Mom's coming!

Mom should be arriving Wednesday morning and so I'm trying to clean up so this place can be acceptable to an adult, not just dirty college students. I think the kitchen may be beyond help.
Also, I've worn a hole through my fitted sheet - I really need to find the time to buy a new one.
And! Sarah and I have decided to host a birthday party (I suppose we just needed a reason) here the Saturday after my mom leaves with all our French friends, though I'm afraid maybe only 3 will show up.

Normandy and the evil cat...

MICEFA organized a trip to Normandy. Great. I've been there twice already and I was planning to take my mom there, but, whatever, it's required for one of my classes. So Sarah and I go on this bus trip. Basically, we drive 3 hours, get dropped off at Arromanches, without any explanation and are told to be back at the bus in an hour. Lame. Sarah and I walked around and took a few pics.

We had brought our lunch, so we ate that, but it was a little chilly and most of the stuff was closed. What were we supposed to do? Everyone was relieved to be back on the bus...except a few girls who were late and we had to wait around for them.

Then we headed to the American Cemetery, where we had a guide. It made it a little more interesting, I think. There was some sort of veteran's ceremony going on at the time, so we all stopped for the Star-Spangled Banner and TAPS. Sarah also thought of a name for a new ale. Taps. Always have it on tap at the VFW.


Then, we loaded back on the bus and headed for Omaha beach. Did you know that the Americans named the beaches so that if there were a spy or if they found their plans at all, things like "Omaha Beach" meant nothing, because there was nothing named that. Only certain people could actually know what was defined as Omaha Beach. Interesting.



But in the end, it was very tiring and we learned very little, except for that most people in our program suck.

making friends and playing rugby

Rugby started yesterday, which was...interesting. Of course, greetings with kisses, which as a concept is totally ok, but in practice, it's very off putting. "Oh, hello, nice to meet you" *kisses* Whatever. Practice itself is not very strenuous. I'll be trying to do some running on the side I think, as it gets warmer anyway and I just started a thing on my iPod that helps you get to 200 sit-ups every other day in 6 weeks. We'll see how this working out kick goes.
Also, they shower together. We peace :P

fanny packs! a time for healing and churros

Saturday morning (or I should say afternoon) we decided to be touristy to help us enjoy our time in Paris and not be angry like we were so we were going to go to Musée Rodin, which is my fave museum in Paris. It was a really nice day out, but by the time we got there, they were closing (look, we're lazy on weekends...and weekdays), but then we realized that the next day (today) would be the first Sunday of the month, which is free admission! So, instead of the Musée Rodin, we hopped on the métro and went to the Champs-Elysées and walked around. We got Häagen-Dazs and then watched a really weird parade and went to Flam's for dinner which was recommended by Esther and was delic.




The next day, we got up at a normal person's time and went to Musée Rodin (for free!) which was super! Took a few pics.




Then we went to the Eiffel Tower, took some super high quality pics for Melinda. We bought popcorn and sat and watched some skateboarders just below Trocadero for a while.
It was really nice out so it was pretty cool.

Then we went to Montmartre to get dinner and hang out a bit. We got crepes, but my 4 cheese mix was pretty gross - I think it involved chèvre. And then a bag of fresh churros - AMAZING. We need to eat churros more often. Then we went home and crashed. I'm so tired, but Paris and I are on good terms again.
♥

Mardi Gras and Rugby games! What could be better?

Tuesdays are student night (happy hour all night for students) at Wos, so Sarah and I have decided to make it our Tuesday night spot since we don't have class on Wednesdays. We went this week, which was Mardi Gras, but most people weren't there for Mardi Gras. Some were there for a soccer game, others were just there I guess. We were kinda just there as well, but Pierre had prepared some shots to give away and had no one to give them away to but us! Oh, darn. So we helped him finish off the bottle. Also, some creepy old guy came over to talk about the paper with us. He wasn't really that creepy, we just didn't really want to talk to him. He bought us a round of drinks at last call from the other end of the bar, which was odd... but I mean, hey, free drinks. He was also hovering around the door when the bar closed, which was weird, but it was ok since we still had to help Pierre finish that bottle so he kept us after the bar closed. Then we took the night bus home, which is just a pain in the ass, but it was alright.

