I've sort of been museum-hopping for the past few days, as well as trying to work some scheduling things out. Concerning that, let's just say I'm registered for three out of four classes at Paris 3, and working starts on Tuesday! I'm really looking forward to it all, but I'm nervous, too. I'll definitely report in a lot next week.

The museum tour started on Thursday, when Sasha and I went to the Conciergerie. It was really pretty small...unless I missed something, but it was really just a couple of 'grandes salles' and some reproductions of people's cells (like Marie Antoinette's). The courtyard was really nice, and of course the architecture was amazing, but there's really not that much to tell. There was some information about the revolution and some busts of Robespierre, as well as old letters transferring prisoners from one place to another and stuff like that. Luckily I got in for free because ACCENT gave me an 'art history student' card, and apparently art history students can get into museums for free. :-)

Yesterday, MICEFA had organised a tour of the Hotel de Ville, which is a really beautiful building both inside and out. It was funny because 40 people had signed up to come, but only 9 showed up - I almost missed it; I didn't remember until Thursday night that we were having the tour! Luckily my friend Cory was there (she was in my MICEFA class) so I got to hang out with her. I really enjoyed the tour - it was in French, so it was extra cool. Basically, Paris has had a sort of Hotel de Ville since the 12th century - apparently then there wasn't really one 'Hotel de Ville' building, but the idea of a central place for the people of Paris has existed since then (hopefully I'm getting my dates right). The first building was built in the 14th century, but it got too small, so they built another on in the 16th century, and that one got too small, so they built another one in the 18th century, I think this is right. Either way, the Communards burnt that one down, as they liked to burn many of Paris's nice building, so when they rebuilt it, they did it in the same style as the 16th-century one. Or something like that, numbers are hard for me. One way or another, it's still the building of the people, so there are lots of awesome things there. The main room is divided into three sections, one for Literature, one for the Arts, and one for the Sciences. They are all decorated with all sorts of paintings with those themes - there are portraits of famous people (e.g. Moliere in the Literature room) and other paintings that go with the sections, like the Elements in the Sciences section (some are masculine; some are feminine, it's really interesting to see how they're done). Plus, you can see all kinds of cool things, like Notre Dame, right out the windows. The next room is the place where they put all these plaques from when the mayors of Paris welcome the new presidents - apparently the new presidents have to go there, meet the mayor, and they sign this thing and it's displayed in a case. Foreign leaders who visit the Hotel de Ville on official business do it too - so there's one from the Queen of England and Ronald Reagan, who was apparently the only president to visit the Hotel de Ville officially - go figure. There are awesome paintings in that room, too, like one of Louis XVI greeting the first mayor of Paris, whose name completely escapes me, and there's another painting of people getting pissed off at a king. Apparently all these parts of the Hotel de Ville were rennovated by Chirac (who I believe was elected mayor of Paris 3 times before he became president), but the last room we went into wasn't, it wasn't rennovated until his successor. Its theme is agriculture, which is, of course, an integral part of French life - there are paintings of things like vegetables, animals, wheat, fruits...etc, and then statues of the 'parts of the meal,' which begins with a woman and a glass of champagne and ends with her singing because she's had too much to drink! It was so cool because they were having a Ramadan concert there, so there were all kinds of 'ouds and other instruments - unfortunately we didn't get to stay for the show. The last thing we saw there was a corrider of chairs where all the heads of state sit when they come visit, it was cool. Then we had to leave and go back out into the rain, I had to go to the bank and pick up my credit card, which was exciting. :-) Last night I went to a bar with Elly and we watched Tonga get their butts kicked by England in rugby, it was sad, everyone there was rooting for Tonga.

Today I went to the Invalides (Musee de l'Armee) with Sasha, and it was really a huge museum! I got in free again, excellent, and we went to see Napoleon's tomb first. It was huge, I thought it was going to be small because he was really little. I mean, it was pretty short, compared to other people's tombs, but it was tall and grandiose - that should not have come as a surprise! The museum was interesting, I've never seen so much armor and swords and guns in my life! I was kind of overwhelmed, seeing as I was sort of trying to read the French, didn't know any of the words, tried to read the English, and realized I still didn't know what they were talking about!!! That part of the museum was probably really exciting for medieval warfare buffs. The sections on the World Wars was more interesting, they had uniforms from all different groups and in all different styles, and they showed a ton of video footage from both (which was somewhat interesting and somewhat distracting). It was strange because I really felt like it was military propaganda, or something...it's hard to explain, and I guess it's not a history museum, it's an army museum, so that was probably why it felt like it was glorifying the wars. I mean, it was cool to see one of the taxis from the Battle of the Marne in WWI, but it felt weird to see so many pictures of bombed out cities and towns all over Europe...and of course, the WWII section was basically over after the liberation of Paris, there was just one small corner about the part that continued with Japan. Though I did learn why there's a metro station called 'Bir Hakeim,' apparently the French fought there (it's in Libya) and won the place back, and it was really important for French military morale.

