guests, guests, and more guests!

This blog has been written for weeks, I swear!! I’m just having a hard time getting is posted!! So I decided to try at the Accent office. Also, I'm working on typing up a blog about Europeans, so I promise that's coming next!!! Sorry for the huge delay in this!

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Wow, I can't believe I have about three weeks to catch up on! Sorry about being so bad about posting, but things have been incredibly busy, of course, in the month of March!

I guess I'll start with Mom's visit! I was in school all day, so she ended up coming straight to Creteil to meet me. After she finally got here (which is another story that doesn't really have a place here since in the end she got here just fine!) we walked around Creteil for a little while, but she started to get too tired so I had to send her back to Paris. Eventually I got back from school and woke her up, and we had some bread and cheese and wine (of course, the perfect welcome to Paris meal) and then just hung out for a while (which ended up kind of being the rule of the week, which was fine with us!). On Thursday we went shopping a little (there turned out to be a suitcase mishap that merited some replacement clothing...) and then got some coffee and went back to the apartment to make dinner. Eventually we got to the Musee d'Orsay, which is open until almost ten on Thursday nights, and that was really superb to do again. We saw all the impressionists, and I got to see Courbet's stuff (yaaaay!), the room was still closed and the paintings were being rennovated, but they were out this time. On Friday morning we got Mom's suitcase, yay, and then we went over to the neighborhood where I have Finnish and stuff to get crepes from the awesome crepe guy over there. I ended up going to the Nordic library for a couple hours while Mom went to the Pantheon and walked around the neighborhood more. Then we got some Greek food and went home for one of the most excellent dinners EVER! On Saturday, Anne's parents came up from Orleans and we got an awesome lunch at this restaurant in Faidherbe. Then we went to the Institut du Monde Arabe for the exhibit about the Phoenicians, which had lots and lots of artifacts but not very much explanation, so in the end it was not the best thing I ever saw. But of course it was still great to see Anne's parents! On Sunday I had to do work again, so Mom went to the Orangerie even though it was disgustingly cold and gross (what a brave Momma!) and I worked on my Saint Bridget paper. Monday I went to school and Mom tried to do all sorts of things that ended up being weirdly closed (like Pere Lachaise cemetery)...so it was good when I came back and we got to hang out. Then it was already Tuesday, I don't know how the week passed so fast, but then we had to go to the airport and put Mom on a plane! Afterward I had to go to work, but that was okay because otherwise I just would have sat around and moped the whole day... it was a great visit, of course, but way too short!!!!!

I did a bunch of work the next weekend, which was good, I guess. On Friday night (the 14th) I went to this AMAZING choir concert at this church in the 4th arrondissement, it was this mixed choir that one teacher (not an English teacher) from one of my schools sings in, they did Bach and someone else...it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. The church is from the 16th century or so, with a huge ceiling and everything, so the sounds of the choir just echoed perfectly, and the arrangement was wonderful, and there was even an accompanying chamber orchestra! It was really fantastic. Plus the director looked like he was about my age! It was SO impressive, I absolutely loved it! And I had a nice walk back afterward, since I wasn't really too far away. Also, on the way back in front of the Opera, I actually saw Fabrizio (from that wacky party a few months ago!) but I wasn't really sure it was him so I didn't say anything. But he called me the next day to say that he thought it was me, it was pretty hilarious.

Jeff got here on Sunday in the morning, so I went to meet him at the airport because I'm just so amazingly nice. Then I took him around the Marais for a while because that's a nice place to walk around on a Sunday, and then I came back and did some work while he went to the Centre Pompidou. Monday was school...Tuesday was work...Wednesday was school...Thursday work...phew! A normal week, I guess. On Thursday night I met up with Jeff at the Musee d'Orsay, which was amazing again. Then Friday I had Finnish, and then I went to the Nordic Library again to continue work on Saint Bridget. Friday night we went to the Louvre, which was just ridiculous and I kind of realized how...I don't even know what the right word is. It's just that everything in the Louvre is so classical and dry and so is the building itself, and it's just SO enormous that it's impossible to get that much out of one visit because everything's so overwhelming. So we did some sculptures and the ancient Levant, and then we got to the Egyptian section, but I was already way to tired to enjoy it. Luckily I can go back whenever I want...and I think I will to just do the Egyptian section one day, cause there was an awesome mummy and a whole Book of the Dead that I want to scour...

So Saturday I went to the airport again because Jeff left, and then I came back and worked. Then Sunday was great because I went to this photo exhibit with Mme Bluteau from one of my schools, it was this French guy named Edouard Boubat, and his photos were just extraordinary. He went all over the world and just took amazing shots. Then we saw a couple other photographers' exhibits, and they were also great. I didn't even know this museum existed! It's the European House of Photography, and it's in the Marais, so not too far from where I live.

After the museum, we went to meet Amanda at the Gare d'Austerlitz. Then we sat and had a coffee and some lunch, and then we went back to drop off Amanda's stuff and read over my St Bridget essay, which is now close to being completed (yay!). Then we went and walked around for a while longer, around by the Seine and into the 4th arrondissement. Afterward, Amanda and I came back and made dinner. Then today we went on this excellent walking tour of Paris, it was about 4 hours long and the guide was great. It's this group that does free tours, and the guides work off of tips, so they have to be pretty good and entertaining, and this guy was super. He told all these wacky stories and knew a lot of the great history things that I already knew about, but I learned a whole lot and saw a lot of places I hadn't really been to before. So it was really worth it. We met this nice British guy named Mickey and this Canadian girl named Amber, so we went out with them afterward for a little while. Then we came back to work and have dinner and plan out Amanda's day tomorrow. Now I'm working on Saint Bridget, I'm getting so close to having it all done, and then I'll either start on Versailles or on geography! Woo hoo!!

Check out Snapfish for more pictures, and let me know if you need the link! Sorry again for the delay in the post, and I promise things will get better soon!