My life in pictures...

...because I have to leave for class soon and words take too long. But if I don't update substantially before next Wednesday or so, then dad you have my permission to book as many segway tours as you wish in Barca. (Shh...this is really a win-win for me. Imagine my parents on segways) 

So, here's life lately: Paris, London, Paris, Dublin, Paris, Normandy, PARIS.  God, I'm in love with this city!

But let's start with London (3/5-3/8).  Sam was there for her spring break from Emerson, so I was able to spend the weekend at Kristen's school with her, which was fantastic!

London Eye 

Parliament and Big Ben (which apparently no one from Britain refers to as Ben)

Here's something comical: Note the traffic. Then try picturing me trying to cross the street.

Just some genius British advertising.  

But really, I actually noticed that all their ads were great. 

This one's just the best (sorry, dad).

I took a 5 am train back to Paris Monday morning to make it to my class at 10. 

This is from about halfway through my 2 hour nap on the TGV: I woke up to the sunrise! 

Still don't know if it was in Britain or France, but it was great.

KATIE VISITS

So I haven't exactly been updating. I'm sorry! But, once again, I haven't been sleeping either so it's justified I would say. Katie came to visit for her spring break (she leaves tomorrow and I will in all likelihood cry) and in the 6 or so days we had together I tried to show her as many of the Paris must-sees as possible. The only problem was I was in class for the best parts of the day. We worked around it pretty well though, and  I'm a little bit proud of us since we managed to wake up early every day and make it to: 

-The Eiffel Tower (of course)

-The Louvre

-d'Orsay

-Centre Pompidou

-Notre Dame/ Ile st Louis (Berthillon!!) 

-Montmartre/Sacre Coeur 

-L'arc de Triumph/Champs-elysees

-view from the top of Montparnasse

And we've ate and taken walks around the Tuileries & Luxembourg gardens, the Bastille area, as well as St. Michel, St. Germain and the Latin quarter. Plus shopping at Les Halles! 

Anyway, I will try not to be as spacey on here, but for the next week I'm making no promises. Tomorrow for example, we're leaving here by 8 am to get Kate to the airport, then I go straight to class at 12, then straight to the train station for London to see Kristen and Sam! Hope everything's going well back home, I'll talk to you soon I promise! 

Top of the Centre Pompidou

quelques photos pour vous

If you click any picture it will get bigger (mom) 

Miss you!

Chantilly

Hotel d'Invalides

The perfection that was Montmartre

Sacre Coeur 

My favorite picture from Valentine's day:

Champagne and people watching at the Eiffel Tour

I just found this amusing

Updates

So much is going on! Lately I have pretty much been waking up, heading to class at 9:30 or 10, and then not coming home until dinner. Between all the sites, classes, and homework I've barely had time to update on here. But here are a few highlights:

-I went to a museum in the Tuileries called l'Orangerie with my art history class. It was a lot smaller than the other ones, way less trafficked by tourists, and entirely worth it.  Monet's water lilies are housed here, as are a bunch of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. It's in a great area right next to the Place de la Concord and I could easily spend a few more afternoons there.
-My Sorbonne class has started to pick up. I wish we did more speaking, but it's serving as a nice grammar class regardless. There are a lot of international students (Japan, Spain, Sweden, China, etc) and so the entire course is conducted only in French.
-Chantilly! Yesterday was another CEA excursion to the Chantilly castle. We walked the grounds and garden, got to peak at the chapel and large art collection lining the walls, and attended a horse show in the stables. I haven't updated any pictures yet, but I'll get on that soon. Everything was beautiful per usual, despite the cold.
-We stumbled upon a great hookah bar last night called La One. I'm getting sick (super congested and all that good stuff) so I skipped out on actually trying it, but I managed to gather from my girlfriends that the tobacco was good but a little harsh; the apple flavor tasted like black licorice; and the mint was great along with nutella crepes. It's a Turkish place and the decor and music are traditional and really pretty--engraved wooden wall pieces, comfy couches, etc.  They don't serve alcohol because of their religious beliefs, but they have a small food selection at reasonable prices for the big portions (8 euro for a large chicken and cheese galette with a big side salad//12 euro per hookah pack).

That's it for now. Pictures to come soon!

My life is a joke

Seriously! This is too good to be any sort of reality. What kind of person has a day like the one I had today. Observe...