After the museum, Sasha and I went to find some food, and we were just going to get crepes but we could not find a crepe place anywhere! Usually, they're on every corner, but this time we walked for 30-45 minutes and ended up getting sandwiches from a Greek place...the guy was really nice and funny, he was really excited that I'm from the US, and I think he thought Sasha was from there too! It was really entertaining to have him try to speak English to us...Sasha and I figure if we go back there and be nice, they'll probably give us free drinks because they'll be so excited!!!!

Tomorrow I think will be laundry day (how fun!) and then Monday's my meeting for all the assistants working at Creteil! Hopefully everything goes well and I get my student card at some point, too, so I can register for Finnish before the class starts on Thursday!

Mais c'est pas la peine de venir en France!

This morning I finally got to go to Creteil to visit the schools where I'll be working. Creteil's about 25 minutes by metro to the south of Paris, the department is Val de Marne, if anyone's interested. It's a really pretty suburb, there are lots of gardens and interesting construction...unfortunately it's also the most confusing place I've ever been in my life! I was there more than a half hour before my meeting, and I was late...I got so lost, and my map of Paris doesn't have the suburbs, so I couldn't figure out at all where I was until I had walked in about a 20-minute circle! Luckily a nice lady directed me to the right place, oh my goodness, I was getting so worried that I would never make it.

The first meeting was at College Louis Issaurat, with Mme Colette Michel, who is very nice, and she introduced me to two other English teachers as well as a French teacher and probably some other people I'm forgetting. I'm going to go there on Thursday afternoons for 2 hours and then on Fridays for 4 hours. It's a really interesting school because not only is there a lot of diversity among the students, there's also a group of special needs kids, and apparently I'm going to get to work with them once a week, and I think that should be really interesting.

At noon I went over to Victor Hugo, the other College (I got a ride!), and it seems like all the teachers at L.I. look really fondly upon V.H. because it's in the 'center' of Creteil, it's in a sort of historic building, and it's really pretty. I was really early for the meeting, so I got to wander around the 'Creteil Village,' and I really, really like it - it's almost entirely pedestrian streets, it's not huge but there are interesting shops and cafes, just without quite as many people as downtown Paris. :-) I'm definitely looking forward to exploring more there. At V.H. I met all four English teachers, Mme Bluteau, Mme Kerkouri, Mme Kanoute (whose first name is N'Diaye, such a pretty name!), and Mme Tejerina. They were all really nice, and they gave me a pretty detailed schedule about who I'll be working with (6 hours every Tuesday). Then Mme Kerkouri (Amel) gave me a tour of the school, I totally have my own room! It looks like a really nice place. I'm really, really excited to work at both of them!

Afterward I went to Censier to register for some classes, I wanted to get into a Bollywood class there, but apparently that was not possible, so I went and can definitely take 'Histoire de rock,' the lady registering me was so, so nice, and Sebastian from MICEFA was there too and was about as stressed out as I was last Friday...and he's feeling about the same as I do about MICEFA. Anyway I needed to find a course to take the place of the Bollywood one, so hopefully I can take one about European cultural identities at Censier's European Studies department; it wasn't open today so I'm going back tomorrow morning to check it out, and I think I'll go back to ILPGA to see about the Finnish class and the other stuff I want to take there, to see if there's anything I can do before I have my student card. Hopefully it goes well...

Finally, I went to MICEFA to talk about doing an independent study about the job, which I think should be really interesting considering the huge diversity I'll be encountering there among such young kids, and Mme Le Coadic (my French teacher) is going to advise me on that, she was pretty supportive about me doing it 2 semesters. So it seems like most things are falling into place, please keep your fingers crossed for me for tomorrow and the rest of the week! Tomorrow I'm going to get dinner with some other MICEFA kids, and Thursday I'm supposed to do something with Sasha, and there's a TA's meeting, too, in the afternoon. And next week, classes start!!! Yiiiikes!!!!

