Update...1.5 weeks of work...

I’ll preface this post by saying that this was a pretty boring week, filled with lots of work. Also, this week has been filled with lots of work, so this post will be relatively short, bc I don’t have the time to make it longer…Oh, and I didn’t mention anything about the weather because it’s been 60 degrees and sunny for over a week. I love Paris in the springtime :-).

Dimanche, le 4 mars

Slept in til noon, went running. After a quick shower, I went to meet Sara and Darcy at Notre Dame. All national monuments and museums are free on the first Sunday of every month, and we decided that “il faut profiter” (the French love saying “profiter de” – it might be the most commonly used phrase after… “oh la” (and all variations on that) and “truc”). The line for the Notre Dame towers was insane, so we walked to the Pantheon and checked out Foucault’s pendulum, and looooots of tombeaux. After the Pantheon, we bought apples from a marche, and ate them by the Seine. We talked for a while, then headed home.

Dinner = crepe night! It was out of control. There were lots of people: Constance and her fiancé, Pauline and her boyfriend, Madame, Monsieur, et moi. We made loooots of crepes salees, and sucres. And it took a lifetime (think over 2 hours). Anyway, it was delicious, and after we finally finished (11:30pm), I went to bed.

Lundi, le 5 mars

Viola lesson at 9am, which was good, despite the fact that I hadn’t practiced in a week. Came home, ran, went to one of my favorite boulangeries by Hotel des Invalides, and did work all afternoon.

Mardi, le 6 mars

TD in the morning – learned about Manet, and a girl gave a really awful expose, which Madame ripped apart. It was clear the girl hadn’t put much effort into the expose, but we (the American students) felt bad for her nonetheless…Madame basically told her that everything she said was wrong, and that she was stupid.

After TD I had Atelier d’Ecriture, where we did a lot with bon/bien, meilleur/mieux, which will always haunt me. After Atelier I just worked all afternoon on my expose on Saint-Sulpice, came home, had dinner, did work, and went to bed.

Mercredi, le 7 mars

Had monuments class, where we learned about Louis XIV, and visited Hotel des Invalides in the afternoon. After class, I went back to the boulangerie with Darcy, and we met our friend Sam from Williams (it was her birthday while we were in Prague, so we had pastries and chatted). After that, I went running, then came home, had dinner, and worked on my Atelier essay due the next day.

Jeudi, le 8 mars

Atelier in the morning – sentir vs se sentir, changer de, and some stuff on pronominal verbs. Impressionism class at the Sorbonne was cancelled, so after class I went shopping with Darcy, and got a guide book on Italy! It’s written in French, so I can even practice my French while preparing for my trip!

Came home, ran, had dinner, and went out to Café Oz with Sara, Claire, and Kate. It was lots of fun, but we were all a little beat, and decided to make it an early night, so we caught the last metro.

Vendredi, le 9 mars

Renaissance class in the morning – learned about Masaccio, and Florentine painting. After class, I met up with Darcy, and we got our hair cut! It was actually pretty scary – I mean, where do you learn the vocab necessary for a hair salon? My hair dresser was also kind of a creep/flirt, so I wanted to run away from him. Buuut now my hair is short, and layered…and I like it! Except that I can’t put it up in a ponytail while running.

After haircuts, we went to the Louvre (what else do you do on Friday afternoons anyway?), and braved the crowds in the Grand Gallery.

After a good 2 hours of culture, we decided to go to Café Flores for our Friday kirs and people-watching. I came home & had a speedy dinner with my host family (they went to see a movie early), and met my friends Marie and Liz (who live nearby) at the Cristal. The Cristal was…insane. I walked in, and saw Antoine, Vincent, Antoine’s brother, Marco, “Rock & Roll Alex,” and the rest of those guys. It was pretty crazy, but fun to see them again. After an hour at the Cristal, I met up with Darcy and we went out to the Bastille. On the metro ride back we met these ridiculous British guys who kept talking to us about the France-England Rugby tournament, and then lots of American students…it was a pretty memorable ride on line 1.

