Le Chocolat Chaud et Les Prostituées, c’est la vie des français?

Although traveling last weekend was fantastic, it was really nice to have a weekend in Paris this past weekend!

On Friday some of my friends met up at the Hotel de Ville (city hall) for ice skating! Paris has two outdoor rinks during the winter and we wanted to skate once before they closed for the spring. The rink was insanely busy! They definitely don’t zamboni their ice very much so it was really bumpy too. Some of the skaters were really talented and were weaving in and out of the huge crowd of people. There was this one little boy (he had to have been around 7 or 8) in a Puma sweatshirt that I was so impressed with. None of my friends fell so it was a success…

After ice skating we went to the Louvre! It was my first time actually seeing art in the Louvre. On Friday night, the Louvre stays open until 1opm and is free. There was way less people there which made it much more enjoyable. We saw a lot of sculpture and some really early French paintings. Some of my friends are attempting to visit each room of the Louvre before we leave. We are keeping track of which rooms we visit each time we go on a map. For anyone who has been to the Louvre, this plan sounds a little crazy. The Louvre is unimaginably big! However, we are determined and I think we can do it.

Saturday, three friends and I went to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. Montmartre is actually its own little municipality within Paris. It has historically been the home of artists and other creative people. Sacre Coeur is a newish church that sits on a hill in Montmartre overlooking Paris. Saturday was an incredibly beautiful day so (as you can see from my pictures) there were hundreds of people out just sitting on the steps absorbing the sun. There were musicians out on the steps playing American Classic Rock as well as Beatles songs. We took a picnic and toured around the cathedral. I wasn’t able to take pictures inside the church, but above the altar is an incredible mosaic ceiling. It’s fascinating to me that this church is even a little bit newer than the National Cathedral in Washington. Montmartre is definitely a tourist location but totally worth it for anyone planning to visit Paris. We attempted to find the Moulin Rouge afterwards, but alas, ended up walking in the complete wrong direction…

I started my new Grammar class this week. I decided to make the switch to the Intermediate level class because my professor highly recommended it and I was looking for more of a challenge. On Tuesday, my first day, I got to the classroom that I was told to go to early so I could talk to the professor and settle everything. However, the professor was the last person to enter the classroom. So, in front of everyone I had to tell her that I was a new student and had moved up from the elementaire level. She sort of snapped at me and asked why I was moving into her class after four weeks. I told her my professor said I should and that I had a card from the Sorbonne office that made it official. She looked at my card and said that she wasn’t even the professor listed on the card and that that professor was in a different room. It was embarrassing but at the same time I was SO relieved that she is not my professor. My real new professor is much nicer and welcoming. She is not as enthusiastic as my last professor, but I think I am going to end up learning a lot more. I have a little bit of catching up to do but not too much. I re-taught myself the subjunctive last night (one of the hardest tenses that they have already gone over) and was surprised at how much came back to me from previous classes. One minus about the new class, it is still at 8AM every day :-P

My host mom and I have started this tradition where we stay after dinner for about half an hour and just talk about different things. Yesterday we talked about the University system in France and tonight it was about the difference between different languages. It’s really improved my French and gotten me closer to my host mom!

So Jackie and I made an interesting discovery this week… This past weekend I went for a run on Avenue Foch (the most expensive street in Paris…) and on my way back to my apartment noticed an interesting white van. The woman inside it was dressed in bright colors and her van had all kinds of weird things in it like a soccer ball, a feather boa and scarves. I just considered it to be a crazy lady and kept running. However, on Monday as I was walking back to my apartment from the Metro, I noticed several other white vans with women sitting inside. Something clicked when I saw a woman wearing red leather boots that went up to her thigh displaying her legs in the window. These were prostitutes. On Tuesday, Jackie came over to go running and as we were walking to my house I was telling her about my discovery. Just as I told her about the lady with the red boots we saw her again! And this time there were more vans with more women. Definitely prostitutes. We were incredibly intrigued because I live in one of the ritziest areas of Paris. I had also just started noticing these vans all of a sudden. I asked my Paris Civ professor today and he was really interested as well. He hadn’t heard of prostitutes using vans in Paris before. He told me prostitution is legal in Paris; however it is illegal to advertise yourself on the street. He said advertising could be verbal or non-verbal, it is kind of up to the police officer. I guess this was sort of the way these women were getting around this, by using subtle advertisements… It’s interesting but at the same time makes me feel kind of uncomfortable on my walk home.

