I Don't Think We're in Paris Anymore

 Kristin, Patrick, Missy, Peyton, Chris, Grace, and I decided to go to the Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen today, which is the world's largest flea market. The market is on the exact opposite side of town from where I live, so it took me a solid 45 minutes or so on the métro to get there. Unlike major cities in the U.S., the middle class and up live directly inside the city Paris and the lower class vagabonds live in the suburbs. There's a very fine distinction between the city / suburbs because there's a freeway that runs the circular perimeter of the city. Anything outside the perimeter is the hood. The market is technically a few blocks just outside of Paris and the difference between a couple kilometers was striking. There was graffiti and trash everywhere and tons of poor people laying against the buildings. I am so glad we went in a large group, because going outside the city by myself would've been frightening and dangerous.

I wish I had an appreciation for antiques, collectibles, and interior design, because I would've been in flea market heaven. Unfortunately, that is not the case and it was quite ennuyeux. I felt like I was looking at a bunch of people's garage sale junk, but a handful of my classmates really enjoyed looking at the wares of each shop owner. We spent a couple hours there before everyone got faim and decided to go back into the city for lunch. I sat down at the restaurant and hung out with them, but didn't order anything because I ate lunch just before going to the flea market.

I then went home and worked on some homework, video chatted with my family, and read a bit. It was a pretty laid back day. Monsieur came home from vacation today, but the rest of the family is still gone until later in the week. It will be quiet this week, since he usually works pretty late. Looks like I'll be on my own for dinner these next few days!

Affecteusement,
Katie

Catacombs, Pastries, and Bars. Oh, My!

Friday:

Class doesn't start until 1:30pm on Friday. Considering I got up at 8am, I didn't want to just sit around all day. I decided to jog to school and talk to the lady in charge of switching me into French Intermediate I. When I got to her office, I briefly explained my situation then asked if we could speak English. It's not that I thought myself incapable of communicating, but I thought it kind of important that I fully understand her instructions. She was pretty rude and said "No. Nous parlons francais." I think she told me that I have to talk to my professor and get my professor to request a switch, but then again, I'm not entirely sure since she was speaking French rather quickly. I left a bit confused and flustered. This is exactly why I requested that we speak English. Oh, well. I'll talk to my professor on Tuesday and see what she has to say.

I then jogged over to the Luxembourg Gardens and ran a few miles there before jogging home. Luckily, this time I didn't get stared at so much. (Side note: I asked someone at the Accent Center why I was getting stared at when I run, and she said that running in a residential area is an odd concept to the Parisians. Sidewalks are for walking- they're not called sideruns. She suggested that I just keep doing it and don't return anyone's stares.)

I got home, changed, and headed over to my 1:30 Paris Through the Lens class. We shortly left class and headed over to the Parisian Catacombs in the 14th arrondissement. I guess every Friday will be an informal site visit with the professor and our eight-person class. The professor is very laid back and doesn't make us do anything class-related on these site visits. He says that our only assignment on Fridays is to experience Paris. There was a fluke with scheduling and I somehow got skipped over when the class list was being made, so I didn't make it on the class e-mail list. Unfortunately, the professor's e-mail had suggested that we bring our cameras. I have a camera on my iPod, so I wasn't totally without a camera, but I definitely missed my quality pictures. After an hour-long wait, we finally got in. The catacombs were crazy. We took at least 100 spiral stairs down into the earth; the air getting colder and creepier with every step. We wandered through small tunnels and passageways for about 15 minutes before getting to the good stuff. The remains of six million people are all piled up in an intricate, artistic fashion. They even made decorative shapes like hearts and crosses with the skulls in some rooms. The creepiest part wasn't seeing all of the bones, but it was when something from the ceiling would drip on you, reminding you that you're intruding on six million people's graves.

Then, we all went home, got ready, and met up in the 13th arrondissement for dinner. Brandon's host family suggested that we eat in the Chinatown area, so six of us got dinner at a Chinese restaurant before heading out to the bars. Once again, nothing exciting happened there. I got home around 1am to an empty house, since my host family left for vacation. Personally, I'd never leave a random exchange student alone in my house while I go on vacation. Not that I'm someone to not be trusted, but as a host family, you never know what kind of maniac student you might get.