Samedi, le 10 mars

Woke up, went running, then Darcy and I went to the 16^th to see Le Corbusier’s Villa Roche. After that, we went to the Bois de Boulogne, one of my new favorite spots in Paris. It looks like it comes straight out of an Impressionist painting – a lake with people going on row-boat rides, two islands, people lying in the grass, picnicking, playing guitar, etc. We hung out there for the day, walked around, and read.

Came home, changed, met up with Darcy, and 3 girls who study in Aix but were in Paris for the weekend (they’re friends with one of Darcy’s best friends at Williams). We had an early dinner in the Latin Quarter, then I met my friend Antoine at Odeon for drinks.

Dimanche, le 11 mars

Met up with Darcy and Ale in the Jardin du Luxembourg for a picnic and a “recap” session on all the crazy events of the weekend. After that, I walked around by myself in the Marais and around there for a few hours, then met up again with Darcy & Ale, and the girls from Aix. We went to a hookah bar in the 5^th, then I went home for dinner. They went to dinner in Montmartre, so I metro-ed out there after my dinner and hung out with them. We were hit on by the ridiculous waiters wearing berets, and were pretty glad to leave at the end of the night (though, of course, the waiters followed us out of the restaurant and asked us to come out with them…on a Sunday…oh France.)

Lundi, le 12 mars

Pas de grande chose. Woke up, ran, headed to Centre Pompidou. Had lunch outside, then went inside for the afternoon, and did work. One exciting thing – Paris is a small city. I mean super-small. That’s been the theme of the past 2 weeks. I haven’t really mentioned any of the other stories that have led me to this conclusion (but there are about 1000 of them – I’ve been having around 3 awkward/random encounters a day for the past 2 weeks). But this one is funny. Well basically, we saw a guy that Darcy has a date with tonight (Wednesday) in the library. And she freaked out and hid behind her computer all day. It was even better because he had texted her like half-an-hour earlier, aka when he was in the library. It was just amazing, because that’s the sort of thing that happens at Williams – lots of awkward encounters…you’d think you’d be safe in a big city. But Paris is not as big as it seems!

Anyway Darcy was freaking out, so we left around 5, and drank kirs while people-watching.

Mardi, le 13 mars

TD in the morning – learned about Donatello. Then had TD where we did more with etre/avoir and passé compose. After TD I had a meeting with the art history advisor at Sweet Briar, and picked out my paper topics for my 2 20-pg dossiers due in May. I did work at SB until it closed, came home and ran. Dinner with the host fam, then went out to Cristal for a bit with Sara, Kate, and Claire, which was fun – we ran into another friend from Sweet Briar there, and met some ridiculous French guys.

Mercredi, le 14 mars

Histoire de Paris a travers ses monuments – learned more about Louis XIV, and I gave my expose on Saint-Sulpice in the morning. Had break, where we went to the Latin Quarter to get lunch (2 random encounters: (1) running into Sammy on the street, (2) about to cross the street, but then getting run over by Monsieur Peigne (our socially-awkward prof), bundled up in his green winter jacket despite the 65 degree weather, on his bicycle). Walked around Place de la Sorbonne, and then went to the Pantheon. After class, I went back to SB for a while to work & sort out train tickets for the trip to Provence this weekend. Then, when I left Sweet Briar, I had encounter #3 of the weekend, with a friend of Vincent’s, who I’ve met 2x, once at her apartment, and once at the fete. It was more awkward because she (maybe 22) was with her balding (and maybe 45 year old) boyfriend. Again, Paris is a small city.

Came home, dinner with the host fam, did work, and now bed! Bonne nuit!

Prague!

Samedi, le 24 février

After two hours of sleep, I woke up at 6:30 am, and crawled out of bed and into the shower. I’m not quite sure how, but I managed to make it onto the metro, and to the St-Michel RER station to meet Sara (OK, I was 25 minutes late…). Darcy was still not even awake, so we ended up tossing a coin (I won!), and Sara called Darcy’s house to wake her up. Let’s just say I’ve had better plane rides.