Today was busy. I have been slowly getting over this cold I have had for over a week but all of a sudden my throat had been really really hurting. So after class today I went to an English speaking doctor Accent told me about and found out that yes, I do have strep throat. I was able to get antibiotics right away and it should clear up within the next few days! It was interesting experiencing the French healthcare system. Since I am not French I had to pay for my antibiotics but my zythromax was only 11 euro.

After a visit to the Louvre with my Paris Civ class this afternoon, five friends and I went to Café Angelina. Oh man… Oh man. I had the BEST chocolat chaud (or hot chocolate) ever. In fact, that is what they are known for. The best chocolat chaud in Paris. It is a little bit classier of a place, but is definitely somewhere I will be taking my family and friends when they come to visit. Anyone want to come visit me now? ;-)

The heads of Kings that were originally on statues on the facade of Notre Dame. These original heads were most likely cut off during the Revolution and are at the Musee de Cluny.

One of the six Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at Musee de Cluny. These tapestries are really famous because they were found in a house in France after they had gone missing for hundreds of years. The tapestry work is incredible. We read the novel "The Lady in the Unicorn" in my Paris Civ class which is a fictional account of how and why these tapestries were made, nobody really knows.

Going ice skating at the Hotel de Ville!

Ice skating rink... although that is not the Hotel de Ville in the background.

Friday night at the Louvre! These are some of my good friends in my program.

A view from the hill that Sacre Coeur sits on... I love Paris.

Sacre Coeur itself and all of the people enjoying the sun.

This guy was SO talented. He did acrobatics with a soccer ball. In this particular picture he is climbing a lamp post with a soccer ball (that is SPINNING) on a pen that is balancing on his mouth... crazy.

The one and only Eiffel Tower from Montmartre.

ça m’est égal (it doesn’t matter to me)

So the title of this post is pretty random, but it’s just a really great expression I learned in French that is going to be very useful for me (since I’m so indecisive)….

And keeping with the theme of random… here are just some random things I felt like sharing…

*Girls are so fashionable here. When Jackie and I were in Granada, we heard some girls who were staying at our hostel say that they were so happy to be able to wear rain jackets and not pea coats like they had to in Paris. I didn’t really understand until I got here. The women are pretty dressed up at all times of the day, every day of the week. Women typically wear tights with boots and a dress or a skirt. Purple is also a very big color here right now.

*There is such a contradiction here with water conservation. My host parents never told me to limit my showers but most of my other friends are only supposed to take 5 to 10 minute showers. Europeans are also very conscious of turning off any light in their house or in a building that they are not using. However, they wash the sidewalks every single day. A lot of families that live by me have dogs who like to use the sidewalks to do their thing, but I still don’t see a need to wash the sidewalks every single day… even days that it rains! I guess this is just a culture thing since we don’t really do it in the U.S.

*I started my other two classes this week.

-On Monday I had my conference course on the French and France in the 20th century. The class is a lecture of around 100 people and the professor uses poorly organized PowerPoints to present information. Each week we learn about the political climate, music and cinema during the specific decade we are discussing. It’s definitely really interesting and I was really excited that I understood everything she said in our two hour lecture. The conference is meant for students anywhere from very beginners to intermediates. I would be interested to see how many very beginners (or debutants) stay in the class because she speaks pretty quickly and uses a lot of hard vocabulary.

