Only one more month.....

Well, it's been a month since I've written and a month until I leave, so I guess now is an appropriate time to let you know what's going on. Right after finals, which went very well, I left for England to visit three friends in three cities in three days. Yes, I'm crazy. One day is not nearly enough for London; I'll definitely have to go back sometime. Being at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was really incredible. We even got to go on stage, which is incredibly rare, so that was quite a treat. I met up with Gary in the evening for fish and chips for dinner (delish!) and we tried to make it to see a show, but it didn't end up happening. So we had some pizza and drinks and ice cream and watched.....oh I don't even remember the name, that ice skating movie with Will Ferell (can't spell) and Jon Heder. I stayed in his flat that night and left bright and early the next morning for Bath.



Bath was very pretty. It hasn't really been architecturally modernized, so all the buildings were really great. I did end up getting to see a play there with Sarah. I was excited about it being in English, about being able to relax and not have to worry about understanding, but the accents were so thick it was just as difficult as if it had been in French! I got to have English breakfast, which was so greasy but so good.

The next morning I went to Oxford, where Paul and I walked around all day in the misty rain. I saw the place where Radiohead first played and the building where the Great Hall of the Harry Potter movies is filmed. I then headed back to Paris for a couple days of relaxation before Brielle and Kelly came to visit.


Brielle and some friends from her program in Madrid got in on Halloween and I went to meet them at the Charles de Gaulle airport. She was so absolutley pooped we just had dinner and talked and then went to bed. Kelly got here on Friday evening and I spent the weekend showing them around Paris. We hung out with Yohan some, too, which was an absolute riot. We laughed all weekend long. They left early Monday morning and I had to go in for my first day at my internship. There's an interesting story to go along with that, but considering some other people's experiences with talking about their internships online, I'll have to leave that for another time. In short, I'm getting a new internship and I had two interviews today and I have one tomorrow, so I'll be at a new place on Monday! I'm actually waiting for one of the companies to call me back right now.









Well, I'm off to Thanksgiving dinner at the program director's house. Remind me to tell you all about choir, cause it's the best. Ciao, bisous!















PHOTO LINKS

London
La Comédie Française and The Globe Theatre
Oxford
Kelly and Brielle in Paris I
Kelly and Brielle in Paris II
Kelly and Brielle in Paris III

C'est fini!

It's hard to believe, but I have no more classes until January! I just got home from my last exam, which was actually annoyingly easy. I studied too much. Oh well, better than not enough! Now I just have to work on memorizing some songs for choir rehearsal tonight. Then tomorrow, bright and early, I'm taking the Eurostar to London to spend a fabulous weekend in the land of Shakespeare!

Game plan for today: shower, practice songs, buy a winter coat and a messenger bag (maybe), dinner, choir, pack and plan my day in London!!

Now if only I could tear myself away from chatting on MSN with French friends......

(The picture has nothing to do with the post.....haha, it's Marie Antoinette's private theatre at Versailles.)

Parckelle me rpd pa bcp

That, my friends, is MSN-speak (in French, obviously) for "She doesn't respond very much." I have finally made French friends! Yohan and Alex are students in Paris and they are more than happy to speak French with me. Yohan is not afraid to correct me when I make mistakes, which I really appreciate. Alex is pretty quiet, but also very nice. I've only hung out with them once so far, but I've been talking a lot online with Yohan, which is already helping my French. I'm learning a lot of slang, which is cool. He also tells me if I say something that is correct French, but not something people really say. For example (for you French speakers), instead of, "Je le trouve beau," a French-speaker would probably say, "Je le trouve trop mignon."

AND I went to Madrid last weekend to visit Brielle (was it really a whole week ago?!). We had craaazy fun, staying out until 6am to catch the first metro home both nights. Of course we woke up to do things during the day! I saw the bull-fighting arena, a gorgeous park, a museum, I ate a Spanish tortilla (basically just potatos and eggs, but so good), I took the metro by myself, I got laughed at by strangers while posing for a picture, it was a good time. I had to stay in a hotel cause the hostels were all booked, but it was alright. I'm making up for it this weekend by not having to pay for any sleeping arrangements when I go to London (visiting Gary), Bath (visiting Sarah), and Oxford (visiting Paul). Then I'm probably going to Switzerland or Germany for a couple days, then back to Paris because Brielle and Kelly are coming to visit. Sooooo excited!!!

Yesterday, my host mom's parents and brother came over for lunch because it was her mom's 80th birthday. They invited me to eat with them, which was totally unexpected, but really enjoyable. Her parents spoke very slowly and clearly, and I'm pretty sure the dad said he'd dined with an ex-president of Russia. Which is pretty sweet. I definitely wanna go to Russia some day. And they talked about their travels to India, another place I want to visit.

