after a while and more people came and more people were smoking and it was hot and I couldn't breathe, so I took off around 1:30 and came home. I'm glad I went, I guess, but I don't think I'll be going to another party at the Engineering frat anytime soon.

Today, I woke up and watched Bones, which was great haha. I had class at 2, so after Bones I got ready and ate lunch and everything and then headed to campus. Class was kind of boring and super long, but oh well. We watched like 30 minutes of a movie and there was absolutely no dialogue. It was kind of nice because we didn't have to try and understand, but it also wasn't the most exciting thing. After Mado and I were walking around, and I found a post office because I had to mail something (obv). On one of the signs, it said priority to people in wheelchairs and pregnant woman. There was a little symbol for each condition. The first, a wheelchair, the second, a profile of a stick figure with a big stomach with her hands supporting her back. It was pretty funny. To conclude my super exciting day Guillemette and Olivier (and Adrien!) are here for dinner. Some people are doing a picnic at the Eiffel Tower tonight, which sounds fun, but the idea of physically going there does not sound so fun. It's far and has been evacuated a few times recently due to terror threats.

Tomorrow is our excursion to Giverny! We're doing a bike tour at Monet's gardens. I'm super excited and plan on taking oodles of pictures for your viewing pleasure :)

Also I keep forgetting and never have my camera when I see it, but in the parking lot near the house there is a bubble gum pink car. And it's a small European car aka it belongs in the circus. That is all. For now.

À bientot!

Musée D'Orsay and more.

Yesterday I didn't have class, so when I finally dragged myself out of bed, I went to the Musée D'Orsay. Words can't describe how amazing it was. It's wayyy smaller than the Louvre (obv), so it was a lot more manageable and less overwhelming. They didn't allow pictures anywhere in the museum, though, so that was a huge bummer because even the architecture of the building was art. The ceiling was so beautiful! I took a lot of notes on the paintings so I could go find pictures of the works online and look at them more haha. One of my favorite parts was the van Gogh stuff. I was never a huge fan, but when I actually saw the paintings in person it hit me on a whole other level. His style is so interesting, and the paint is applied so thick in some places, the paintings are slightly 3-D. I think I was the only one there who was looking at some of them from the side (head against the wall it was hanging on to see the physical depth, who cares if I looked weird, I call it perspective haha). I just really loved all the colors he used. They're really deep and really draw you in. Another part of the museum I really liked was the Honoré Daumier room. There was a huge glass case that had a display of 36 busts he had sculpted, each of which was a satirical representation of prominent figures in the 1830s, all of which were entertaining, and none of which were very flattering. After that, I saw some Manet, which was so cool. Learning about all these works of art is one thing, but actually getting to see it is unreal. I saw "Dejeuner sur l'herbe" (Luncheon on the Grass), and the only thing I can remember from class is that the nude woman in the foreground is WAY out of proportion compared to the men she's sitting next to (aka she's huge). I also saw Olympia, which fun since we learned about that one via Sister Wendy. That's the one with the cat in the corner which no one really notices. I have to say it was kind of a weird looking cat. I'm sure that's what Manet was really concerned about. I saw some Cezanne, too, which was kind of cooler than the exhibit I saw at the Phoenix Art Museum before I left. I overheard someone talking about him, though, and they pronounced it "suh-zanne" (more like Suzanne than Cezanne) and I was like, really?? I also saw Courbet's Origin of the World. I saw a tour group go into the room where it's hanging, and heard 50+ year old women giggling. I'm not going to include a picture because it makes me uncomfortable, but you can Google at your own risk for the full understanding of their laughter. I also saw Seurat, Gaugin, Coubert, Rodin, Matisse, Delacroix, Monet, Cassat, Degas, and Renoir. I recognized a Renoir painting as such before I looked at the info card, which I was excited about haha. Upstairs they had a lot of sculptures and then, randomly, some furniture. That was kind of weird, I thought. I think I made it to every room, but it is also free so I can go back whenever! In the middle of walking around, I wanted to sit down and eat the lunch I had packed, so I went and found a table in the café. But apparently in order to even sit in there you have to wait in line and then buy something, so, yes, I was kicked out of the Musée D'Orsay café. We had a happy hour later that night with everyone in the program, but I had some spare time after I left the museum and before I had to meet everyone. I finally bought a French-English dictionary (for less than 3 euro thank you very much) and then I took the RER closer to where we were meeting for drinks. It was super crowded, though, so I got off a stop early and walked. I had about an hour and a half to kill, so I found a crepe place. When I pushed the door, though, it was locked. The guy came and opened the door for me and made me a delicious crepe and gave me coffee (well, not "gave," I paid for it, but still), which was really nice. I don't know if they were closed or what, and it was kind of weird being the only one in there, but I was hungry so I didn't care. I was sitting there reading an article (in French!) about Despicable Me (here, "Moi, moche et méchant) and the guy was like "Sorry, I have to leave." So that was awkward lol clearly I overstayed my welcome. I continued my streak of being early for everything with being early for happy hour, but once everyone got there it was really fun! We got two free drinks each (I only used one of my tickets, though, because I couldn't decide what else I wanted haha). I tried a Kir Peche, which was white wine with peach flavoring. It was interesting. I'm just not a huge fan of wine, I guess, which is unfortunate since I'm in Paris. I'll keep working on that. I went home around 9 because I had homework to do. Again I avoided the "staying out til 3am" group, which I don't mind missing out on for now. Especially when I have class the next day at 9am.