Tonight, I went to the Six Nations France v. Wales game by myself after we went to Falafel Friday at our buddy's place - the weird guy who owns the place, always making jokes about stealing our french fries!
The game was really fun to watch and the seat was pretty good. and France won!
Don't really know what else to say about that, haha.

After the game, we went to Wos again because Pierre said I should, but since the game was over, that crowd was clearing out and it was pretty boring, especially for a Friday night. ...Lame. And then we had to take the night bus home anyway. Now we're frustrated with Paris. Ugh. Be fun!

LONDON

Sarah and I just got back from London. Classes don't start until tomorrow, so we decided to head to London for a little trip. We left on Wednesday and got back last night. We went to London without any idea of what we would do.
We got there just before 3 and headed to the hostel to check in. It wasn't too far or too hard to find, so we walked there fine and checked in without a problem. The hostel was nice (Smart Russel Square, I think it was called). Though, the site we saw said free wi-fi, which was not true. 15 min on their computer was 50p. Anyway, we dropped our bags on a couple of beds and went back out. Not knowing anything about London, we looked at the underground map and picked something we recognized- Piccadilly Circus.

From there, we got 2-day tickets for an open top double decker bus tour. It's a bit pricy, but we figured it was alright since we didn't know much about London. We rode around on that, saw some sites, then hopped off, hoping to find some food since we were quite hungry by that point and could no longer feel our feet. Frustrated that we couldn't really find anything, we decided to head back to the hostel and ask them. Between the underground stop and the hostel, we saw a cute little Italian restaurant and just stopped there. We were already beat, so we stayed in that night at the hostel. The common room was bustling, but we weren't really sure how to really break in to any groups, so we mostly just hung out awkwardly. This guy, AB, eventually invited us over to talk to this really weird group of people. AB was around 40 and he was talking to this guy Andrew, who was something else. Probably also nearing 40, he really creeped us out. He was pretty drunk and told Sarah to do Ketamine...We tried to steer clear of him. Once we got tired of this group and most of the people had run to the liquor store, we excused ourselves and went up to bed.
The room, BTW, was freezing, but there were these FANTASTIC blankets that were so fluffy and warm. In the morning, I did not want to get out of bed, but breakfast was free and over at like 9:30 or 10, so we went down. We were the only ones in pajamas- wtf?
We hopped on the bus tour again, a different one, tho. This one was supposed to have a live tourguide - alas, nope. I think it's the off-season. We eventually got pretty cold and hopped on the boat tour (which also came with our ticket). This was the lamest boat tour ever. You had to pay extra for a guide, so we just sat on it...riding up and down the river. Then we decided to go to Fleet Street for dinner because we remembered that there were a lot of restaurants there, but we didn't know how to get to Fleet Street. We stopped at a souvenir shop and pretended to be really interested in everything....and looked it up on a map. We settled on Ye Olde Cock Tavern and went in and sat down. We didn't realize it was bar service and we were very confused. Eventually, we ordered food. She got a fish and chips, I got a Welsh rarebit and we split some nachos. I forget the name of the beer I got, but it was basically European Keystone. I felt at home.
We had planned to go out that evening so we went back to the hostel and fixed ourselves up a little...nothing crazy, just brushed our hair and put on some mascara. Headed out and found that everything near the hostel was closed. Sad and defeated, we grabbed ravioli from a 24 hour convenience shop and cooked it up back at the hostel. I think we may have overcooked it a little. Chowing down on our late night snack, we sat at a table and found us sitting next to 2 Canadians who had just arrived. We started talking to them - Martin and Simon. Martin was such a know-it-all...who didn't actually know it all, so we had an interesting conversation about everything...while Martin and Simon got drunk, to try to beat the jetlag.
We planned the next day to go to Westminster Abbey and try to see a musical in the West End in the evening. When morning came, we were too tired to make it to breakfast, so we stayed in bed extra, eventually got up and showered. I forgot to bring flipflops to France at all, so I showered with socks on - it was weird haha. Then we went to Westminster Abbey, which was surprisingly interesting for a church! I recommend it.