Il est rare de rencontrer un chameau a Paris!

I guess I haven't posted in a few days; the last week seems like it flew by! Wednesday I had class in the morning and then opened my bank account, which was exciting only because I did it all in French. Now I'm waiting for things to come in the mail for my card and checks. Then Thursday I was waiting for Amy to come in the morning, but I got an email from her that she wasn't going to get into Paris until 1, she was getting to London at 7 a.m.! so I went ahead and did some errands and luckily I was able to meet up with her at 5 after my class. But in the morning, it was so exciting because I found the market at Place d'Aligre, which has zillions of vendors and excellent cheap food. I got some oranges, a mango, Granny Smith apples from the Loire Valley, some spinach, and some broccoli. It was really fun just to walk around, and all the food that I've tried so far as been really good! I'm really excited to have found that market! Anyway I met Amy at Bastille at around 5, which was nice, and then I had to go to the theater with MICEFA. It was really a cool performance - this string quartet played all kinds of cool music and it was like a whole show, they were acting and dancing and singing...it was really entertaining and funny, and I sat with Cory from my MICEFA class, so we had a good time.

Friday morning was when I was supposed to go register at ILPGA (Institut des linquistique et phonetiques generales et appliquees) for the Finnish class and the linguistics classes...several people, including MICEFA people and ILPGA people, told me I didn't have to have a carte d'etudiant in order to study there...but as soon as I went into the secretariat to register in the administration system, the lady would absolutely not do anything with it. She had some problem with MICEFA because we have to pay for it, basically she couldn't confirm anything about MICEFA through other people she knew so she refused to do anything. I was so furious, it's ridiculous that all the Erasmus students there had student cards and I have been here a month and I hadn't even applied for mine. So I went to MICEFA, and they said 'it won't make a difference if you apply for the card now, you won't get it until next week, none of the other foreign students have their cards, and if you can't get into a class because it's closed, then you can show up on the first day and see if they will let you in...' - blah blah. Of course I said that all the Erasmus students had their cards, and I'm sure Nancy Merritt must just love my backtalk, but I am totally done taking crap from them. Everything is in their hands and my work schedule is in the hands of two schools who haven't been in touch since Wednesday, so I can do nothing about anything right now, and it's a bit frustrating. Then just last night I was talking to Greg and Anne about the 'you can show up on the first day of class' thing, and they both said, 'Sure you can do that, but you still have to register with the administration...it doesn't really matter if the professor says you can get into his or her class.' So I know I can't do anything until Monday, but boy am I ready to just have my schedules worked out! I ended up skipping the MICEFA dinner Friday night because I really didn't want to have anything to do with MICEFA for a while.

I made it to the end of class on Friday, apparently I got the highest score on my test - I only made one grammar mistake, the rest were things I didn't know because I went to Cologne instead of going on that boat trip that first Saturday! (C'est pas juste!!) I decided to hang out with Sasha and Amy on Friday, and we went to Pere Lachaise cemetery for a while and then we met up with Anne and went to a bar and I had my first kir (white wine with black currant sirop) and it was tasty but not my favorite thing ever. Pere Lachaise was really fun, it's huge and we had to get a map! It was weird to go to a huge cemetery and take a whole bunch of pictures, but there's a lot of really cool architecture and the layout is nice and it's really quiet, so if you don't mind all the dead people (which I don't, seeing as they're dead), it's a really nice and relaxing place!

Today I hung out with Sasha again, we met at Bastille and walked all over, from Republique down Boulevard St Martin to the Champs Elysees, and we sat at the Tuileries for a long time. I'm really enjoying spending time with her, she's a lot more talkative now and of course there are a million things to talk about! She's meeting her au pair family tomorrow evening, so I can't wait to hear how it goes!!!

I'll post again - hopefully next week - about the registration stuff, and if any other cool things happen over the weekend.