Anyway, we got to Prague in the afternoon, left customs, and the first thing we saw was a scraggly hippie with a cardboard sign saying “Sperm Festival.” Hmmm…anyway. After asking at three different information desks, we finally found an ATM, and a place to buy metro tickets. We went outside to the bus station, to find that the bus runs every 30 minutes, so we waited out in the freezing cold for the bus. We took the bus to the metro, and took the metro for 25 minutes to another bus. When we got on that bus, we realized that while we had the name of the bus stop for our hostel, the bus driver was not announcing the stops. At first we thought we’d be fine, because every bus station had a sign on it. Then we realized that those signs meant “No Smoking.” Luckily, we moved to the front of the bus, and found a screen that posted the upcoming stop. We got off the bus, and saw lots of signs pointing us to our hostel…so we followed them, which involved a 7-10 minute walk under a few bridges, through a barbed-wire-enclosed golf course, to the river. We saw the sign for our hostel, Hostel Boathouse, climbed the steps, and knocked on the door. Well of course no one answered. After some persistent knocking, one of the owners of the hostel greeted us with a “little present” of Prague postcards, and our room keys. We collapsed on our beds.

Our hostel was right outside of the city, but we decided to go into the city for dinner. We walked to the tram station, and waited 20 minutes in the cold for the tram (sad discovery: in Prague the public transportation is not nearly as efficient as in Paris…it’s really too bad, since it’s so cold there!). Anyway the tram came, and we got on it, only to realize that, while we had chosen a restaurant, the guidebook only said “Old Town,” and did not give a tram or metro stop. So we decided to wing it. We ended up getting off a stop too early, but we just walked the rest of the way to the restaurant. The best part of the walk to the restaurant was seeing the scraggly Sperm Festival hippie standing on the street corner…so Prague is a pretty small city, I guess…or the Sperm Festival dude was stalking us. Anyway, we figured that after our rough night/day, we should have some bland food, so we picked an Italian restaurant in Sara’s guidebook for dinner. This was the night we learned to not trust her guidebook. The pasta was pretty horrible, though to give the restaurant credit, the pizzas looked much better. We had dinner, and drank water. This was also the night where we learned that in Prague it’s just more sensible to drink beer – a pint of Pilsner costs $1, while water can cost up to $3. The check came, and the guidebook said that we should tip the waiter. So we tipped 15%...and then he brought us gelato as a “thank-you.” Turns out you don’t really tip in Prague. Did I mention that this was the night we learned not to trust the guidebook?

We found a closer tram, and went back to the hostel. The walk through the golf course would have been sketchy, but there were 3 of us, so it wasn’t too bad. We met a group of other students staying at the hostel, who are doing the Temple program in Rome. They were going out to a club, which was definitely not our “scene” for the night, so we headed to bed early.

Dimanche, le 25 février

Woke up and had the most delicious breakfast of all time. In case I didn’t mention it earlier, pretty much everything in Prague is dirt-cheap. Our hostel cost $15 a night, which included the largest breakfast I have ever seen. There was delicious Czech bread (somewhat like Challah), the Czech version of Nutella (sorry, Czech Republic, but real Nutella is better), amazing granola with all sorts of dried fruits and real oats (not the sugary kind), cereal, yogurt, and more. It was amazing. So we ate an enormous, and slightly embarrassing, amount in the name of not having to spend money on lunch.

Because the tram had taken so long to come the night before, we decided to take the bus. Yea, we forgot it was Sunday. 30 minutes later the bus came, we took it to the metro, and took the metro into the city. We decided to do one of the Walks of Old Town in Sara’s guidebook, so we started at the Municipal Building and the Powder Tower (turns out there are 2 powder towers in Prague…and while Sara’s guidebook says that you can climb one of them, we couldn’t figure out how to climb up either of them). From the Powder Tower we walked down a cute but touristy street with lots of colorful houses and crystal shops, and went to a concert information office to try to find a concert to go to later in the week, with no luck (I mean, we could have gone to see a new Czech Opera about ice hockey…but we decided not to). We walked to Old Town Square, and saw the astronomical clock strike the hour. I was really excited to see the “show,” but it turns out that it is a little less cool than I remembered (I guess when you’re seven, it would be more exciting). After the clock, we just looked around the square for a bit – saw St. Nicholas’ Church, Church of the Virgin Mary in front of Tyn, and all the beautiful buildings. While I still think Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, it was nice to see so many colorful facades in Prague, instead of an endless street of white apartment buildings. To finish up our visit to Old Town Square, we climbed to the top of the Town Hall Tower, to get a good look around the city.