Saturday:

My afternoon indulgence

I didn't have anything to do, but I didn't want to sit inside all day, so my classmate Missy and I decided to meet up and walk around. While I was at the metro stop, I recognized another person waiting for the train. Of the millions of people who live in Paris, what are the chances that I'd run into my good friend Scott and the entire Michigan Rugby team? They are here for a week and are playing against 2 universities in Paris next Tuesday and Thursday. I just couldn't believe that I saw them, especially waiting for the same metro car as me. I met up with Missy and we wandered around, stumbling across a few food markets and one giant flea market. I came home and had a little afternoon snack- my first Parisian pastry. It was called a Petit Amour and it had raspberry and mascarpone. I definitely picked a good one

Me and my hot cocoa at Angelina's

A couple hours later, I got a call from Petyon and Grace, asking me if I'd like to join them at Angelina, a tea house famous for it's sweets and rich hot chocolate. In fact, their drinks are so good that Audrey Hepburn and Coco Chanel used to frequent it. It was about a 25 minute wait, since we went on a Friday evening, but I had nothing else to do so I didn't mind. The place is shamelessly touristy (and expensive), which was a bit of a turn-off, but I overlooked it once I had the first sip of my hot cocoa. It was so thick and rich, like someone had melted a Godiva chocolate bar and added a little bit of cream to it. By-far the best hot cocoa I've ever had (sorry, Mom. Yours is a close second!). We then took a night promenade around the nearby Champs-Elysees area. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Paris is gorgeous during the day, but at night it's almost an entirely different city. We were lucky enough to be walking along the Seine on the hour, right when the Eiffel Tower started to twinkle. I think walking along the Seine at night has been one of my favorite things here thus far.

Grace, me, and our crêpe

We met our classmates at Stolly's, a cool English-speaking bar, not too far across the river from Notre Dame. The guys brought some Argentinian boy named Martin whom they'd met the night before. He came to visit Paris with his brother, but is staying a week longer by himself so we gladly made him a part of our group. We stayed at Stolly's for a couple of hours, then decided to go get crêpes before heading home for the night. Grace and I split a banana Nutella crêpe. Such a wonderful choice.

The view from our walk along the Seine

Affecteusement,

Katie

Who doesn't love men?

Nothing particularly interesting happened today. If you want to stop reading at this point, I understand.

Markets at the Bastille

I had my second day of French. As I mentioned before, I'm in intermediate II. I realized today that Intermediate I fulfills my U of M language requirement, so I decided to e-mail the program coordinator and have her switch me into Intermediate I. I'd rather take the easier class while I'm abroad so I don't have to spend as much time worrying about homework, tests, etc. and can spend more time in the city [insert lazy Michigan Difference joke here]. I was done with class fairly early, so I decided to take the Métro to the Bastille area and walk around the market that sets up shop on Mondays and Thursdays. Nothing especially exciting there, but I loved people-watching. On my way home, I got déjeuner at a crêpe stand. My crêpe was enormous and had chicken and three different fromages inside.

Once I got home, I researched a bunch of different options for traveling over spring break. Hopefully my classmates and I can figure out what we want to do and book something soon. I also made decent progress on Mockingjay, the third book in The Huger Games series.

What we ate for dessert

Inès had a friend named Marie over for dinner, who was supposedly excited to have dinner with une Américaine. When I met her, I was sure to stick my hand out for a good ol' American handshake as soon as possible to avoid the uncomfortable kiss on either cheek. During dinner, Marie kept talking about the time she spent in The States visiting men and how she loved men because what is there to not love about men? It took me about halfway through our conversation to realize that she was not actually talking about men, but was indeed referring to the state of Maine. Madame made crêpe complete again for dinner, which I was very happy about. For dessert, we had some yummy ice cream thing that had chopped nuts on the outside and a crunchy vanilla center.

 Like I said, nothing terribly exciting today, but I'm bored sitting in my room, so blogging gives me something to do. Perhaps tomorrow will be more interesting. Fridays always are :)

Affecteusement,

Katie

Shake Your Louvre Thang

Moi et mon sandwich

My Paris by Site professor is attending a conference in Los Angeles this week, so I didn't have any class today. My classmate Patrick and I decided to hit up the Louvre. Right when we met there, we decided that we should eat lunch first. We thought we'd have a true Parisian lunch and headed to the markets to get stuff for une pique-nique. We got salami, chorizo, brie, and a baguette to make sandwiches and these delicious little chocolate-covered dried crepe cookie things for our dessert. We took our nourriture and made our sandwiches at The Tuileries Garden, right next to the Louvre. I don't think I'll ever get over how wonderful and fresh the food is here.