-On Monday I also started my phonetiques class. I have this class for an hour each day every other week. We start out in a lab where we use headphones to repeat phrases our professor says to us. I really don’t like hearing my voice recorded so it’s really bizarre for me, but I think I got over it by the end of the week. Then after half an hour we move into another classroom where she teaches a lesson on rules of pronunciation. It’s a really rushed class but I can already tell it has helped me, especially with figuring out what people are saying to me when they push all of their words together.

*My Grammar class is still easy. In fact, my professor approached me today after our test and asked if I wanted to move up. She told me it was my decision but that this was all a review for me and for most of the other people in the class it wasn’t. She said I could have the weekend to think about it and go try to switch on Monday. The problem is I have to have a class at the same exact time so that the rest of my schedule works. I would like to switch up so I can challenge myself more but I do really really like my class and my professor. My friend Tara and I were just starting to make friends with a few of the guys in our class (two from Italy and one we think is from Russia) who have phonetiques at the same time as us.

*We had fondue last night for the first time in France! It wasn’t very vegetarian friendly, I literally ate bread and cheese for dinner, but it was still a neat experience.

*I’m starting to feel more at home in my homestay. One day this week Jackie came over to go running with me. I asked my host dad before she came over if it was ok and he said yes. I decided to ask my host mom later that night if it would be ok in the future, she’s kind of the decision maker in the house, and she was very grateful I asked and said “of course! Of course!” I’m allowed to have friends over whenever. Also, she said it was totally fine for Emma to stay with me for the weekend she is here!!! She is very understanding of how expensive it is for students to find hotels in Paris.

*My cold is kinda sort of still here but I lost my voice yet again. Each time I get sick, without fail, I lose my voice. This time it isn’t as bad as when I lost my voice my birthday weekend last year. One of my best friends, Dan, was visiting and I literally couldn’t get words out of my mouth. I had to write to him using a notepad! Now, I just kind of sound like a quiet man. Oh well, hopefully it comes back soon!

*I have a list of all of the things I want to see and do in Paris before I leave and I am hoping this weekend will knock off a good number of them. Tonight we are going ice skating in front of the Hotel de Ville and then going to the Louvre! The Louvre is open later on Wednesday and Friday nights and is free for students. It is supposed to be less crowded and a lot of fun. Tomorrow is looking beautiful so we’ll probably head up to Montmartre and the Sacre Couer!

Comme les Français, j’adore le TGV!

This weekend five friends and I went to Strasbourg! It is actually kind of funny because Jackie, Lauren and I planned our trip separately from the other 3 girls who ended up going. It was nice to have a bigger group to do things with though.

I have to start by RAVING about the TGV, or bullet train. The French are so smart when it comes to transportation. This train got us to Strasbourg in just over two hours! The seats were comfortable with personal reading lights, cup holders, a tray, a foot rest and a mini trashcan. I didn’t get to sit by my friends on either trip because we booked our tickets separately but I was thrilled by the train ride the entire way there and back. I’m so excited to take it a few more times while I’m here, especially during the day when I can see the countryside.

Ok, raving done. Strasbourg! It is a quaint city very close to Germany. The German influence is thus very heavy. The tram system was really easy to use which made getting around the city stress free. We stayed in a hotel that cost 18 euro a night, not too shabby. Friday night we got in kind of late and asked the lady at our hotel where we could eat. She told us that most places stop serving food by 10pm, such a change from Paris!

Saturday we started the day by touring the Cathedral. It is one of the tallest Cathedrals I have ever seen! We got to see the demonstration of the astronomical clock. They played a movie beforehand that wasn’t very informative and therefore not really worth it but still amazing how they were able to make the figures move way back in the day (At a nearby museum on Sunday we saw the original rooster that was on the clock, most clocks like this have a rooster on it. The rooster happens to be the oldest automated object in the world. I included a picture!) After the Cathedral we took the canal tour around the historic part of town. Like Paris, part of the city is surrounded by rivers. The tour was very international. You could listen to the narration in ten different languages. We saw all around the city including the European Parliament establishments that are in Strasbourg.