My last week of classes starts tomorrow! It's unbelievable. I have two days of class and then two days of exams and then that's it! No more class until I return to St. Mike's in January! Speaking of which, I've already planned out my schedule for next semester because registration is soon. Although Students Accounts is being totally ridiculous and not recognizing my $1600 scholarship from BU. So they said I have an outstanding balance, when really I have a credit. Bof, it'll get figured out. I'm not too worried.

Photo Links!

Musee d'Orsay

"Campus" and Treasure Hunt in Paris

Madrid

Bon, alors, gotta get up sort of early tomorrow, so it's off to bed for me. Bonne nuit, gros bisous!

Mon coeur, mon amour

Sorry it's been so long! Last week was truly crazy; I had midterms and the flu. So let's see. Monday and Tuesday were my "partiels" which weren't too bad. My art test took the entire 2.5 hour class period, and my test over La Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald Soprano) was right after that. It was the most interesting test I've ever taken. I went to the grocery store when I finished, which was an awful idea because many people go at that time, after getting off work. I was probably there for an entire hour, 30 minutes of which was spent in line. Needless to say, I was exhausted when I got home, so I just had dinner and went to bed. Tuesday was my grammar test, which I definitely should have studied harder for, but I think I did fine.

I started feeling sick: headache, sort throat, runny nose, so I was rather miserable Wednesday in class. But in Paris Aujourd'hui we studied a song called "Mon Coeur, Mon Amour" which is now one of my favorites. The music video is pretty funny; she sings about how she hates the lovey-dovey couples who remind her that she is single. The best part is when she mocks their phone conversation:

"You hang up first."

"No, you."

"No, you!"

"No, you hang up first!"

She makes some silly faces, too, which is fun.

Thursday in my grammar class it was almost like going back to square one. We went over numbers and telling time. Which may make it sound like we're awful at French, but I definitely learned some new things. For example, when saying vingt (20) you don't pronounce the "t" at the end, but for vingt-et-un (21), vingt-deux (22), etc, you DO pronounce it. The teacher (who is a native Parisian) said they do it to mock the Belgians (the French mock Belgians as much as Americans mock blondes; they even have some of the same jokes). You'll only understand this if you take French, but we also learned that you say "soixante-ET-onze," but "quatre-vingt-onze." We practiced telling "military" time, which takes some getting used to, and also learned a few tricks about that, too. I won't bore you here, but if you're interested, let me know. Most people complain about that class, but I really love it. The teacher is excited about what she's teaching and it's so interesting to have an actual French person as a professor.

Friday was a ME day. I slept in and then went to do some clothes shopping using the books I have that give suggestions for good places to go. I went to a thrift store called Passy Puces and ended up getting 4 shirts and 2 pairs of shoes for only 90 euro! The shirts are all as good as new. The heels on the shoes are a little worn out, but 10 euro for some awesome black boots that would be at least 70 euro new is pretty darn good. I went out for a drink that night with a couple girls, and met some more French people. I gave a guy named Alex my number, because his friend pretty much forced him to ask me, but I think he's too shy to call. (Below, I'm wearing one of my new shirts and my new sweater.)

Saturday I went on a treasure hunt in Paris that was organized by Alexandre, a Parisian guy my age I met in the airport in New York. He organizes activities for the Stanford study abroad program, and each of those students has a French language partner, so it was half Americans and half French. It was a bit difficult explaining to everbody why I was there, but they were happy to have me. I was on a team with 3 French and 3 American students and we were pretty much incredible. We were about an hour ahead of the other teams, and they ended up cutting out 4 of the 10 places we were supposed to find because it was taking people so long. At one point, there was a team following us because they didn't know where they were supposed to go, and so we were, of course, trying to lose them. We went into the metro station and were pretending to get on the train, but were going to hop off at the last second. The other team was watching us very closely, and got on when we got on, but didn't have enough time to jump off when we did. EXCEPT, everybody from our team jumped off right after the buzzer sounded except for one guy! So the doors closed and he was still on the train (I wish I could make this sound as funny as it really was). We were all absolutely hysterical and ran off laughing like hyenas, with everybody in the metro station staring at us. (Below is part of the national French library. There are four towers like that, plus more shelving underground!!)

After the treasure hunt we went out to dinner and then went to a bar to watch the France vs. New Zealand rugby match. I sat with all French people at dinner, and it was really fun, and the rugby match was insanity! France actually beat New Zealand, which was a surprise for most, so everyone was shouting so loud. Afterwards we were walking around and people were yelling in the streets and honking horns constantly.