After filling our bellies, we were ready for some hardcore art gazing. The Gospel according to Rick (Steeves) recommended an alternate entrance to the Louvre that doesn't have such long lines, so we gladly went there. We got our free student tickets (woop!) and went in. You can imagine my dismay when I brought my big camera all the way to the Louvre then realized I had left my memory card in my laptop. However, the show must go on. We spent a couple of hours in the museum looking at pieces from the Classicism and Neo-Classicism periods. Yes, of course we saw the Mona Lisa. Personally, I don't understand all the fuss. No doubt, it's a great painting, but I don't entirely get all of the hype (and bulletproof glass) surrounding it- there's nothing particularly special about it. I feel like at this point, the Mona Lisa is simply famous for being famous. There were plenty of other pieces of art that I enjoyed more than the Mona Lisa. Once again, Patrick was a wonderful person to have at the museum. His knowledge of art history makes the paintings and sculptures so much more interesting. All of that art wiped us out, so we decided to hit up the McDonald's (yes, they have a McDonald's at the Louvre) to get some ice cream before heading to our respective homestays.

We had quiche for dinner. I lucked out with a madame who is a good cook, just like my real mommy. I'm going to gain so much weight here, because they always offer me seconds on the salad, entree, bread, and dessert. I don't want to be rude, so I always accept, even if I'm full. I know it's not that rude to say no thank you, but I want to show them that I appreciate them cooking for me.

Today is Ash Wednesday, so my host family invited me to go to mass with them. I accepted; I thought it might be interesting to attend a French service. Additionally, I didn't want to deny their invitation and come-off as the antichrist living in their house. I found the French Catholic mass to be a bit more traditional than the American Catholic masses that I'm used to, but that could be attributed to the specific church we were at. Who knows. Their church has a big Portuguese population, so they always have little pamphlets with translations in French and Portuguese. I was happy about that, because my reading skills are much stronger than my listening, so I could understand much more than I would've otherwise been able to.

Affecteusement,

Katie

Today, I had my first French class. C'était ennuyeux. I live about a 25 minute walk from the Institut Catholique, so I walked there, since it was a nice, sunny morning. I could take the Metro there, but the ride is just about 20 minutes long because I'd have to switch lines. Why spend 20 minutes on a dirty metro when you could spend 25 minutes walking in the streets of Paris? My entire class is all international students and I sat next to Yoko, a mother, wife, and all-around upstanding citizen of Japan. I was really surprised to find that there's another girl from Michigan in my class. She is originally from the Midland area, but goes to a small school in Indiana. The one good thing about Tuesdays and Thursdays is that I'm done with class by noon.

After class, I decided to stop in a few stores and look for notebooks with regular lined paper. For some reason, all of the notebooks in France have graphing paper and people just write on that. Personally, I don't like the look of vertical lines cutting up my words, so my journey began. After a couple of stores, I finally found a notebook with "normal" paper- I was so excited! I realized on my walk home that I haven't had a crêpe yet, and I thought that it was time I did. I stopped by a crêpe stand and got une crêpe avec beurre et sucre. C'était delicieuse! I then realized that I needed stamps for a couple of post cards, so I went to the post office. There must be some universal agreement between every post office in the world to make all customers' experiences unpleasant. The man "helping" me could clearly tell that I was a confused foreigner, and did absolutely nothing to ease the situation. Usually, people will speak slowly or break out into English when they realize I'm not from the area, but this guy spoke faster, if anything. Anyway, I got my stamps and made sure to get enough for a while so I won't have to re-live that experience anytime soon.

Galerie Lafayette

It was about 2pm and I was just sitting around my homestay with nothing to do. I am trying my very hardest to not be lazy while I'm here. No saying "I'll go there tomorrow" or "I'm tired", so I got off my butt and walked around Galerie Lafayette. Galerie Lafayette is pretty much like an enormous Saks Fifth Avenue where most of the clothes are grouped together in little boutiques by designer. It has an absolutely beautiful ceiling and an awesome terrace on the roof that gives you a wonderful view of the city. I didn't buy anything, but I'm glad I got up and went.