After the tour we ate at a German restaurant (that we ended up back at on Sunday) that was so cute! I got to eat my cheese spaetzle that I was hoping to find since Strasbourg is so close to Germany. I would describe spaetzle as the German mac and cheese. My German friend Anne’s mom made it for us one of the first nights we were in Germany a few summers ago. This wasn’t as good as hers, but still exciting.

Continuing the eating spree… we went to a chocolate museum! The museum was on the outskirts of the city but was easy enough to get to. We saw how chocolate is made as well as how it traveled to Europe. The museum had some creepy automated figures that we spent a lot of time laughing at and posing with. At the end, one of the chocolatiers shows you how they make the molds of chocolate and gives you free samples. Before we left we purchased some chocolate beer. I wouldn’t really recommend it… but it was worth it just to try.

Sunday the weather turned on us a little. Apparently the Alcase region in France has extreme weather, either really cold or really hot. Sunday was pretty cold and rainy. Luckily, we started the day by climbing the tower of the Cathedral. Remember I told you it was one of the tallest I’ve ever seen? Well yes, it was painful. We took frequent breaks up the winding stone staircase. But once we got to the top it was totally worth it! (See pictures.) The rest of the day we spent in museums and buying cookies at a really cool traditional gourmet shop.

The trip was great because it was very stress free. We felt safe in the streets and even felt like we knew them by the end of the weekend. We all traveled together really well. It was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of Paris, but at the same time made us appreciate the city we are studying in. General observation of Strasbourg: the people are incredibly incredibly nice. Every person we ran into was patient with our French, willing to help us and one lady even offered to take a picture of us jumping on top of the Cathedral. I really enjoyed my weekend and I’m excited to travel more in Paris! We’re going to Bretagne in two weeks.

In other news: I, like everyone else in program, have a cold. It’s really not bad at all and I’m glad I’m getting it now rather than later. My host parents are really caring and are always asking how I’m doing and gave me weird French medicine. It’s funny to hear what they believe will cure a cold. For example, my host dad told me to drink some wine before going to bed… maybe I’ll try it tonight ;-)

The beautiful cathedral of Strasbourg. Check out the detail on those portals.

Stained glass inside the Cathedral. I get really frustrated when I'm in a Cathedral because it's impossible to capture the grandeur of it in a picture... guess you guys will just have to visit it!

The astronomical clock we saw!

One of the buildings of the European Parliament in Strasbourg taken from the boat tour.

The chocolatier at the museum showing us how he makes chocolate cats and trains!

An area of Strasbourg called Petite France. It was so pretty lit up at night.

Taken from the window on the windy staircase going up the Cathedral during one of our many breaks.

The view from the top!

The six girls on the trip.

I had to include our jumping picture. It's fantastic :-)

Palais Rohan. Inside there are three museums.

We visited the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. We saw the apartments in this Palace of different French kings including this Napoleon I. I believe Marie Antoinette slept in this room once.

The original rooster on the clock. The oldest automated object in the world!

I took this specifically for you Uncle Tommy. There was a random exhibit of a collection of toys one man gave to the museum in the earlyish 1900s. I saw these old cars and thought of you!

La Saint Valentin a Paris!

I have never seen as many couples in one place as I did in Paris on Valentine’s Day ! The metro was packed with people from all over the world coming to the most romantic city. It was cute but a little nauseating at the same time. Anyway, I wanted to share with you how I spent my Valentine’s Day in Paris.

I had my friends Jackie and Lauren over for lunch at my apartment. We made sandwiches (baguettes with jam and cheese, something Emma introduced us to in Spain.. you would think it’s gross but trust me, it’s amazing!) and drank the good tea I bought at Les Mariers Freres. Afterwards we headed to Le Petit Palais where we snuck into the art exhibits. We aren’t sure what exactly Le Petit Palais was used for before it became an art gallery, but the art they feature in the palace is from many time periods. There was one sculpture in particular that I found beautiful. They also had some Monet’s and Courbet’s. The ceiling and the floor were fantastic themselves. I put a picture of Jackie and Lauren in this post so you can see some of what I’m talking about.