Les Journees Europeenes de Patrimoine

This past weekend was the 'Journees Europeenes de Patrimoine,' which is this big festival all over France, and probably the rest of Europe, during which monuments, museums, expositions, churches, all kinds of things are open for free! There are sort of way too many options to choose just a few, but somehow I did and I had a really excellent time. On Saturday afternoon, Molly, Laura (another AU enclave person) and I went to the 'Aquarium Tropical' which is in the southeast of Paris right on the Bois de Vincennes. It's in a huge, amazing building that underwent recent rennovations, and it was really a cool place. Of course it didn't even compare to Baltimore's, but does anything, really? There were all sorts of little tropical fish as well as some really cool huge guys, and there were lots of rays, some eels, and I think four different kinds of crocodiles!! There was also a photo exhibition called 'Femmes et Mers' and it was all really nice photos of women all over the world who work in/on the sea...fishing for seaweed, fishing for fish, selling fish, drying fish, cooking and selling fish...the only gross ones were the ones from France, which were of sardine-packing plants (packt like sardines in a crushed tin box, anyone?)...since the other ones were all Asia and Africa, it wasn't mass-production fish plants, so the pictures were just nice. Anyway the best fish in the aquarium was the 'Napoleon,' it's a humphead wrasse in English, but it makes sense that they would call it Napoleon. I'm putting up his picture, he was so beautiful and so human-like, we watched him for a really long time. He looks only blue but all his fins have so many other pretty colors on him, it was neat to watch him move. If anyone's ever interested in going back it's only 3 euro and not very far from my house...

After the Aquarium, we sat on the edge of Bois de Vincennes for a while, and then Molly and I left to try to go to the 'Maison de Culture Yiddish' in the eleventh arrondissement. I was really excited because I thought it was a museum and library, but when we got there, it was really small and there was maybe one lecture room and a small bookstore. A lady brought us in and she was really nice, I felt bad for not staying because she said we could come to the lecture (about Yiddish literature but in French) but really I had just wanted to see a museum so we didn't stay. But it was nice, I walked with Molly for a while, and that was fun, we went to the natural grocery store and I got some oatmilk and some plain yogurt for my granola and some 'soycissons' or something, veggie sausages. :-) I haven't tried them yet, but I have high hopes. That night I just relaxed and watched a Bollywood movie, which was of course thoroughly enjoyable, and then went to sleep so that I could get an early start for Sunday.

Sunday was great - I started out by going to the Musee National de Moyen Age a l'Hotel de Cluny, which is one of the most amazing museums I have ever seen! (No, really...) The place just smelled so old and every room was something incredible It was really like walking into another world. There were so many interesting things, old statues and carvings and tapestries (of course, like the Lady and the Unicorn and the Grape Harvest), and the ancient baths, old weapons and ironworks, huge old locks...it was really just amazing. The old chapel was probably the coolest part, along with the tapestries, it just felt so totally old and the architecture was really phenomenal. I wanted to lay on the floor and look at the ceiling so badly...I also wanted to touch eveything but...you know, you're not allowed. My friend Sebastian (from my MICEFA class) met me halfway through the museum, so we hung out for the rest of the day. After Cluny we walked to the Pantheon (and there's a great marketon rue Mouffetard on the way!) which was really worth seeing. I think it's normally free to walk in, but maybe you have to pay to go up, I don't actually know...I walked all over the building for a long time, it's just so beautiful, and then we went up - there's an upper level inside and then another outside upper level, and then you can climb up to the dome. I didn't actually want to go all the way up, but apparently once you start, you have to go all the way. The stairs weren't too narrow, and the view was really beautiful, because it's a lot more central than something like Sacre Coeur. I'm really, really glad we went there!

Then we were heading to the Galerie des Gobelins, which I think is now a textile museum but used to be where they made tapestries. We were early for the second opening (they close for lunch), so we went to a place to get beers (yes, it was the middle of the afternoon...) and I got to have a Krieck, the Belgian cherry beer! It was so exciting and delicious, but sort of a huge beer. It was funny to talk to Sebastian, because we're really not that much alike but he's very nice, so it's interesting to talk to him. Anyway we headed back to Gobelins, but there was a HUGE line, so we decided not to wait because I can go in there for 4 euro any other day where I'm sure there won't be as many people. So I was going to go home (and Sebastian did go home) but then I saw a sign for the Val de Grace, the random church I saw one day when I was waiting for my MICEFA appointment, and I went to see if it was open - it was, it's actually a whole complex that used to be the military hospital as well as a school for people to then work in the hospital, I'm pretty sure, and also the church. Now there's a new hospital, but there's a museum in the old one. It wasn't really very extensive or coherent, and I wanted to see the church more than anything, but it was cool to walk around the building - the architecture there was great. The church was really pretty inside - the dome was the best part, there's a really cool painting on top. It was definitely worth going in there! After that I actually did go back, and then I wrote all about my weekend for my French class!