For dinner, Ines, Audoin, and I had some "traditional Spanish dish", that was comprised of potatoes, eggs, onion, and cheese in a skillet. I am much more comfortable conversing with them, since they are around my age. I actually enjoy it when they laugh at my grammatical errors and mispronunciations, because it makes me laugh, too. There's a sense of humility about being a foreigner that demands thick skin and a good sense of humor. For example, when they asked me about Barack Obama, I said that he thinks about students a lot. I accidentally used the feminine tense of students, so in French I technically said that Barack Obama thinks about female students a lot. That puts a WHOLE different twist on what I meant to say. It's important to laugh at the mistakes like that. I make so many of them, that I'd be pretty miserable if I didn't smile about them.

My first assignment for my photography class is to take pictures at the same location for six days. I chose to do the street across from mine and this was one of my favorites: 

Affecteusement,

Katie

Translation Frustration

Today was my first day of school. I didn't have French today and Fashion doesn't start until April, so I only went to my Paris by Site and Photography classes. Paris by Site is going to be half in the classroom, half on-site. It is all about Parisian history, dating from BC times to modern-day Paris. I'm really excited about it- there's nothing like learning about something that you're currently experiencing. Tomorrow, I will have my first day of French, which I'm not entirely thrilled about. I love speaking French, but being tested on it is a different story.

Apparently today starts a two-week holiday for French students (French people LOVE vacances and have plenty of them). Diane et Geoffroy are staying at their grandparents' maison for vacation, and Audoin et Inès are attending a six hour / day English intensive. They are both pretty good at English already, but want to get better at it. I offered to help them with their homework; the language barrier makes things a little tricky. For example, Audoin had to translate a page from an English novel. One of the phrases was "A summer passed in a nausea of light". I know how to literally translate that to French, but it doesn't carry the same meaning, since the phrase is a bit idiomatic. It's difficult to translate and still preserve the writer's intentions.

For dinner, we had some baked loaf of mozzarella, tomatoes, and bread. We talked about well-known cartoons, and apparently French Spongebob doesn't have a last name. It's just Bob L'Eponge. They thought the last name SquarePants is weird and funny, which it kind of is. Somehow we got on the topic of phrases with the word "cow" in them and how both French and English have them. Inès asked me what it meant "to have a cow" and I had a really hard time explaining that one, since I didn't know the word for tantrum. I said "when you are angry and something doesn't work the way you want, you...uhh... get upset". Since that's a pretty weak definition of "to have a cow", I finally pulled out my dictionary and looked up the word for tantrum, since I was about to throw one out of a state of confusion.

Inès and Audoin had to watch BBC's One Minute World News and report on it for their homework, so they asked me to watch it with them and translate words / phrases they didn't understand. One Minute World News turned into Twenty Minute World News, since my French vocabulaire doesn't contain phrases like "Sudanese captives" or "Chaotic Serbian ice thawing". Even if it's frustrating at times, I love helping them with their English homework, because it's just as much of an exercise for me as it is for them.

Affecteusement,

Katie

P.S. some of you may have noticed that I've deactivated my facebook (Gasp!). No, I didn't die. The director of our program, Jim, put it perfectly: The more time I spend on facebook, the less time I spend engaged in Paris and all it has to offer. I anticipate that I'll be logging on once a week or so to post pictures and such, but I don't want the temptation of it being there to reel me in 24/7.  So fear not, my loyal facebook friends. I shall return.

Un Bon Weekend À La Campagne

The reason I haven't posted in a while is because I went to visit my host family's grandparents at their beautiful house à la campagne (in the countryside). Here's a summary of my weekend (sorry for the long post):

Friday:

We met at Accent at 2pm for a "visa meeting", which consisted of them taking one look at my visa and saying "you're all set". I decided to head home, change into running clothes, and go for a jog. Le Jardin Du Luxembourg is only 1.5 miles from where I live, so it makes for a great jog there, around the park, then back. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I got stared at the entire time. It could've been because I was jogging on the sidewalk. I've noticed that not many people jog on the sidewalk, but there are lots of runners at the park, so how do they all get there without being stared at? It could've also been because I was wearing a short sleeve T-shirt on top of a long sleeve to keep warm. Maybe that's not customary here? I have no clue. All I know is that I stuck out like a sore thumb for some reason. I have a half marathon in May to train for, so I guess I better get used to it.

