Train toilets, mummies, and a carte de sejour!

It's really been a long time since i posted last, and a ton has happened since then, too! Most importantly, it's December and there's less that three weeks till I go home!!!!! Technically (well, according to the student mobilization website, I don't know if that's 'technical' or not) my school is still blocked, but on Thursday there was a secret ballot vote that the president called for - most people (students, professors, workers...) boycotted it because the General Assemblies rejected a secret ballot vote three times, so only about 3,000 people voted (out of a lot more, I can't remember how many), but of course they voted to de-block! But I haven't been back since Thursday night, when they were having a little protest in front of the school against the vote, and there was no class. Thursday afternoon there was an enormous student protest at Bastille, I saw it on my way over to Censier after work. Hopefully I'll find out something more today and maybe will have class on Wednesday...
There doesn't seem to have been any more protests in the suburbs, but evidently they're trying to tighten security around the schools in Creteil...I guess we'll see where that goes! Hopefully things stay calm.
On Friday I went to Anne's for dinner, which was nice. We were going to go out afterward but then we were both tired and feeling lazy so we just hung out and talked for a while. It's going to suck not seeing her for two weeks! It's so weird still, though, because the first time we met, I was with her for about 2 months straight, and then I didn't see her again for 5 years, and now I see her almost every week! It's awesome, but still kind of weird to have a sort of 'normal' friendship ; I've always considered her one of my best friends but we've never had this kind of a seeing-each-other-all-the-time friendship! Hopefully we'll get to go to Orleans soon, too!
Saturday I went to Amiens with Sasha, it was a really fun day! We left at 8 in the morning and didn't get back until 7 p.m., so it was a bit long, but I had fun. The train had Hogwarts Express-style compartments, which was awesome, and I used the train toilet for the first time - there's no flush, it's just a hole...you can watch the ground rushing by if you like...it's only a little cold...also it's not like on an airplane where there's not usually too much motion...I almost fell several times! Anyway we got into Amiens at 9, and we went to the tourist office and got a map and figured out what to do. We went to the cathedral first, it's the tallest Gothic cathedral in France, or something, and it's from the 13th century. The outside is beautiful, but I have to say that overall the cathedral at Chartres was much more stunning. There weren't as many windows or little chapels inside, and outside the architecture was not very exciting, compared to Chartres. The labyrinth inside was really cool, though, and actually the floor overall was really interesting. After that we decided to go to the Musee de Picardie (Picardie is the region that Amiens is in) , which was by far one of the best museums I've ever seen. There was a whole archeology section, and I got to see a MUMMY!!!! It was AMAZING. There were sections about ancient Egypt, Greece, the Gauls, the Romans (Amiens used to be a Gallo-Roman town) - apparently the Romans were into glasswork! So they had all kinds of cool glass, as well as stuff from the old baths and another dead guy, this time the skeleton of a warrior and all the stuff he was buried with. Then there were a painting galleries and a lot of sculptures, which were so awesome because you could walk up literally right next to them, I almost touched a few because I wanted to know what the marble felt like...but I was really good! Anyway it was just one of those great museums where there's enough of a variety that it's really interesting, but there's not too much stuff that it's overwhelming.
After the museum, we walked around the Christmas market for a while (apparently this is becoming popular in France in all the major cities) , and I had a hot-off-the-grill Liegeois waffle for lunch (the best kind of waffle there is...mmm...). It was a cute market, there was a lot of kind of random stuff but it was nice. In the morning there weren't too many people, but by the afternoon and before we left it was so packed, I couldn't really handle it...anyway we moved on to the Quartier St Leu, which is pegged in the city's brochures as 'The Venice of the North,' it's a little neighborhood that's built around whole bunch of canals. The houses are mostly older, some are half-timbered style, and it's really, really cute. We walked around there for quite a while, and then we went to the Parc St Pierre, which is a really big park on the edge of the town. Normally in the summer they have this thing called 'Les Hortillonnages,' floating gardens, and you can take boats all through the rivers and canals and see the gardens. Of course now it was just muddy and cold, but we saw the boats and walked around the lake a little. It was very nice, even if it did almost start to rain and begin to get really, really cold. I got so tired, too, I'm not sure if Sasha still had energy, but we were just killing time in stores before going to the train station, and I couldn't do that for very long. So we ended up sitting in the train station for an hour, which was fine and a little warm, but we got on the train as soon as possible and I think I even fell asleep on the way back. So overall it was a nice day, I'm really glad we went!
On Sunday I went to the Musee du Quai Branly with Mme Bluteau from Victor Hugo. It's the museum that Chirac dedicated a few years ago, it's sort of a 'civilisations of the world' type of museum. It's really huge, though, and strangely set up so that there are a million different artifacts that are all really interesting, but there's almost no information about them. Also, it's really hard to read the descriptions of each thing because all the text will be on one tiny plaque on one side for an entire case of artifacts. While the stuff they had was awesome, I really didn't learn anything at all, which was disappointing. Luckily, because it was the first Sunday of the month, it was free, so I didn't waste any money. Afterward it was absolutely pouring rain and really windy, we got lunch in a cafe near there and then headed back to Gare de Lyon. Then I did a little homework and had macaroni and cheese for dinner, which was perfect!
Today I went to the Prefecture and I got my carte de sejour! I can legally live here until April, yay! No hassle, almost no waiting, it was a very atypical visit to the Prefecture. I'm kind of glad that's all over and done with now, I have to say... Now I'm all set to go to Germany this weekend! I'm getting SOOOO excited! I can't believe that after this weekend I'll have been to Germany as many times as I've been to France! I need to practice my German...
I have my Finnish exam Friday! Why am I so excited...?