Today was a very long day. I was tired before I even rolled out of bed. Then I had three hours of French, followed by a two hour lunch break, and then another 3 hour class in French (art history). The second class was brutal. We had to discuss a few paintings in French (2 of which I saw in person yesterday at the Musée D'Orsay!!), and one guy in my group was using all these technical terms that I've never even heard before. Also, he's from Ukraine, and I have a hard enough time trying to understand French in a French accent. The Ukranian accent definitely does not help. Then we watched this super boring video about an artist, and it was in French so I didn't really follow very well. Also, to convey that the artist's father was a baker, it showed someone cutting a giant piece of bread for a solid 3o seconds. I was like, "Wow, thanks for that visual because that just really ties his whole life together and I understand so much better now...." (I hope you all detected sass and sarcasm in that last sentence.) They also showed a few works by artists other than the one they were focusing on, and I recognized a few. For one, they were showing how different artists paint eyes, and one of them in my head I was like "that's Rembrandt" and it totally was. And then they showed a small portion of Guernica and I was like "Picasso. Guernica." I was really proud of myself haha. I thought that class would never end. I came home and watched Glee (and cried haha) and Raising Hope (it's kind of dumb, but it makes me laugh out loud every episode). Then I watched Chris Rock's documentary Good Hair, which was one of the most fascinating movies I've ever seen. And THEN, I got a postcard from Allie!! It seriously made my day (but made me miss everyone even more). Oh, I learned a (potentially untrue) fun fact today. The light in the bathroom at school is a blacklight, and some of us were talking about it today because that's kind of weird. Then one girl said it's because you can't see your veins under blacklights, so it prevents people from shooting up. Which I bet is a huge problem at L'Institut Catholique de Paris. So I have no idea if that is true/why she knows it, but if anyone else has any info on the subject, please let me know haha. That's all I can think of for now, not quite sure why I'm still awake, either.

Bisous!

Another few days for your reading pleasure...

In the depths of the Louvre

I forgot to say this in my post about the second visit to the Louvre. So, because the Mona Lisa was talked down so much, I had extremely low expectations. Therefore, when I actually saw the real thing, it was a little bigger and a little bit cooler than I expected. I can safely say it exceeded my expectations, since I had set the bar so low it was practically underground. One other thing, at Michal and Mado's Métro stop, there is a store called "Sad Decor," and I'm not quite sure what they were going for with that title, but I don't think I'll be going out of my way to find out. Anyway...