My Steak Tartare

Twelve of us went to dinner at Chartier, a train station turned restaurant. Kristin's 20 yr old host sister came with us; she is a student at L'institut Catholique (where we go to school), majoring in English, so she seizes any opportunity to converse with native English speakers. It was cool to have her there and hear about the typical life of a Parisian adolescent. Our table ordered an appetizer of escargots, but they were gone before I mustered up the confidence to try them. I did, however, unknowingly order steak tartare, which I naively thought was steak with tartar sauce. For those of you who don't know what steak tartare is (or perhaps I'm the only one), it's pretty much raw ground beef. When I saw the man at the table next to mine receive his, I got really nervous and wanted to back out of it. I had to remind myself that the whole reason I'm here is to be adventurous and try new things. A few minutes later, my meal arrived, still mooing. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating, but not the most appetizing thing I've ever eaten. I probably would've enjoyed it more had I been able to block out the fact that I was eating cold, raw meat. After eating half of it, I decided that that was enough adventurousness for one day and focused on the dessert, which was Chou Chantilly. I'm pleased to report that it went down much smoother (and quicker) than the steak tartare. Après-ca, six of us went out to a couple of bars. Unfortunately, nothing exciting to report about those

Saturday:
My host family invited me to have lunch with them, which was très gentil. Before I came, I was slightly concerned that whomever my host family was would be picky about the fact that my program fees technically only include 7 breakfasts and 4 dinners a week. Fortunately, I lucked out with an aimable host family that doesn't like to starve their guests. We had potatoes and hamburgers. Très Américain. In our lunch conversation, someone happened to mention the word écureiul. They asked me what it was in English, and I told them it meant squirrel. Then, all six family members said "skwy-rell... skwy-rell" and kept trying to pronounce it correctly- it was hilarious. Their 18 year old son, Audoin (pronounced oh-dwan) came home from prep school this weekend, which is what many French people go to in between high school and a specialty school (in his case, engineering school). We packed our things and left for their grandparents' house à la campagne, about 2 hours by car outside of Paris. Their grand parents' house is very old with plenty of history. Apparently a previous owner of the house was a French man who lived there during World War I. When the Germans invaded and attacked the village, he hid in the attic (which is now an upstairs area) with his girlfriend. He was an artist, so he spent the days in hiding by drawing her (in rather risqué clothing for 1915). The grandparents have preserved the drawings by not touching / painting over them. Madame et Monsieur took me on a walk around the village, showing me the places with the prettiest views. I then watched part 2 of Harry Potter 7 with the kids and they were kind enough to turn on the English subtitles for me, since I hadn't seen it. Dinner was ready shortly after and we started with vegetable soup, made from vegetables the grandparents grew in their garden. We then had yummy quiche and this delicious dessert of baked apples atop toasty bread.

Sunday:
I had the best jelly ever at breakfast. It was raspberry jam made by the grandpa with raspberries from his garden. Absolutely fantastic. Then, madame and I played tennis (rather poorly) at the court right next to the house. The family went into town for something and I stayed behind to take advantage of the lack of clouds by taking pictures of the countryside in all its bucolic glory. After they returned, we had a lunch of roast beef stew. Monsieur, Madame, Geoffroy (whom they lovingly call JoJo), Diane, and I went for another long walk up and down the country's rolling hills. Once we got back, it was time for a pasta dinner. I don't know what their pasta is made of, but it's WAY better than American pasta. The entire weekend, the grandpa kept asking me to take more food after I'd cleaned my plate twice. When I insisted that seconds were enough and that I didn't need thirds, he would tell me that I was afraid. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but I awkwardly laughed and said "nooo" every time. After dinner we packed up and headed home, where I am now writing from. Please enjoy some of the pictures I've included from my weekend below. Unfortunately, these pictures don't do any justice to the gorgeous countryside

If you've read this far, I commend you for sticking out the longest post ever. (Hi mom and dad. I know you've read this far).