From Le Petit Palais we walked to the Louvre! This was my first time going and my first time seeing the famous glass pyramid. I have to admit I was freaking out (in my head and verbally) because that is just such a sign of Paris for me. And secretly, I love the DaVinci Code and it reminded me of that book. We didn’t see any artwork because we went kind of late, but Lauren and I got our student cards that we can use to get into the museum free at any time. This way I can take my time through the exhibits. Apparently, the best way to do it is in one hour increments with snacks in between or you get too overwhelmed.

Saturday night we met up with our friends Lauren and Kavita (so yes, there were three Laurens). Lauren was with her friend from Paris. He studied at American University through the Washington Semester program last spring. Lauren was friends with him during that semester and when he found out she was coming to Paris he was excited to show her around. We met up with some of his friends and they took us to a less touristy part of the city where a lot of students hang out. We ended up at a pub and played pool (poorly, although I did get one ball in!). It was really chill and really fun. Most everyone knew English but we spoke only in French. One of the guys didn’t seem to understand that he needed to slow dooowwwnnn when he spoke to us so it was a little bit difficult to speak with him. But otherwise we had some decent conversations!

Embarrassing story number 2 for you: When we were walking to meet up with the friends of Lauren’s friend from Paris, I somehow ended up on the other side of a narrow road from everyone else. So I crossed the road and saw that we were meeting up with his friends. As I’m walking to meet them I tripped HARD CORE over a bump in the sidewalk. I lost my shoe and everything. A boy and a girl saw it happen and laughed and said “Attention! Attention!” I really thought they were just a couple walking along. Turns out they were two of the people we were hanging out with that night and they spent the first part of the night laughing about me tripping. It was really funny, but yes, really embarrassing.

Besides learning where we should be hanging out on the weekends (not in the touristy area), I observed something about Parisians (at least Parisian students on the weekend) while hanging out with them. They had a destination in mind of where they wanted to take us to but they had no intention of getting there anytime soon. We meandered through the streets and took our time crossing roads. I’m naturally a fast walker so to slow down and really take time to get somewhere was different for me. I liked that they weren’t rushing to get somewhere like we normally do in the States.

Today, a bunch of us met up for lunch after classes and ate at a Crous restaurant. Crous is a group of University restaurants run by the Sorbonne. You use a card that you charge money on and you are charged based on the number of points your meal adds up to. The typical meal is 6 points which is only 2,85 euro!!! I had a pretty large personal goat cheese pizza, a banana and a little thing of chocolate mousse all for 2,85. What a deal!

If you have never been on the Paris metro before then you wouldn't know that some of the trains are kind of old school and you have to open the doors yourself either by pressing a button or pushing up a lever. The lever is the trickiest one and takes a little bit of man power. I've been a little timid to do it because I think I look stupid trying to push this lever up and usually just step back and hope someone else who is getting off at my stop will do it first. But I am proud to say that this weekend I, for the first time, felt really confident when I opened the door myself. Pretty lame, but I had to share. I'm feel myself getting more and more comfortable in the city. Right now I'd say my comfort level is about a 6.8 out of 10 :-)

One last good bit of news: We have Spring Break plans!! Grete, Jackie and I spent a good part of our day Sunday booking plane tickets to Prague. We will be there over Easter weekend, the first weekend of me and Jackie’s break, and then we will head down to Switzerland and see Geneva and Interlaken. I’m beyond excited!

This weekend I will be in Strasbourg.

Je souhaite que tout le monde a eu une bonne saint valentin ! (I hope that everyone had a good Valentine's Day!)

Le Petit Palais

Lauren and Jackie in Le Petit Palais. Check out the mosaic floor and marble walls!

The Louvre! The Louvre! Exactly what I was freaking out about on Saturday...

My Valentine ;-)

This was last night: a group of us met at Lauren's apartment (the Lauren on the very left) to make dinner because her host family is gone for two weeks on vacation.