Yesterday was sort of a huge and stressful saga about MICEFA and my courses - I'll spare the details, but suffice it to say that the courses I want to take at ILPGA (Institut de linguistiques et phonetiques generales et appliquees) - part of Sorbonne Nouvelle - are sort of unknown to MICEFA, and the date for international student registration there was September 12, so I was really fretting because I thought I would not be able to take those courses (including Finnish). I went there this morning, however, and the secretary told me I could come on Friday and register then. So nothing's set in stone yet, but the likelihood that I will take the classes I want seems to be bigger than it seemed yesterday. Though yesterday evening I did get to meet Sasha and have dinner with Anne and Jean-Francois, which was great! Sasha's so nice, she has a thick Russian accent, it's cute. She's pretty quiet so far, but part of it I think is just getting used to Paris and French (and English!) and everything. We went to Notre Dame together today after my class, and I think it's way too dark in there (same reaction as last time)! We walked a lot, and it was nice. We're going to have lunch with Anne's parents on Sunday - apparently they're coming to visit! - but hopefully I will see them both before then.

Sorry for the huge post, but there was a lot to say! But now I think I should get started on the homework and then get to bed early...I definitely didn't do last night's homework until after I got home from Anne's at midnight!!!!!

La carte douze-vingtcinq!

Yesterday (Friday 14 September) was an interesting day. I went to class nice and early in the morning, and I got Paris 3's Guide de l'Etudiant, and I read through it, and I found their department for Linguistics and modern languages...and guess what...they have Finnish!!!!!! They have a whole 'Finno-urgic' languages section in this program, as well as some really interesting linguistics courses. I'm quite annoyed with MICEFA that they didn't have a clue about it, but at least I did my research. I went over there yesterday too, but there wasn't really much there, so I think I will wait until Monday when the rest of the MICEFA kids are working on registration stuff. I'll definitely post about that on Monday evening...

Anyway after class Cecile and I went to the train station and got our 12-25 year old card for train discounts, and I'm really excited about it. Everyone has told us that we had to get them, so it was definitely a good idea. Now we can have all kinds of cheaper train tickets, yay! Then we got lunch, but by the time we were finished (we had to wait in a huge line at the train station) it was time to meet at the Louvre. There was a huge group of MICEFA students, and we had a guide...it was very interesting. She was really nice but we only went to about 6 different works of art, she just talked about each one for a long time. At first it was cool but then I got kind of tired so it dragged a little bit. I want to go back pretty often on Friday nights (when it's free for students) and just take the museum piece by piece and really see what I want to see. There really weren't that many people there, which surprised me, but it was cool because I want to see all the French art I studied in my class. We did see the Coronation of Napoleon, The Raft of the Medusa, and Liberty Guiding the People, or whatever that famous Delacroix one is, and those were all pretty amazing. Of course I was totally disappointed by the Mona Lisa - it's tiny, really far away, and there are a million people. There are some other really interesting paintings in the same room, though, so I looked at those instead. Anyway I just want to go back and do the museum at my own pace and see the things I'm most interested in.

Afterward, a bunch of us went out to a hookah bar around Pere Lachaise, it was me, Elly, her roommate Hannah, Sebastian from my French class, to begin with, and then Anne joined us and then four other MICEFA kids and then Molly and 4 of her friends...so there were a ton of us by the end, but it was so fun. I really just talked with Anne the whole time, which was totally okay with me, but it was cool to hang out with those kids. Apparently they thought I was really quiet but they were shocked when I told them I have tattoos and knew how to light a shisha coal (I was the only one there who could, it was weird). Hopefully I'll get to hang out with some of them this weekend, too, it was cool to have a different atmosphere than class. Then Anne and I walked all the way back home, it was awesome, because she told me all kinds of interesting stuff about the 11th arrondissement, apparently her grandmother was born there and her mom lived there while she was living in Paris. Also, she told me that it's a really safe part of town, and she used to walk home from work at 2 or 3 in the morning and there were still people around. I'm going to go have dinner at her house on Monday when Sasha comes, with her and Greg and Jean Francois, her friend who was in the Czech Republic with her. It's so cool to hang out with Anne but it's always so strange to leave and just say, okay, I'll see you soon!