On Friday I had one of my other new elective classes at the lower level but still all in French. It's a Paris Cinema class, and I really like it already. The two other girls in my program in the same class are film majors, so they were talking about how it's super basic, but I think it's interesting and basic is good because of the very little French I know, none has anything to do with movie terms. We watched excerpts of three different movies. Two of them were about pickpocketing, so now I'm even more paranoid on the subway and in the street haha. It was hard to understand the French in the films, because they were old and on VHS and kind of grainy, but I think I followed well enough in the class. I'm definitely in the right electives now. I fall kind of in the middle of the comprehension/speaking ability range, which, in my opinion, is good. I think my teacher thinks I'm a film major like the other girls because we're in the same program. He kept looking at all three of us when he was asking questions about film, and I just kept wanting to say "I'm a psych major, I've never heard of that, etc." haha. One of the girls says she can understand well enough, but she can't speak French at all. She kept trying to answer in English and the professor kept saying "En français s'il vous plait" but it just wasn't happening. I'm trying to help her and make her practice because that's the only way she's going to get better. I'm definitely at an advantage living with a family, since I get to practice speaking and listening outside of school. Everyone else lives with other American students everywhere, so they speak English all the time. Even when we were out last night, she was saying basic phrases in English, and each time I would tap her and tell her how to say it in French. I know a lot of things are habit, like saying "thank you," but those habits won't ever go away unless you actually put some effort into breaking them. I also told everyone in the group that they could come over and practice with my family, so hopefully they take advantage of that because it really is the best way to learn. My family said my French is actually fairly decent now, so that was really exciting to hear. I'm sure they're just saying that so I don't give up, because some days I definitely want to haha.

Yesterday was a fairly lazy day. I finally went on a run, well, more like a pathetic excuse for a run. I made it about 15 minutes and then I was coughing and hacking everywhere. Thanks cigarette smoke plus I'm a little bit sick, too, so that didn't help. I got back and Bibiane was like "Dèja?" (already?) So embarrassing. I'll just have to keep working on that. Then, I read HP7 for the majority of the day, and I'm finally almost done. I feel like I've never read this book before, I totally forgot everything that happened it's kind of ridiculous. I was so close to finishing, but then I had to leave because we went to this thing called Nuit Blanche (white night). It's this all night display of contemporary art all over the city, so it sounded really cool. In my opinion, it was just crowded and really shady. We started in Belleville, which in hindsight probably wasn't the best idea. It was the farthest, and we (for some reason) were under the impression that we were going to see all the exhibits. We got there, and it was the shadiest place I've been in Paris yet. We ate at a random Chinese restaurant, and the service was so freaking bad we were there for well over an hour. It was ridiculous. I was ready to just peace about halfway through the time we spent waiting for our food, especially since it was already 10pm. We got a late start and I was starving. Finally getting out of there, we walked outside to see one of the weirdest "pieces of art" ever. It was a huge stage on the back of a big truck, with extremely loud music and interpretive dancers flailing around. It was very bizarre. We got over that in a hurry and started walking to find the other exhibits. I had been under the impression that it would be all outdoors, but all the stuff was in random semi-hidden buildings, that could only be recognized by the immense lines outside each one. We walked around there for a little while, and then, after two of the girls got a drink at a random bar, we headed towards Ile de la Cité, where there was supposed to be a cool exhibit at Hotel de Ville and at Notre Dame. The thing on Hotel de Ville actually was pretty cool. It was a bunch of neon lights all over the façade of the building saying "Love Difference" in a bunch of languages and colors. That's what I had thought the rest of it would be like: really cool and visible from pretty much anywhere on the street. There, we met up with the other half of the group, and they were pretty drunk. It took a while to get over to Notre Dame, and then three of us decided to leave because we were really over the whole night. I really wanted to see what was in Notre Dame because it sounded cool, but the line was absurd and there was no way I was waiting in that. I went home with Mado and Michal because I didn't want to go home by myself at 2:30am, so they let me sleep on their couch. We walked back to their apartment which was nice because it was actually really nice outside. Back at the apartment, I didn't have a blanket, so I ended up kind of huddling under my peacoat for warmth all night haha. We got to sleep around 3am, and when I woke up around 10 this morning all I wanted was to take a shower and eat. I got home around 12 and did just that. Guillemette and Olivier (and the baby!) were here for the night, so we all had a big family lunch together, and I understood more than I did at the first family lunch haha. Again, the only problem was all the damn smoking. Just because they exhale in the opposite direction doesn't mean I'm not still breathing it in.... I don't know how to be polite about potentially wearing a gas mask. And/or just getting up and leaving every time someone starts smoking. But if I did that I would never be able to hang out with the family, because someone is always surrounded by a cloud of smoke. I went back up to my room, passed out, and then when I woke up I finally finished Harry Potter. Still love it, still confused about the Elder Wand, still in denial that it's over, and still hate the epilogue. But whatevs.