Today we woke up fresh from a night of hanging out at the Art Cafe (in the Bastille area) and late-night crepes to head to Montmartre. We followed an itinerary mapped out by one of my roommate's guidebooks, which took us to:

-Le Bateau Lavoir, where Picasso once lived. It's now a museum, but wasn't open for some reason when we got there.
-All sorts of beautiful side streets! It had just snowed and everything was gently dusted and extremely picturesque. Which is why it's only fitting that my camera battery died while we were there.
-The square where a bunch of artists congregate. We watched people get their portraits done and browsed through all the different vendors. It was so nice to see their different takes on the city (some in bright hues, some darker, textured canvasses, which angles they chose to paint, etc, etc).  While here we actually were interviewed by a cable news team getting their caricatures done and, although we don't have a tv, we're assuming we made it on tonight. We were a little bit giddy.
-La Moulin de La Galette! Renoir and a bunch of other artists got their inspiration from this cafe. It was frequented by all sorts of artists who would meet up and talk for hours. We attempted to do the same (although I'm thinking our conversation was a little less inspired) and were happy the lunch plate prices fit our budgets a little better than the regular menu.
-The Sacre Coeur--of course!

We cut the trip a little shorter than we intended to because it was below freezing out, but this was definitely my favorite spot since I've been here!

Musee d'Orsay

This museum was so amazing! My art history class met there on Wednesday, and I have an obscene amount of pictures of the artwork there-- But I figured this was most appropriate to post since I had just posted my own view of Etretat below. Looks like Gustave Courbet and I have something in common now. 

Super Bowl

Went to an American bar last night to watch the super bowl.  Considering the fact that it aired in France at 12:30 am and I went to the movies the last time the Patriots played in it (I know, they lost, my fault), this is a big feat pour moi!

We stayed until halftime and then left and it was actually a lot of fun. But in our quest to find a bar that aired ESPN, we overlooked the fact that the super bowl commercials wouldn't be aired in France for the same reason that "football americain" wasn't playing all over the place-- no one here cares! (And they don't have the rights to distribute them, same reason why I can't watch 30 rock on hulu, sadly.)

But lucky for me, my friend Sam watched and picked probably the best commercial ever for my purposes and sent it to me. Watch it below and check out the CEA website cameo appearance!

Fecamp & Etretat

Well I was told last night that I've been slacking a little on the posts. Which I am. But it's been so busy lately!  Yesterday CEA had an "excursion" planned for us. I really like this program! All the group events (there are six or seven trips and then weekly events at the Paris center) were included in tuition, so yesterday I just had to wake up (before 6 am! ah!) and show up at the train station. The first excursion was a "mystery tour" so we had no idea where we were headed until we were already en route!  We ended up going to the Normandy region to two towns: 1) Fecamp, a small harbor town known for their early fishermen and 2) Etretat, another seaside town with beautiful cliffs

We had all day to split between the two and each got $20 for lunch (great seafood, wasted on me entirely), crepes (tried an apple puree type one yesterday. I will never be disappointed!), and cidre (which the region is known for). 

I uploaded all the pictures onto facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034635&id=1326810108&l=d881790bcf )

But here are a few highlights:

View from atop our first walk up to a Chapel at Fecamp

Etretat:

Also of note

Murses (Mom, this would mean "man purses") are everywhere. Saw a Prada one this morning. So now not only do French men dress better than me, they accessorize better too. Oh mon dieu!!

l'arc de triumph!

It's really so much larger than I expected! The views from the top were fantastic & my new sorbonne ID helped me get in for free :)

One week down

It's already been a week! In some ways I feel like I'm not nearly as adjusted as I should be--for example, I still cant fall asleep until at least 4 am without a benadryl, and outside of minimal French conversation I'm a jumbled slurring mess. But in other areas--for example, the metro--I'm set.

The CEA staff is great and they've really tried their best to get us all settled into the timezone, culture, etc. With the exception of Friday (which was my placement exam at the Sorbonne) our schedules have been roughly the same everyday.  Catch the metro by 9, by 9:30 we're in the CEA building (which is in an adorable little courtyard with huge doors on a side street and I feel like Madeline every time I walk in), we go through a few hours of workshops, break for lunch, come back for more workshops or tours and whatnot, and then we're free by 4 pm. Or should I say by 16h.
There were 2 main problems with this system:
1) By Wednesday I felt like I hadn't slept in weeks
2) It's dark by 5, so the most sight seeing I've done outside of the CEA-sponsored events has been of restaurants! And store fronts. But I would like to note that I've only spent 14 euros on clothes so far thanks to the holiday sales which are STILL going on (and end everywhere pretty much tomorrow).

Overall though it's been great. I've met some wonderful people and I'm really having fun here. Tomorrow I start classes at CEA, but the Sorbonne doesn't start until February 11, which gives me some nice breather room since this week I will have my days free after 11:30.

Other highlights:
-I received my CEA and Sorbonne ID cards, which allow me to get into all the museums for free. Did you know that if you stood and looked at each item in the Louvre for 10 seconds each, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, it would take 4 months to get through?
-Despite one bad experience with a cab driver, which I will go into detail about later, all the French people I've met have been wonderful! Everyone's actually pretty eager to help out, and as long as you attempt to speak French they usually meet you halfway with English.
-Speaking of speaking: every French person I've met has been far better at English than I am at French.  Two of them had never even taken a formal course, and just learned from the tv and visiting the states.*
-This upcoming weekend I'm going to see Kristen!