This weekend is the Journees de Patrimoine, which means that pretty much everything is open for free! I'm super excited! Today we're going to the aquarium, and then there's this Yiddish culture place that I want to see, and tomorrow I'm going to go to the Musee de Cluny in the morning, and then the Galerie des Gobelins, which is the old tapestry 'factory' which hasn't been open to the public for years! And then I might see another museum or something. I'm trying to avoid the really popular places, because I have cards that will either get me a reduced rate or maybe get me in for free, and I know there will be WAY too many people at something like the Invalides or something. I'm trying to go to some places that aren't generally open for the public, which I think should be cool. I'll definitely post again after this weekend!

Ce sot a laissé tomber le sceau dans le seau...

Oh, French homonyms, dictionary fun, whatever. Amazing. Today was my first foray into North African wine - apparently it's a real industry, are they allowed? - and it was interesting, it doesn't taste at all like French wine, or any other red wine I've had, but I'm not sure I can describe it. The past few days have been filled up with French class and lots of homework; tonight was the first time we haven't had any writing. I should probably be getting ahead and trying to find some idea of what I'm going to write for Friday's class, but I thought I'd take it easy and write a letter instead. It's only 10:30 and I'm already tired - I guess that's what happens when you just walk everywhere...

Anyway, class has been good, I really, really like my professor, Michelle Le Coadic. I'm actually going to take another of her classes during the first semester, it's a MICEFA class called 'Grammaire du texte,' which is about how to format a paper in the French style and about writing for French universities. I think it'll be really useful since I'm staying for the whole year. I found out today that Cecile also wants to take it, which is cool. The French class has been interesting, too, because it's a lot of grammar that I never learned, so it's stuff I can recognize but not really use properly. I think it's pretty helpful, I already keep using things I've learned!

Yesterday morning we went to this theater 'spectacle' thing near the Opera Garnier (which is unfortunately under construction, so it's really only half-picturesque), it's hard to describe but it was a very quick history about Paris with explanations about the architecture and style of the city as well as lots of good music. A lot of it was what I learned in my French class last semester, but it was still really neat. Afterward I got to hang out with Elly for a while before class, we got some excellent strawberries from a random market and sat around at the Place de la Concorde. (the picture with the statue is the Opera; the dome I think is the Val de Grace, I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I randomly came across it the other day before my MICEFA meeting!)

Tomorrow Anne's coming back! I'm going to meet her at the train station after my class. I'm so excited! And Sasha's coming next week, on Monday, and I think my friend Amy from AU (who's a TA in the Centre region, not far from Orleans) is coming either next week or the next week. Also, we're supposed to be able to find out what classes we can take sometime next week, I'm excited! Things are seeming to go smoothly, so cross your fingers...I'm even going to be able to take the Finnish class I want! Hopefully next week I'll also go to Creteil to meet with my teachers to talk about my schedule.

I guess that'll be all for now, I feel like I'm settling in to a schedule and a bus route and feeling even more at ease speaking French...so tout va bien!!! A plus!

Koeln!

Yesterday I took the train at 6:55 a.m. to Cologne to meet my penpal Jenny, who's from a small town called Werne in Germany. Even the train ride itself was fun; we went through Brussels and Liege and Aachen as well as French, Belgian, and German countrysides before I had to get off and meet Jenny. She was waiting for me on the platform - she looks exactly like the pictures she sent, it was so cool to see her in real life (as it always is, of course).

The first thing we did was go to the cathedral, the Koelner Dom, which was really just amazing - I don't think I've ever seen a bigger cathedral, except for the one in Strasbourg. It was so beautiful, and inside there were a ton of awesome stained glass windows. We wanted to explore more, but they started a prayer service, so we left (with the intention of returning...which unfortunately didn't happen...) to walk around the city.