Today my French class was good again. My teacher is great, and even though it's hard I still really like it. I also went to get my student ID finally from the secretary person (who made it difficult to change my classes). The other secretary that's supposed to direct you told me to go in, so I poked my head in the door and saw she was with another student so I stood outside. She looked out and saw me and was like "ATTENDEZ" which means "wait." I was like, whoa, sorry, calm it down. When I finally got in there I went in and said, "Bonjour, comment ça va? J'ai besoin mon carte d'indentification s'il vous plait" (hello, how are you, i need my student ID please). She just looked at me and was like "carte étudiante?" So I was like sure, whatever you know what I'm talking about psycho woman who apparently doesn't have a right side of the bed. I really don't understand what makes her so unpleasant alllll the time. After that ordeal, I got lunch with Michal, Mado, and Maca at the same place we went to eat last week, and we ran into that kid from UCLA there (again, so random!) so he ate with us, too. Apparently he has a full time job at an accounting firm and he's been with them since they started (when he was in high school) and I feel like I definitely am way behind haha. After he left some random lady came and sat at our table because there wasn't a lot of room in the café, and she impressively proceeded to eat an entire pizza and a pretty big sandwich. It was kind of ridiculous haha. After that, I had my last new elective "l'actualité en France," which I finally deduced is basically current events. It's so much better than my other media class. One, because again I'm not the worst speaker (I almost have the French "r" lol), and two because I guess it's good to learn about current events when there's a terrorist alert in the country in which you are living. I will definitely be avoiding large, crowded areas, and taking the Métro as little as possible. Which won't be hard since they strike every other day anyway (thanks whoever decided to raise the retirement age). The class seems like it'll be pretty easy, and we don't have to take the final because the semester ends in January and pretty much all the American students are leaving in December haha. Well-planned, America.

On the way home, I went to the grocery store, because I feel bad eating all the Deschamps' food. Shopping for food is still complicated, especially when I wanted cheese for sandwiches, because they don't just have slices of cheese they have to be all French and fancy. I spent a looooong time debating which one to buy.... Then apparently I did the fruit wrong, because you're supposed to weigh it on your own and print the price at the scale, unlike in the States where they do it at the register. And then I didn't understand when the guy was asking how much it cost/weighed and I was like "they are nectarines!" Sad, embarrassing times.... When I got home, I watched some of the news, and I actually understood some of it! There is a strike next week and also one in Marseille right now that has to do with boats and oil, and then some juice company is making all natural juice. Like really all natural and 100% juice unlike the lying cartons in the grocery store that also have sugar and added colors and aromas. I'm not quite sure why that was the story that I understood the most, but it was one of (what looked like) the three top stories of today. Maybe. Then I made dinner and went up to my room to watch Changeling, and it was one of the trippiest movies ever. It was really good, and I think I like the ending haha. I was freaking out though. Extremely high heart rate haha.

In other news, just talked to Mara and it sounds like I get to see her in one month! We have vacation the first week of November, and she doesn't have class Fridays, so hopefully her coming here and then train ride to the south of France actually happens because it'll be amazing!! And then hopefully I can go there the following week for the HP7 premiere even if I have to miss my Friday class. First time I haven't cared because it's not for a grade or credit or anything really! (I actually still kind of care, but it's also Harry Potter...priorities). So I really really really hope that works out because I miss my UCLA people (anyone is welcome to come visit me whenever!!) Now I have to go find something to watch that I will hopefully dream about instead of Changeling.... Musée D'Orsay tomorrow with Manet's Olympia featuring the cat towards which Sister Wendy has some violent proclivities. Au revoir!