Affecteusement,
Katie 

Chez Grand-Mère et Grand-Père

View from my window

Drawings in the attic

Beautiful church right next to the house

Place where the village used to wash clothes before the invention of machines

 

It's not about the Monet, Monet, Monet

Me with plastic bottles of wine

I finally got my first good night of sleep last night and it felt great. We were instructed to meet at the American Library in Paris at noon, so I got to sleep in a bit as well. They usually just tell us where to meet and not how to get there, which is kind of nice because it forces us to read maps and figure out the métro system, which I’ve gotten pretty decent at. The American Library is a library with books in English that also has American TV shows, movies, and magazines available for check-out. Our program fee includes a membership there, so we had to tour it today to become familiar with it. I have a feeling that it will be a good place to study and work on group projects. The American Library is conveniently located right next to the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to grab a couple bottles of wine and hang out near the tower after our library orientation. French people love wine so much that you can even buy it in little plastic bottles to drink it on the go. The wine here is SO cheap. I’m talking 2 Euros (about $2.50). Even the cheap 2 Euro wine tastes pretty good, and that says a lot coming from a person who hates wine.

Entrance to the Musée D'Orsay

Après-ca, six of us decided to walk to the Musée D’Orsay- arguably the best museum in tout le monde. The walk was much longer than we anticipated- about 2 miles on top of the mile and a half or so we walked near the Eiffel Tower. A few of the kids were complaining that we could’ve taken the metro, but I’d choose a 2 mile walk along the Seine River over a dirty metro ride any day. The Accent Center gave us passes with something made-up about how we’re art history majors. They did this so we could get free admission to all of the museums in Paris. If that’s what gets me free admission, I’ll gladly pretend to be an art history major. Because we didn’t need to buy tickets, we got to jump the incredibly long line. Four of us had our student passes, but Peyton and Chris forgot theirs. Since I know the most French, they sent me to go schmooze with the guy checking passes. After a bit of convincing, my gypsy magic worked on him and he let Chris and Peyton in without having to pay. Score!

We didn’t have a whole lot of time to see the museum (only about 1.5 hours), so we went straight to the impressionism room and looked at the breathtaking works of Monet, Degas, Renior, etc. Our classmate Patrick is a huge art history buff, so he was an incredibly knowledgeable person to be with. He gave us tons of history on each painting and its artist- he was like our own personal tour guide. The Musée D’Orsay is magnificent. Every single work of art is an original piece and plenty of the paintings don’t even have glass around them. If you want to reach out and touch Monet’s paintings, there’s nothing stopping you (except your morals).

We didn’t want to be late for dinner, so we left the Musée D’Orsay around 6:30. They typically eat dinner around 8-8:30pm here, so that allowed us plenty of time to get home and rest our tired feet. Madame made delicious crêpes with ham, egg, and cheese inside. She asked me if we have crepes in America and I explained that we do, but pancakes are more common. We also talked about politics and they asked me what I thought of Barack Obama. Each day I find it easier to engage in conversation with them. I showed them pictures of my family- they thought my dog was cute and thought it was funny that my family all has la meme visage (the same face). They invited me to go with them to the French countryside this weekend to visit their grandparents. I think I’m going to go. It will be hard, considering I have to ask them to repeat themselves a million times a day, but I think it will be a very unique, authentic, and magnifique experience.

Affecteusement,
Katie

P.S.  I found out today that my classmate, Zoe, has the same birthday as me. Everyone decided that we'll do something extra special to celebrate that weekend :)

Move, Quasimodo. Get out the way

We met at the Accent Center this morning at 10am and it took me about 35 minutes to get there from my house via métro. It was really cool seeing everyone after their first night with their host families and seeing everybody get so excited over the simplest things, like how French people only put one type of food on their plate at a time or how French keys look really funny. Last night at dinner, le Monsieur asked me what the capitol of Michigan is. I didn’t think it was an odd question until I found out this morning that every other student was asked the same question by their host father… French men must have some odd fascination with state capitols or something.

We had a quick orientation meeting that pretty much just told us how to not get mugged on the métro. They spent way too long talking about it. I could’ve summed it up easily: don’t be a naive, unaware imbecile. We had some free time after, so all of us went into the closest cell phone shop and got prepaid phones with local numbers so we can contact each other outside of school. I’m sure the cell phone shop hated 15 Americans walking in (only two of which speak halfway decent French), all asking for the same phone.