We went into a bunch of cool shops and stuff, and I got a few presents and some things for my room (like a candle and candleholder thing) to give it some life, because it's much less expensive there than in such a big city like Paris. We got lunch at a pizza place (we shared a pizza and had salads, which were amazing because they had corn, and apparently that's the way to eat in Europe, salads with corn. So good!) and I had an Apfelschoerle, which was really even more delicious than I can make myself. It must have been because I was in Germany. :-)

Then we went and walked around by the Rhine for a while, and we walked part of the way across a huge bridge to see the town a little better. It's SO typically German-looking, I'll try to post a picture because there's no way I can quite describe it! We went to the Chocolate museum, which was one of the coolest museums ever! The whole thing smelled like chocolate, it was incredible. They showed how chocolate's made, from when they harvest the cocoa beans and get them out of the fruit and then press it into cocoa paste and cocoa butter, and then how that's made into yummy chocolate. They also had a cool section on the history of chocolate, with amazing Aztec artifacts that were really, really old. There was also a floor where they showed you how they make chocolate into truffles or squares, they have machines with windows in them so you can see the whole process! (the chocolate store on the ground floor isn't well-placed at all...no, I think the real intention of the museum is to make people want to eat chocolate, and it succeeds!)

Unfortunately after the museum there was no more time to do anything else, and we had to run part of the way to the train station and didn't get there until five minutes after 5, and my train left at 5:14. So we had a quick goodbye, but I'm sure we'll see each other again soon - I'm definitely going to go to Werne, and hopefully we'll be able to meet up again before then, because that may not be until next semester when I have those vacations.

Today was cleaning and catching up with people...and laundry; unfortunately there's only one dryer in the laundry room and it was busy, so everything's hanging all over my room and bathroom, and maybe it'll dry in this century. Tomorrow I have a meeting with MICEFA (hopefully there will be some good news there) and my French class, and Faima's supposed to call again tomorrow evening! So until tomorrow...bonne nuit!

Two posts in the same day, oh no!

I wasn't going to post again today, but I just wanted to say a few things...I had class this morning, and it really went well, lots of grammar of stuff that I should have learned but was finished with grammar classes before I ever did...luckily for you, I won't bore you with long explanations, but it was great and I got to discuss grammar in French, what more is there to life?

This afternoon, I decided I didn't really want to sit at home and do my homework, so I went to l'Arc de Triomphe to walk around, and then I thought I'd do the French thing and 'me flaner' (to stroll...) down l'Avenue des Champs-Elysees. It really was nice, even though of course it was really fancy and touristy - the weather was great, so a stroll was perfect. I wanted to get on the metro Concorde, at the Place de la Concorde, where the Obelisk is, but then I walked past not one but 2 metro stations and had to get on at Louvre! (which was fine, since that's closer to my stop anyway). It was a beautiful walk and it was nice to spend some time alone for a bit. Also, I got a phone call from my penpal Faima who lives in a suburb outside of Paris, and hopefully we'll see each other next week!!! She's so hard to understand on the phone, but she's really awesome, so I can't wait to see her! Then Jenny called from Germany to confirm everything for tomorrow, and to tell me she'll wait for me at the train, and I am even more excited than I imagined I could be!!!!!! I can't believe I'm just going to Germany tomorrow, to meet my friend, to go to Germany, whatever, no big deal. It's truly incredible! Sorry, but I can't get the photos from this afternoon to load onto here, maybe I'll try again later, but check the Snapfish and they will be there. Bisous!

tenir, tenir a, tenir de, se tenir...

Yesterday morning I found out that I was placed in the most advanced Franch class, yay! I thought the class was good - a bit long, but we just spoke French the entire time, so how bad could it have been? Afterwards, me, Elly, Cecile, and Artur (the last person doing our program) went to this cafe near the Sorbonne, and the waitress there was this crazy older lady...they all thought she was mean, I thought she was hilarious. We all got coffee, except Artur wanted tea, and she insisted on giving him a list of all the teas they have there, and then when she brought it out she told him he had to wait five minutes or else...I'm not communicating how funny it was, I guess you'd have to hear how she talked. She was talking to everyone else the same way, and it was really pretty funny.

On Thursday night, I went out for wine with probably 10 people, and I have to say that it was about the least fun I've had so far. There were so many people all going to the wrong place that it took an hour just to get everyone there, and then we had to split up anyway because the group was too big. I got stuck with a girl who very obviously can't stand me and her ridiculous immature friends who were so typical - speaking English really loudly and just trying to call attention to themselves. Plus, all they really had to talk about was TV and movie stars. I did enjoy spending time with Elly (who was their same age but actually knows how to behave in public) and Artur, who's really funny and speaks French really well.

Today I have French until 12:30, and then I have to make several phone calls today...that should be quite entertaining, as phone use in other languages generally is.

Tomorrow is Cologne! I'm sure there will be enormously ridiculous amounts of pictures after that!!!!!

