i need to figure out how to say things more simply. whenever i try to speak in french, i'm always trying to say things that are more complicated than i know how to say. like last night, at nataly's wine and cheese, i was talking about politics! what was i thinking? i was talking about huckabee/chuck norris, and i was trying to say things like "he doesnt believe in taxes and wants to do away with the IRS" and "he opposes gun control and thinks everybody should have a gun for self-defense" and "behind chuck norris's beard is another beard". i should have been saying things like, "i have a younger sister who is 15" or "i like chinese food". basically, i'm hopeless.
the 9am healthcare class was pretty brutal. i don't know if i'll be able to handle 9am class twice a week for 10 weeks. i got up at 7:45, which is far far too early. it takes about half an hour to get to the center, so i could maybe get away with waking up at 8:15 if i don't shower and go dirty...
the class itself wasn't too bad, but my brain shut off about 15 minutes in. the professor is super impressive, he used to be the director of 3 hospitals, wrote a ton of books, and now he's the director of MGEN, which i think is a health insurance organization. he also speaks speaks pretty slowly, but he has these super awkward long pauses after every sentence when he stares at you. and the class is so small i couldnt even doodle. it was so difficult staying awake.
the art history class seemed interesting, the only problem is, i don't see all that in depth artsy stuff until somebody tells me. i can't come up with those kinds of ideas by myself. there is also a ton of reading, but estelle mentioned most of it had english translations, so i'll have to look for those. we're pretty much in a museum every week though, which is super cool.
aaah just banged my funny bones....pins and needles!
after classes friday a couple of us went to get crêpes. my language partner Cathy told me that the best crêpes were at josselin. i've tried to go to josselin THREE TIMES and every single time they've been closed. whyyyyyy.
so we went to another crêpe place down the street. it was only about 1:30 they weren't serving savory crêpes anymore, just sweet crêpes. wtf, man. so i got a crêpe with apples, caramel, and ICE CREAM:
omg it was amazing. and crêpes come from the Bretagne region of France, where the traditional drink is cidre (cider), also delicious:
after lunch we still wanted some salty, and i became fixated on finding fries. i don't know why. we were in montparnasse, and it had started raining, and we couldn't find any fries stands. we decided to go explore the city a bit, and we went on the metro to st germain des-pres, which, coincidentally, was within eyeshot of the montparnasse metro station. basically, we could have walked down the road like ten blocks.
st germain des-pres is a pretty expensive area, we discovered. there was an armani store, a louis vuitton store, etc. we tried to find a cafe that served fries but we couldn't find any. then, we just wanted to go inside out of the rain and sit down, and we see this chinese takeout place. i ordered two eggrolls (they were ok), but the lady there informed us that we each had to buy 5€ of stuff to sit down. so we stood outside the storefront underneath the awning blocking the door. hah.
after that we went down to the latin quarter to go to shakespeare and co, the coolest bookstore ever. it was only two metro stops away, but we took it to get out of the rain. we walked down rue de la huchette from the metro station to the bookstore, and we found FRIES!!!!
there are a lot of greek fast food things on rue de la huchette. that large cone of fries was only 2,50€! and they were sooooo gooooood. and on rue de la huchette there's a restaurant that advertises moules, frites (mussels and fries, and lots of both) for only 9€ that i really want to check out sometime.
shakespeare and co was amazing
and that was only one of the rooms! look at all those books! i love quaint little bookstores.
that night, we went to the champs elysees! it was absolutely gorgeous. we went to club 65, which was fun until like 1am. it was free to enter, which meant drinks cost an arm and a leg (10€ shots), which meant i didn't get any. before 1am they were playing good songs (especially excited about michael jackson), but after 1 it was all techno and the bass was too strong and they started the fog machine and it smelled bad. when i put my hand on my chest i could feel my bones vibrating. yeah, not a big fan of techno.
we left the club and walked around for a while. i wanted to catch the last metro back, but i missed it by FIVE MINUTES. it was very sad. so, i took another line that was still running, but i had a 20-30 minute walk back to the house. i got off at the Bastille, which wasn't too scary. it was still busy with a ton of people and bars and stuff. when i turned onto another road, though, it was pretty empty. these two guys tried to talk to me and one of them grabbed my arm and i shook them off and pretty much ran home.
saturday, i spent the day around ile de la cité (island in the middle of the seine) and saw the notre dame and the crypts (remnants of 2000 year old houses) and basically took 1000 pictures. i dont even know what the names of the buildings/bridges were. i should probably figure this out so that when i show people the pictures i won't have to be like 'and this is....some pretty building'
we also went to a cafe and i got frites and vin chaud (hot wine). it was pretty delicious, but the wine was too hot at first.
and here are some pics of the notre dame:
aahh so impressive.
saturday night we had wine and cheese at nataly's (she lives in a legit apartment) and the....EIFFEL TOWER
aaaah it was so gorgeous.....
click here to see my 54 pictures: Paris album
today (sunday) we got FALAFEL in the Marais, which was delish.
i don't think i've ever had falafel before. it was so good mm mm mm. after falafel we wandered around Marais for a bit (it's the jewish quarter)
and chilled in a cafe for a bit. guess what i saw in the marais????
KNITTA!!!
aaah i got so excited. omg my language partner cathy told me there was some bar in bordeaux where you KNIT and drink wine. aaaaah a knitting bar!
oh, interesting note: unlike quebec, the stop signs here are stop signs. quebec has arrêt signs.
ok i should go do some reading before it eats me alive.
1 comment:
I just got back from Tahoe where I did absolutely no work whatsoever, didn't check my email once, and lost all sense of a work ethic. It's after midnight, which means after my bed time, I have 50 pages of reading and a paper due tomorrow, plus 100+ emails to sift through and I'm sitting here reading about your knitting bar. What is wrong with me?
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