We went to Piccadilly Circus to find tickets for a show that night. We found Grease tickets cheap enough and had a plan for that evening! We went back by the hostel and had falafel at a place nearby. It was delicious! So much different from the ones we usually have - it had some sort of chili pepper sauce in it and it was grilled into a wrap shape. It was great.

Then we went to Grease, which was great. A bit different from the movie, but some of the differences were funny. I'm not sure they understand some bits of 50s American culture. Danny greeted the T-birds with balltaps! They would've been much too homophobic for that! Also, some of the dancing was a little fruity.

Oh, the hostel. This evening, we spent time with our buddies, Martin and Simon. And a group of Frenchies. More BS from Martin - at some point he told me Ron Paul was a socialist...?? I was like, "I would probably...definitely, put him in the libertarian category...sorta opposites"
We were talking to the French kids, in English because they're in London. But I was talking to this one French kid who was not very good at English so I was speaking in French to him. Then his friend came over that we had talked to earlier and said, in French, something about "luck with the girls." I wasn't paying attention when he started talking so I'm not sure if he was teasing him for having or not having luck with the girls, but, either way, it's kind of embarrassing. The kid who he was making fun of was super embarrassed and put his face in his hands and then the other guy turned to us and said in English "We're talking about serious stuff." The poor embarrassed kid turned around and was like, "they speak French!" as I was explaining to Sarah what had happened, since she was a little far to hear it all.
Shortly after, they peaced, out of embarrassment I think. But they were nice, no need to be embarrassed!
Oh well.
The next morning we checked out and left our baggage in the baggage room there. Then we basically wandered around London with nothing else to do all day.

On our way out of London, we grabbed some cheddar and some really delic M&S candy bars.

rêve générale

So if you pay attention to world news or european news, you may have heard about Black Thursday, today. The French, angry about the bad economy and upset with the gov't for not doing enough to fix it/prevent it from getting worse, they decided to shut the country down. Eight major unions came together for this one. Public transport was affected, but a law prevents it from shutting down entirely. Today, I only had to go to Musée Carnavalet at 3h30, so we left and hour early (though normally it's about half an hour from here) The lines we needed, 13 and 1, were both running at full service so we figured it would be a little crowded, but manageable. It wasn't really bad, though there was some commuter injury at a stop farther down on 13 so we had to empty the train at Montparnasse. This meant that, instead of avoiding both, we had to go through both Montparnasse and Chatelet...which is just annoying. They're probably the two biggest stations in the city (Chatelet IS the biggest) and they take forever to walk through so I generally try to avoid them.
ugh.
But, aside from moving a little slower, the injury later on the line and being maybe slightly more crowded, I didn't really feel like it was that unique of a day.
Although, annoyingly enough, Musée Carnavalet was closing early so our tour wasn't finished. We were only there for an hour. The guide spent about half the time with us over a diorama of Ile de la Cité which was really cool. She talked about some interesting history of the city. Walking around the museum was cool too. I much prefer learning like that, where it's just interesting and I don't have to worry about being tested on it or anything. It's just stuff that's cool to know.

Also, as great as the greek district in Saint-Michel, we also found the Jewish district in the Marais with more falafel places....so many options! Jewish or Greek?

Just a quick shoutout to my mom. I found the perfect car for her:

Oh, I'm sorry, can you not see the name of the car? there behind the rear window?

Amelia's here!