We've spent the past few mornings with MICEFA people, a written test Tuesday and an oral interview today...I think both were all right, unfortunately the grammar section of the written test was multiple choice, so that wasn't so hot, but I think I made up for it in the written section and in the oral interview, which went very well. I think I'm going to change my first-choice university because Paris 8 - Saint Denis is just way too far away, especially considering that I have a job in Creteil, completely south of here. So I'm probably going to go to one of the Sorbonnes, which both have a lot of interesting cultural courses. The woman who was interviewing me seemed to think that was a good idea; she didn't say anything like that she didn't think my French is good enough or something. Tomorrow, my class begins, and I find out which one I'm in just before the class starts.

Yesterday when I was coming in, I found out a very cool thing, that my friend Molly from AU (who actually lives in Harpers Ferry) is here and is living in the residence as well! She was in Senegal last semester, and she's just a very cool person altogether. She's in the enclave, but hopefully we'll see each other quite a lot!

After the test yesterday morning, I went over to Les Halles in search of a kitchen store that's supposed to be there, but I didn't find anything and I have to say that I didn't really enjoy the area. It was huge and absolutely filled with people, and it was sort of hard to find my way around. I didn't find the kitchen store, and every kitchen store I did find was exorbitantly priced or didn't have a tea kettle! Needless to say, I came back fairly frustrated from there, and really tired from walking all over the place...luckily today was much more successful, not that I found a kettle but I got a broom and some tupperware, so now I can be clean and make things in advance. I've been walking around the more local arrondissements, like the 11th and 12th, a lot, and I really, really like them. I'm hoping that someday I won't be on a mission or get distracted so that I can just wander around and take some photos, though I guess that's not something I can plan.

Well, for now, it's time for tea and some more Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers!

C'est l'amour: our first day with the MICEFA

I've had a great past couple of days, spending most of my time with Elly, Cecile, and Sarah (from Richmond). On Saturday the first we spent the day together, going from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, all on foot (which is quite far, we discovered, considering all the walking we did in between!). On Sunday we attempted to be a bit more social by going to the Musee Rodin in the morning to meet MICEFA students, but since they were meeting at their temporary housing and we didn't know where that was, we didn't actually meet anyone else! So we continued walking around and ended up on the other side of the Eiffel Tower (near the Ecole Militaire). There's also a great Peace Monument there, I hadn't heard of it before so I'm not sure what it's called, but it's a bunch of silver pillars and a glass building thing with 'peace' written all over in different languages...I'm putting up a picture so there's some idea what I'm getting at... So far we haven't gone into anything other than the Musee Rodin, but I suppose we'll get there, especially after we get student cards saying we are art history students, in which case we should be able to get in free at most museums.

I planned on going back to eat some dinner after all that walking yesterday, but then it turned out that Monica, Anne's friend (who I think I didn't mention, she's from Mexico and was studying in Barcelona and is now touring around Europe until she has to go back home) was leaving this morning, and I wanted to go see her again before she left. So I got back on the metro and met her around Sacre-Coeur, and we walked around Montmartre for a few hours. It was so touristy, but it was evening when I got there, so the sun was setting and we just had amazing views of Paris in the dusky twilight time of night. The cathedral is so daunting - it looks so far and small from the metro station at the bottom of the hill, but once you climb to the top it dwarfs everything, it's truly incredible. Montmartre was extremely touristy, I really didn't hear any French in the area right around the cathedral, but we walked further on to Rue Lepic, which is apparently where the Amelie cafe is - though we didn't find it - and there were much more French people there, and it's a really lovely neighborhood until you get to Pigalle, which is where all the sex shops and sleazy bars are. By the time I got home, I was exhausted from so much walking, and I didn't stay up much later...

This morning, we met at MICEFA at 9, where they told us to wait for a half hour before going over to Censier, at the Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3) for our orientation. It was much of the same information as ACCENT gave, though some things we hadn't heard before, and Topher Simon (who works there) seems like a nice guy and is knowledgeable about Paris. Luckily, we got to leave early because we already have housing, so we got crepe lunches and went back to the ACCENT office and on some errands before actually sitting down to study some French - our exam is tomorrow! There's not that much more I can do than review it and hope for the best! We have oral exams on Wednesday, too, and by Thursday we will know what classes we're in. So au revoir for now, onto studying, I guess!