Notre Dame

Shortly after, we took the métro to our University, L’institut Catholique, where we had oral exams to accurately place us into our French classes. We walked around campus for a bit, and then were set free for the day. On my walk home, I ran into a few of my classmates and they invited me to wander around with them. We walked to Luxembourg Gardens, which is beautiful even with no flowers or trees in bloom. I think I’ve found a place to go running :) We decided to walk a little over a mile to Quasimodo's house (some of you may know it as Notre Dame) and spent some time there. I was absolutely terrified of the enormous amount of pigeons that get far too close to humans for my liking

Crazy lady with a pigeon on her head at Notre Dame

We had lentil stew with “sausage” (aka cut up hot dogs) in it for dinner. At one point in our conversation, I mentioned that Americans think that the French can’t stand them. My host family was very surprised to hear that, and Madame thought that because Nicolas Sarkozy (the president of France, who looks like Mr.Bean if you ask me) has a good relationship with America, the people of France follow his opinion. She also said that she thinks that the French are slightly jealous of Americans, if anything.

Affecteusement,

Katie

P.S. The French pronounce WiFi as "wee-fee". It makes me smile every time.

Word of the Day: "Moufle"

We woke up in the hotel around 9:30 am. Kristin and Peyton went downstairs to have breakfast, which was supposed to cost 12 Euros, but the hotel manager let them eat for free for whatever reason. He must’ve been in the Valentine’s Day spirit (which, by the way, they don’t really celebrate here. They know what it is, but don’t do anything special for it). I decided to sleep in and was planning on getting a croissant from a café, but Peyton and Kristin had brought a croissant avec Nutella and pain au chocolat back to the room for me, which was very nice of them.

We checked out and walked to the Accent Center (the center that is coordinating our trip). Even though the walk was only 5 minutes, we still looked ridiculous hauling our massive luggage down the cobblestone sidewalks. Accent had a “Welcome University of Michigan Students” sign, which was pretty neat. We met some of our classmates there, who were all ridiculously tired and jet-lagged, as they had all flown in that morning. Nine of us walked around the area for an hour or so, getting to know each other better. We returned to Accent and had our homestay orientation, where they gave us an hour’s worth of tips for living with a French family.

aprés ça, then sent us in taxis to our homestays. Since I’m the only person in the 14^th district, I had the taxi to myself. I’m hesitant to call it a taxi, because it was a sleek black Mercedes with beautiful leather interior. I was rollin’ in style. I arrived at my homestay around 5:30pm, where the mother and 2 youngest children were eagerly awaiting my arrival. Their names are Geoffroy (pronounced jeff-wah) who is 13 and Diane (pronounced Dee-ahn) who is 10. There is an 18 year old son, but he lives at school. I went into my room, which is pretty spacious and has a balcony overlooking a garden. Shortly after I started unpacking, the 16 year old daughter, Inès (pronounced ee-ness), came home. I heard her say “Elle est la? (She is here?)”, then she came in my room and gave me a kiss on either cheek. How Parisian is that!? Admittedly, it threw me a tad out of my comfort zone, but when in Paris…

We had dinner around 8pm, which is standard here, and it was pretty tasty. It was a mashed potato bake with beef and cheese in it. We had a homemade tarte aux pommes (apple pie) for dessert. The apple pie didn’t have a crust on top, but the bottom had lots of sugar, which caramelized in the oven. Yummm. They made easy conversation with me over dinner and had lots of questions for me. They are very patient with my rudimentary knowledge of French and compliment me when I can say a few sentences without stuttering. I learned that the father is a civil engineer and the mother is a retired Marine officer, who still works for the Marines, but in an office job. I gave them the gifts that I purchased in Michigan. I got them an assortment of things from Cherry Republic and a Michigan-shaped oven mitt with lots of cities listed on it. They got a kick out of the fact that Michigan is shaped like une moufle , and loved that I could show them where I live on an oven mitt. The daughters raced to the bathroom after dinner and called me over a few minutes later. They were so excited when I confirmed that they had located Michigan on the world map on their bathroom wall.

Affecteusement,

Katie 

Day One

Today was our first day here. The transition from the airport to the hotel was very smooth- I’m glad we paid the extra few euro and went with the hotel’s shuttle service. The room wasn’t ready right away, so we left our luggage there and went to Monoprix to get our toiletries. Monoprix is comparable to Target, just with less stuff (they don’t sell electronics, books, etc.) Even at their equivalent of Target, the clothes are absolutely adorable and look like something straight out of a J.Crew catalogue – there were plenty of stripes, scarves, and berets to buy. Stuff is really expensive here- a small stick of deodorant cost me $10! Even with a converter, American hair dryers and flat irons put out too much voltage for the European plugs, so I had to buy those products here.