Then things went awry. I got food poisoning and, pardon my disgustingness, threw up in the street 3 times before I could make it to a bathroom. I ended up deciding to call it a night, and took a plastic bag from the bar to use on the metro because I knew I wouldn't make it home before I needed to vomit again. Two girls from Stanford live just one metro stop away from me, so they left with me, which was so incredibly nice. I didn't even know their names. I woke up this morning feeling fine, which was good because I had homework to do. I absolutely couldn't concentrate though, and ended up trying to plan some weekend trips and watching Grey's Anatomy. I think I'm going to end up going to Madrid this weekend to visit my friend Brielle, and England the last weekend in October, when my break starts. Then, Brielle and Kelly are coming to visit me in November, right before my internship starts! It's all just too exciting!!

You can stand under my umbrella

My weekend in the Loire valley was wonderful! I woke up at 5:15am on Saturday and ended up being a little late because I didn't realize the metro doesn't come as often that early in the morning. But it was fine, because one guy was about 45 minutes late. His friend was on the bus in front of me and she was pleading with this guy to wait. She even stalled by asking him to tell her how to buy a train ticket so she could stay behind and take the train with her friend. Almost everybody was speaking English, and I was rather disappointed because half the purpose of the trip was to speak French the whole time. Most people slept the first leg of the trip, which was 3 hours. When we arrived at Cheverny, the site of the first castle, it was raining; luckily I had my umbrella. There were a couple of guys who didn't, so I ended up meeting a couple French guys by sharing my umbrella with them. I still don't know their names; when I asked, one of them said, "Bond. James Bond" and the other one said, "K" (although actually I found out his name is Emmanuel). So I hung around with them most of the weekend, which meant I got to speak French. Sunday night, I could already tell a huge difference in my own speech, which is encouraging and will help motivate me to speak less English around school.

We saw 4 gorgeous castles in the two days, and we stayed in a hostel Saturday night. I was put in a room with another girl from the BU program and these two Japanese women who didn't really speak French, but were good at English. I also saw tons of beautiful flowers and Leonardo da Vinci's house. It's so exciting to be around so much history all the time! I told the French guys that my host mother told me I had a German accent when I speak French and they agreed with her, which was pretty funny. Last night, after seeing The Bald Soprano and The Lesson at Theatre de la Huchette, I walked around in the Latin Quarter for a bit and bought some stuff at a couple souvenir shops. In one, the shop owners started speaking to me in English, and I responded in French like I always do. The first guy said I spoke very good French, and then the other guy was like, "Well maybe she is French!" So that was cool, to be taken for a native speaker. They said I spoke the best French they'd ever heard an American in their store speak. So I gotta keep working at it, so people will hear my French and think, "My God. I can't remember the last time I saw a native French person with blonde hair and blue eyes!"

Le boulot

Tonight I babysat for the kids in my host family. Elisabeth is 4 and Stanislas is 2. It was hard just after the mom left, getting them to take baths and stuff. I also fed them (and myself) dinner, read stories and put them to bed. I don't know any French lullabies, so I just sang the songs I always sing when I babysit in the US. When I was done, Stanislas said, "Core, core," which is his precious way of saying "encore." He says that whenever he wants more of anything: pasta, candy, lullabies apparently. He's very cute. So I made 20 euro in about 2 hours, which is pretty excellent (about $15/hr). Now I've gotta get some homework done for Monday because I'm leaving for the Loire Valley tomorrow morning at 6am! I'm going to see more castles and gardens and meet international students....I'm super excited!

P.S. "Boulot" is slang for "travail"

Je veux bien parler francais! Quel surprise!

Attention BU PIP Students: Don't take this personally; I'm kind of hardcore.

Is it too much to ask to speak French sometimes? I made it a goal before coming to France to speak English only when absolutely necessary; as of right now, I am nowhere close to achieving that goal. I have found it very difficult to speak French consistently with the students in the program. Yesterday, when I spoke to two girls in French they responded to me in French and that was encouraging. Today, however, when I spoke French to people, they gave me funny looks and then avoided speaking to me. SO. I'm going to try really hard to suck it up and keep speaking French, and hopefully I will meet some French students on the trip this weekend to the Loire valley with whom I can spend time. I have met a couple already, but the only way I can contact them is by phone and I can't figure out my calling card. I just keep getting what sounds like a busy signal. I will probably buy a cell phone soon, to contact them and to be able to make plans with my BU friends more easily. Wish me luck!