From Old Town, we crossed the Charles Bridge, and walked around Lesser Town. Our guidebook mentioned the Church of St. Nicolas, and despite its unexciting exterior, we decided to go inside. It was amazing! At this point, we realized that unlike Paris, Prague has Baroque churches, not Gothic ones (great observation, I know). Anyway, the interior was breath-taking – totally over-the-top, but in a good way. I never really liked the Baroque churches we looked at in Art History 101 because I thought they were just too ridiculous and ornate, but this one somehow balanced ornate with tasteful.

From St. Nicolas, we went to Nerudova Street, where lots of the old merchant signs are preserved (in Prague they used pictures/sculptural reliefs on buildings to signal what was inside the building, so there are shops w/pictures of violins, green lobsters, etc. At this point we were freezing, so we went into a café and had tea.

After warming up, we walked around Lesser Town some more, following a walk in Darcy’s guidebook that took us to lots of different palaces in the area (palace in the conservative sense of the word…so really just buildings where rich people lived, and where the senate meets now.).

It was getting late, so we took a tram back to the hostel, and had dinner there. For $6, the hostel serves a homemade 3-course dinner, and we figured we’d try it. We had delicious potato soup, the largest piece of chicken schnitzel I’ve ever seen, potatoes, and ice cream. After dinner we made a tentative itinerary for the rest of our trip, and went to bed.

Lundi, le 26 février

After another amazing breakfast, we went back into the city. First stop: the Rudolfinum theater, to try to get tickets for the Czech National Symphony’s Wednesday performance of Mahler 5. Unfortunately, it was sold out. So we went back to the Municipal House, to see what concerts would be there over the next few days (little did we know this would be such a difficult thing to find out). First we went to one ticket counter, where the guy kept trying to sell us tickets to a concert of the 4 Seasons later that day. When we asked him if there was a concert tomorrow, he said “how should I know?”. Hah, well OK. So we went to the next ticket counter, where they told us to go downstairs. We went downstairs to the gift shop, where they said they could sell us $50 tickets to the Prague Symphony Orchestra concert on Wednesday, or that we could go outside and try our luck. We decided to go outside. After asking a security guard for directions, we went outside the building, walked around to the other side, and found the ticket office for the Prague National Symphony, where we bought $10 tickets…so that was interesting.

From there, we metro-ed to the Castle complex on the other side of the city. (side note: A lot of the metros in Prague have HUGE escalators. I mean HUGE. And steep. When I was little I had a rather traumatic experience trying to step onto one, and was scared of escalators for several years after our family trip to Prague. But I got on the huge escalator, and got over my fear! In my defense, my friends agreed that the escalators were huge, and we even saw other tourists taking pictures of them.) We saw the changing of the guards, which was nothing like what you’d imagine it would be. There was a mini-brass band that played music from the windows of one of the palaces, and then lots of Czech soldiers/guards. Sometimes they would march, etc, but they also smiled, chuckled, and even talked to each other…not like at Buckingham Palace, I guess.

From there we went to the Cathedral of St. Vitus, Wenceslas, and Vojtech, which was definitely the highlight of the trip to the Castle. Inside were breath-taking stained glass, including one window done by Alphonse Mucha. We climbed to the top (very high!), and saw a beautiful view of the city.

After the cathedral we moved on to the Royal Palace, which was pretty anti-climatic. I mean, it wasn’t a palace. I guess you could call it a large house. Maybe a mansion. But definitely not a palace. We were allowed to see maybe 5 sparsely decorated rooms. We did, however, get to see the famous window where the Defenestration of Prague took place! (woo AP Euro!).

Then we went to St. George’s Basilica, which is a small, but beautiful, Romanesque church in the complex. Then we walked along the Golden Road, which is this small street with little houses that are now shops attached to the castle wall. We ran into a few of the girls staying at our hostel and talked to them, then sat down at a café for a few minutes, and tried the famous Czech fried cheese, which was delicious, but very filling and greasy.