*I would like to note here though that my grandparents and mother did the same thing, which is AMAZING to me, especially considering I'm going to be enrolled in 10 hours of French a week and living here and still cant fathom being fluent.

More observations

-Poodles!
-French men are dapper dressers. I feel like dapper is really just the only appropriate word here for some reason.
-I don't think restaurants believe in using heat--not a single one!
-Peanut butter is obscenely expensive. As in, even more so than everything else
-It's so easy to pick out an American person without them even speaking. I'm trying to blend in as much as possible clothes- and mannerism-wise, but it's so damn hard not to smile.  In all seriousness though, it's true that French women don't really show emotion, just walk straight with purpose and just enough of that high-school bitchy look to appear chic.  I'll master it one day.

Oh, and hey mom! I forgot to tell you earlier, but I figure you'd enjoy this little tidbit that I learned at orientation: Paris only has 50 murders/year (about 1/3 of DC's murder rate), with most of them being for "gang related crime." Guns aren't sold or permitted, and it's generally safer inside the city limits than it is in the suburbs surrounding it (with the exception of Versailles and those places). Does that make you feel better? :)

First tourist shot of the trip!

I don't even have anything remotely smart or insightful to say about this....it was just amazing!!!

First observations in Paris*

-The French love Jay-Z
-I overpacked (However, I realized this not while I was carrying 80 pounds of luggage up three flights of stairs, but instead while unpacking around 10 skirts)
-I only packed black shoes
-There are little heaters over the outdoor cafe terraces so people can sit and enjoy their coffee for hours outside without freezing! (You can guess where I'm going next)
-I've already seen an Ikea, KFC, McDonald's, and an Office Depot. Thanks a lot, globalization.
-It's a beautiful city! Even when it's rainy and gross and it's 8 am and still not light out yet.
-I miss everyone already--But in an I-wish-you-were-here type way instead of an I-wish-I-was-there. I think that's healthy, right?

*This information was gathered having only been driving from the airport to my apartment & only being in the country for a few hours. I'm aware that there is a lot more that Paris has to offer besides sidewalk heaters and furniture catalogs.

I'll be boarding a plane in 12 hours

Cue the nervous insanity. I'm not ready for this. How am I prepared for this? Did I pack enough socks? Extra razor heads? Am I even planning on shaving my legs? That's a European stereotype I was kind of looking forward to, to be completely honest. And I'm being completely honest. I feel like that's any first-time-blogger's vow. Does this make me a blogger?

Pre-departure Babble

Four days until I leave for Paris, and between the packing and goodbyes and general happy stress, I've realized I have no New Year's resolutions. Not one. The thought didn't even cross my mind this year--a stark contradiction to my usual "lose ten pounds" promise, knowing full well that after three days at the gym it'll turn into an "okay, fine, just eat less chocolate or something" type deal. But the point is, this year I didn't even try to lie to myself about making changes.

Why is that? Maybe I can't decide what values I want to keep through my trip to Europe (translation: I'm coming back fat). Or maybe I never really knew what my values were to begin with (translation: I'm also coming back one of those narcissists, obsessed with "finding themselves" in a different language and time zone when they can't even manage themselves in this one and insisting on telling everyone--i.e. you!-- about their "journey" in great detail).

In place of a resolution, however, I have something better to think about in preparation for Paris this Monday--What type of travel cliche should I be? Of course, they are cliches for a reason. They happen. They're common! They make people cry, laugh, whatever. And, plus, they're the source of a large chunk of profit-grossing cinema.  Let's run through a few of the options (read entirely in a Mr. Moviefone voice for full effect):

• The Broken Hearted. When her romantic life took a turn for the worst, she left everything she knew behind. But will she find the romantic distraction she's seeking? Seems like what she ends up finding may just be....herself.
• The Compulsive Over-Achiever. Every detail of every trip is planned, but when her heart takes over, will she have what it takes to ditch the guidebooks and let loose?! 
• The College Party Elitist. You know how this story goes already...every shitty decision she's ever made is documented on facebook. But what crazy antics will she do next? Watch her kick it up a notch in Europe, in attempted Carrie Bradshaw style!
• The Obnoxious American.  What do you mean, "no substitutions"? Is this bed adult-sized? All these fucking signs are in French! 

Looks like it's slim pickings. I'll have to break the mold! Step out of my comfort zone! Make this trip one for the record boo--What? The "traveler who tries not to be a cliche, but consequently ends up speaking in them" is already established? Shit.

Quick shout out to JD