I skipped class today to pick up Amelia from the airport by RER because she lives on the same line as Roissy. Did you know it costs 8,10 for a one way ticket? The airport's all the way in zone five. After a bit of confusion, I found Amelia and we got her luggage to the RER.
The RER is super depressing. It drives through the ghetto, it's more vandalized than the métro trains and it was really cold today. I did not like it.
Checked her into her dorm, which is beautiful, bought her a navigo card (métro pass), went to chez moi so she could skype home (she was having trouble getting the internet working) and then we went out to find food. The closest big stop to me is Montparnasse so I figured going there would be the quickest way to find some food. Not. I don't know the area at all and I felt so bad because we're wandering around and Amelia is hungry and tired. Good news though, passed this road:

His house is in Paris...I will visit it.

We hopped back on the métro and went to Les Halles, to the centre commerciale which I know a little better...grab a hot, panini-ish baguette, pick up a cell phone for her and a couple quick necessities at the MONOP' (mini supermarché) and then she went back to her room and I presume she crashed into her bed.
I came home and watched a few eps of Freaks & Geeks with Sarah while doing very little homework...haha.

There's a big grève (strike) scheduled for Thursday...should be fun. 100% buses, 60% métro, 30% something else. Whatever, I don't think I have anywhere important to be...just have a rendez-vous at a museum in the marais at 3:30. I should make it, haha.
I just hope one of the two Vanves boulangeries are open.

Tip if you plan to travel to Paris and are used to American or, even more specifically, college town hours, this site rocks: Dimanche Aussi

paix.

Paris Lesson #5: Don't go to bars in Pigalle

Seriously.

Sarah and I had this fantastic idea to get dressed up and go out after a long day yesterday:

We began the day at...3pm, yes we're (mostly just me) lazy. We had an appointment at Société Générale to open French bank accounts, which we did, so that was cool. When we exited the métro (Denfert-Rochereau), there was a relatively large protest against Israel going on so that was interesting.


After opening our accounts, we hit the centre commerciale to get in on some of the soldes (the french have month-long sales twice a year and i'm pretty sure every store participates). We were pretty successful at Les Halles...beat, we decided we had missed Falafel Friday again.
Oh yeah, Falafel Friday, our new tradition started last Saturday, continued yesterday (also a Saturday) and planned for next Saturday. Last week, we went to Moaz, a Dutch chain that was ok, but this week we really found our spot. The guys there were super nice and the falafel was delic. We plan to become regulars.

Also, the intention is to actually eat the falafels on Fridays, it just so happens that our Friday evenings are busy, busy. Well, this week, we just forgot.

And onto Pigalle...The night bus comes to a stop not far from chez nous, so Sarah and I dressed up a bit and went out...N'importe de quel quartier! (doesn't matter which district). We walked into an Irish pub that it turns out I had been to right after we got here - but that was with a big group. Standing at the bar discussing a few things: did we want to stay? if so, what to get? and how do we get someone else to pay for them?
Up walks Juliano, who offers to buy us drinks...great! That was easy, but then he has us sit with him and his friends...CREEPS. But, we didn't want to be rude, so we were going to sit with them as we drank our beers. Turns out Juliano's friend Ahmed took a quick liking to Sarah. I, on the other hand, claimed I had a super-fantastic boyfriend in the states who I was absolutely in love with. We were clearly uncomfortable-we kept our coats on the whole time!...super awks...
Also, Ahmed asked for Sarah's number, but she was like, 'um, no' so he gave her his number instead and made this ridiculous plan, which he repeated about 8 times: We'd (the three of us) go to the pool, then come back to our place so we could shower and pretty up...then we would go to dinner and then the movies...what a plan. I mean, it's not nearly as cold as New England here, but still chilly...what is this pool?
Creepo, obvs not on our plan to give him a ring.
so the bar's closing and I had already been claiming that so-and-so was texting us and wanted us to meet him at another bar so we head out...and Ahmed follows. Well, crap, right?
He says he never leaves girls without security. So I go to fake a phone call and get directions to this place and when I return, Ahmed's totally making out with Sarah and I'm like, oh no, this is a problem. I run up and tap him on the back and tell him that Sarah and I have to go, that I have directions.
We head north in general to go towards Porte de Clingancourt to catch a nightbus, watching over our shoulders to be sure we're not being followed. Clingancourt was almost certainly not the closest or safest to get to night bus stops, but we got there...and couldn't find a night bus stop.
Wandering around, knowing the area was a little iffy, we hopped in a taxi, writing the cost off as a trade for the free drinks, and a safe way home. Porte de Clingancourt and Porte de Vanves are nearly opposite points of the city.

