Que Faire? Ou Meilleur... Que Ne Faire Pas.

Le 30 avril, 2009 (my camera wouldn't take a good picture. It wasn't this dark outside but it freaked out when i tried to take a picture of the sun so I guess this is the best I could get)

The other night I kept waking up. In fact I woke up and was worried about being late because the light was already coming in my window. I checked my clock and found that it was just after 3:30 AM. Why does the sunrise at 3:30 here?

Yesterday I had my first true French breakfast at my temporary home. It consisted of a little bread, and a little cereal with some weird shelf safe milk. The milk isn't as bad as I thought it would be! After breakfast, Jamie and I were getting ready to leave when the "Madame" told us that we would drive to the train station that day. I didn't want to argue with my Madame, but I felt that I would have to because our professor had specifically told us that we could not operate any sort of vehicle without his permission-even a bike. We got to the car and she had us both get in the back seat *phew*. Turns out she wanted us to verbally drive to the train station (basically she just wanted to make sure we knew how to get there so we could walk from then on).

After our first real day of class, we were let free. Jamie and I wanted to try a new pastry/baguette shop so we started looking for one. I thought there were patisseries on just about every other corner, but its not true! Jamie and I walked for probably an hour before we found somewhere to buy some food-but it was worth it! They made fresh crepes Kates! I ordered one with ham and cheese, I think it was swiss cheese?


We ate and were pestered by a beggar who pulled the "do you speak English?" trick. Katy had warned me about this so I quickly said no, but I hadn't forewarned Jamie so she said Yes-of course. The girl then showed her a paper that explained in English how her brother was in Iraq and had no food to eat. Thus Jamie was confronted and guilted into the money giving, while the girl completely ignored me.

We then decided to walk to the gardens of Luxembourg. It was so pretty! My favorite part was going to the park and watching all the little French children play and speak French. Its so fun to understand everything! Visiting the jardin was comforting because we saw lots of joggers! I had seen very few throughout Paris before this and I was concerned about how American I would look. Turns out that it is kind of becoming a new fad in Paris to jog. Supposedly 'Sarkozy does it'?



On the way home we tried many many many times to put the money for May on our Carte Oranges-our metro passes. The machines were acting really funny and there was no one au guichet (ticket window). Eventually we just had to get cash to make it work. Luckily the program pays for these cards so it wasn't too bad. I must admit, not having those 90 euros in my backpack all the time is a huge lifted weight. Our metro ride home was absolutely horrible, the worst so far. We got on RER-A and quickly claimed some seats. After we started moving, the absolute cutest little boy walked up to me and started begging me for money- it was heart breaking. I couldn't help but look at him, but then I remembered that if you don't plan on giving them money that you're not supposed to look at them so I quickly looked away. I felt so cruel! His mother followed right behind him and give it another shot, but this time I was prepared. I found a focal point and never looked up, although she tried to persuade me for probably a good ten minutes. I got a huge headache from the guilt I felt, but somewhere under all my guilt I felt a bit proud of myself for learning how to act like a true Parisien.

Paris metros are very very quiet. If people speak on the metro they whisper (even the beggars were whispering). At one of the stops two Arabic men entered our car of the metro and were immediately too loud for the social norm. They were yelling, laughing, hitting each other, and loudly discussing their pornographic magazine. When our stop finally came, my head was spinning. The man across from me had smelled strongly of alcohol and the one across from Jamie had sneezed a thousand times all over her. She thinks she's getting sick now... poor thing. To top everything off my ticket to exit the metro didn't work. It kept getting rejected but it was the one that I had used to get on the RER so it should have worked! And... it was my last one because I would start using my carte orange the next day. Like a true Parisien I hopped the machine. There was no metro controller on the exit side of the metro from whom I could buy a new ticket. What was I supposed to do? Stay in there for life?

Although we were exhausted from all our walking, Jamie and I headed straight to the Champion, which is a sister store to Carrefour I believe. There our credit cards worked, so no worries it was just the metro machines.

When we got home we started our homework: 50 pages of reading on philosophy and 12 pages from a history book, in french. Lets just say, finishing all the reading was impossible! But I was able to read enough to answer all the homework questions so I felt that it would be okay. Our heads were aching so we decided to watch a movie: we found Harry Potter et la chambre des secrets in Madame's bookcase and wanted to watch a half hour of it, too bad they don't play on American laptops. Silly Frenchmen form their DVD's differently. They're unreadable in my laptop! So we just went to bed instead

Le 1 Mai, 2009
C'est Vendredi. Jamie and I got to class early despite the disaster that we came across in the metro stop "Chatelets". Never again will we get off there instead of at L'hotel de Ville. The metro stop is HUGE and the signs in there lead you around like a chicken with no head. Speaking of heads my carte orange did something funny today. Jamie and I had taken a weird exit in the metro and wanted to get back in to find the correct one. I waved my card over the strip and I heard the "bing" saying that I could go. The doors that open when your card is clear move fast so I didn't waste anytime. I was just moving through the doors when I heard a "enh!" (think dad's noise for the dog when she does something bad. not ep-the other one). The machine had changed its mind and wanted to reject my card, too bad I was partially through the door so when those quick doors slammed shut they caught my head and my left hand in them. OUCH- it didn't hurt as much as it sounds... the doors are framed in rubber but nonetheless I was very humbled.

When I finally got to class we talked about Louvre passes and all the philosophies we studied... I was sufficiently prepared. We got out of class late Again, but because it is the premier may we had to better figure out what to do with our day. No one works on the first of may in France, its sort of like their labor day. Thus finding a place to eat was a little difficult again, but because it was- most of the class stayed together for the day. We ate at the institute and played ping pong. I got a sandwich called The Texan! Appropriate, eh?

Then we went to the Eiffel tower again. Most of the museums were closed, plus a lot of the group hadn't been yet And I wanted to get better pictures and get to know the group better.
Jamie, Me, Rachel (in the red), and Kaylie (who was in my freshman ward)
Everyone again but Jamie

After the Eiffel Tower we decided to walk down by Les Invalides and the Ecole Militaire and apres find the closest metro stop. We took the metro for probably 45 minutes to the stop right next to the fair! Its the first of may and no one was at work so the Fair was PACKED. Okay saying the word "packed" is an understatement. I held my backpack tight in front of me the whole time because I figured that there were pickpockets flooding that place. We met up with the Paris YSAs and went on some rides with them it was really really fun!


From Left to Right--> Mandy, Kristen, and Me after riding the King. It was pretty rough :) which I loved. (see the messed up hair?)


A bunch of people from YSA and the Study Abroad group. On the back row, the first five from the left are Parisien YSA goers and the next 3 are in my study abroad group: Kylie, Fred, and Rachel again.

The sun was starting to go down so Jamie and I hurried home to go jogging before it got dark. We ran all along a little river in Croissy sur Seine and it was absolutely beautiful. During the run Jamie turned to me and said with a big smile "Has it really hit you that we're running in the suburbs of Paris?"