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