Après-ca we went to a little café and had breakfast. I had a buttery, flaky, delicious croissant and Kristin had apricot crepes. We checked in to the hotel and took a nap. We got woken up by some short Indian man who works at the hotel and came in to our room to fill up our mini bar. I guess we forgot to put the “do not disturb sign”, so when we didn’t answer his knock (since we were sleeping), he let himself in. We thought he had left after that, but he came back with a plate that had 3 apples on it for us. We were still in bed and politely thanked him so we could return to sleep, but he decided to stick around our room and talk to us- who does that!? We were sleeping and he just barged in with apples and wanted to chit chat while we were napping.

Anyways, after that we went out and braved the métro (which is really simple and fairly clean) and went to the Longchamp store. The metro took us from the Bastille to this adorable shopping district that has huge names like Chanel, Dior, Cartier, etc. Kristin got a bag, which was around $100 US dollars. If you buy Longchamps in the US, they are around $150, so she got a pretty good deal. We had to stop and ask for directions a few times, but the locals were nothing but friendly and helpful. Out of the three of us, I'm the only one who speaks French, so it was up to me to not screw up people's directions.

Our first métro ride

Cute shop area. To the left of these lights (out of the frame) is the Chanel store

Paris streets at night

We happened to stumble upon Laudurée, the famous macaroon place, so of course I had to try a raspberry macaroon. It was really good and like nothing I expected. On our way back to the hotel, we decided to get dinner at a cute little café that was blasting country music and Michael Jackson / Britney Spears mashups. AWESOME. Kristin and Peyton each got French onion soup (They just call it onion soup here), and I got une sandwich au jambon for 4 euro. Our nap didn’t revive us, so we headed back to the hotel, which is very nice and rather spacious for Europe. We thought that we were on the European sleeping schedule already , since we were tired by 10pm. However, all three of us woke up at 2am for a while, then we were wide awake again at 4am. Jet lag is not my friend.

Affecteusement,

Katie

Travel Day

As I sit here in the Philadelphia airport waiting for my layover to come to an end, I can’t help but reflect on the past week. First of all, it has gone by quicker than any other. It honestly feels like the past 7 days have been swept up together in one cyclone of preparation. On Thursday, I got my host family “information”, which included a street address and a phone number. No name or family members, nothing else. I wasn’t going to call because the idea of talking on the phone to a stranger in a foreign country (whom I know absolutely nothing about) was pretty daunting. I was just planning on winging it and talking to them when I arrive.

However, after much convincing from my mother and a few friends, I decided to call. The husband picked up on the first ring with a cheerful “Allo?” just like they do on the tapes we listened to in French class. We talked in French for a while about me and my life in America, then he asked me if I had any questions for him. He totally wasn’t ready for what I was about to ask. While I meant to ask him if he has a wife, I actually asked him if he has a husband. After an awkward “uhhh…”, I realized what I had said wrong and corrected myself. He was very kind about my mistake and patiently said “yes I am the husband and I have a wife”. He mentioned that they have four children: an 18 year old son, a 16 year old daughter, a 13 year old son, and a 10 year old daughter. He said something in English, and then I asked if he spoke English. He said, “I speak a bit of English, but I am not as good as my wife, I will let you talk to her”. His wife answered with a very excited “Bonjour!” and kept telling me that she and the rest of the family were excited to meet me. We talked for a couple of minutes then I let them get back to whatever they were doing before. They were both very friendly and I can’t wait to meet them in person.

This past week has also been filled with “see you laters” (not goodbyes, as my friend Dayna reminded me), and I can honestly say I’ve never felt more loved and cared for. I send a heartfelt thank-you to my friends and family for all of the thoughtful calls, dinners, texts, cards, gifts, facebook messages, and faces-on-sticks (confused about that last one? See the Anna’s Journey tab at the top of this page and it should explain things). I am truly so blessed to be surrounded by such magnificent people who reciprocate my love tenfold.

I will be sure to write an update once I arrive. Until then, I will hopefully sleep my way through the plane ride to Paris.

Affecteusement,

Katie