Did I mention Juliano's creepy real old friend bought me a rose and tried to kiss me?
If they seem creepy, say you have a boyfriend.
And when were trying to find the night bus stop, I came across a little café that Rachel should remember.

Le Lapin Agile

Last night, we went to the Lapin Agile in Montmartre. It's this adorable little cabaret in Montmartre. We went as a class and it was absolutely fantastic. The best way to describe it is as a tiny tavern where everyone sits really close to one another and everyone sings. There was about 6 or 7 singers who sat at a table towards the middle, next to a piano, with a pianist. They sang and led the songs. As a group, we took up more than half the room, but the French were singing along with most of the songs. They of course try to include you by giving more simple instructions, ie, clap like this or sing this really simple line. They also sang songs most people would know: Aux Champs-Elysées, Complainte de la Butte, Alouette, La Vie en Rose, etc...
It was superfun - I recommend it highly.
Pictures!

There was some crazy lighting...

This guy was a little (just a tiny bit) old for me, but I found him to be excessively attractive..."who knows where thoughts come from? they just appear."

Obama party!

The attitude in Paris is so amazing. I have no idea really what it's like at home anymore in this respect, but everything is Obamarama here! I love it!
The newsstands all over the city advertise magazines with Obama on the cover. His face is everywhere. I watched the inauguration in an ex-pat bar last night. I'm not even sure how to describe it, but it was such an amazing feeling. You know how when you watch a movie with certain people or in a certain atmosphere, it makes the movie that much better or that much worse? Well, this atmosphere was so positive and lively that you couldn't help but have a great time.
Also, Keith Davis was there:

the beginning...

Alright, so I arrived in Heidelberg, Germany around 7:30 pm, 2 hours late, without luggage....wandered about for a while because I couldn't find Liz...because she was waiting for me inside. Germany was fun but relatively uneventful. It was cool to be there, but strange to be in a place where I didn't know the language.
Arriving by train on Thursday evening, I took the 7 from Gare de l'Est and schlepped my luggage to the hotel.
As a group, we didn't have to meet until Friday, but I started to meet some people in my program right away, the first of which being my roommate, Christie. She, her friend, Catherine, and I went to the MICEFA office before our meeting to start our housing search. It ended up that Catherine and I really hit it off and started looking for apartments together.
We found a super cute one in the 13th, but in the time we waited for Catherine to talk to her parents about it, another pair of girls in MICEFA had already taken it.
As we continued to look for housing, Catherine came to the realization that she hated it here. She loved Paris during the day, but was emotional, upset and sick in the evenings. She went home already.
Crazy.
Our French class started Tuesday and we've actually been given a ridic amount of homework, especially considering that most of us are moving this weekend. I move into my house tomorrow. I was placed in Intermediate II (there's beginner, int I, int II and advanced)
While we do a lot of other stuff in class, Mme DuParc will just follow anything that comes up in class and give us a vocab lesson. It's actually super helpful. For example, since we all were looking for housing, she asked us what questions we should ask our potential landlord. Extremely helpful vocab review/lesson. Also, she gave us a lot of dos and donts about french université.
I changed my mind and will now be attending Paris 8 where I can take euro studies, FLE and other international studies courses. I think we'll have about a week between this french class and when classes start...maybe I'll plan a trip?
Everything is such a whirlwind but things are really starting to settle down now, with my housing, etc. I'm getting adjusted very well. Also, I introduced my roommate to falafels (real ones, not Harrison ones) and she loves them, so I'll always have someone to share this with haha.

Some pics:
first off, I'm a total nerd
second, this fountain is frozen