We left the Castle complex, and went to Loreto and Strahov monastery, but both were closed on Monday, so we walked over to New Town, and saw Wenceslas Square, which is Prague’s version of Times Square. Standing in the middle, we actually ran into other girls staying at our hostel (again, Prague really is a small city). We went to a grocery store to buy some food for lunch/snacks (we were tempted to be “The Traditional American Cookie,” but decided it looked too foul to get, even for a souvenir), then walked to the National Theater and Slovansky Ostrov Island, where there was a really fun playground, with cute little Czech kids.

We walked along the Vlatava River for a while, then took a tram back to the hostel for another delicious dinner – chicken soup, chicken stir fry, and ice cream. We hung out in the hostel for the night, and talked to the students from Rome a little more.

Mardi, le 27 février

We woke up early, and switched hostels. We decided to stay in 2 hostels for the trip because Hostel Boathouse (1^st half) was supposed to be really fun, and homey (which it was), but also far from the city (which it also was). So we moved to Emma Hostel, which is more in the center of the city, just a block from a big metro and tram station. After checking into the hostel, we metro-ed to the bus station, to try to get bus tickets to go to Terezin, a ghetto/concentration camp about an hour North of Prague. The bus station was out of control. Seriously, I had never seen anything more insane. There were signs EVERYWHERE, people EVERYWHERE, and no computer screens or other pieces of technology that might tell you current information. We found an information desk, asked where to get tickets for Terezin, found out which window number to go to, and waited in line as a somewhat incompetent British family bought their tickets for Terezin. We got up to the window, and the woman behind the counter told us to wait a minute. So we waited…about 7 minutes to be exact. Then she told us that Terezin was sold out, and we should try buying tickets from the bus driver. So we found the bus, asked the bus driver, but he yelled at us in Czech. At this point we decided to just wait and go to Terezin the next day, so we went back to the woman at the ticket counter and bought bus tickets for Wednesday.

It was raining, so we decided to cut our losses and spend the day in museums. First we went to the Alphonse Mucha Museum, which was small but very nice, with lots of his posters, some of his paintings and sketches, and a documentary about his life and work (I think he may be the first artist I’ve heard of who seemed to have lived a really happy and fulfilling life).

After the Mucha Museum we went to the City of Prague Museum, where they had artifacts telling the story of the development of Prague from the Bronze Age (or whenever, it was a long time ago) up til the mid 1700s.

Though tired, we decided to squeeze in one more museum, so we went to the new Franz Kafka Museum. I really loved the museum, though it was very bizarre. I guess the word would be “kafka-esque.” The wall-texts were written in his style, and the whole experience was just really surreal. There was weird music coming from different parts of rooms, pictures would flash up on the walls, etc. They did a really good job of telling the story of his life, his struggles between his job and father and his writing, and they walked you through the stories behind his major works. At the end, I decided that I really wanted to read more Kafka, but I figure I’ll wait til I get home…for now I’ll stick to French books :-).

Came back to the hostel, relaxed, and then met up with Dave, a friend from Williams who’s studying in Prague for the semester. He took pointed out the prostitutes on the street corners to us (apparently Prague is the sex tourism capital of Europe), and took us to a good Czech pub, where we had dinner. After dinner we watched the latest episode of Grey’s, and went to bed.

Mercredi, le 28 février

Woke up early, took the 10am bus to Terezin (the ghetto North of Prague – in addition to Czech Jews, the Nazis sent more prominent German and Austrian Jews here, and used the camp in a propaganda film, and brought Red Cross workers here to show them all the “good work” the Nazis were doing). I have no clue why the bus the day before was sold out, since this one was almost completely empty. We got to Terezin around 11, and decided to see the Museum first, since we figured it would give us good background information. While the museum was interesting, they had too much information, a lot of which was repetitive. After 2 hours, we decided to move on to the other parts of the complex.

We walked down lots of deserted & creepy streets, and got to the Magdeburg Barracks, where the Resistance used to have offices (now it has exhibits about the music, art, and literature created by people living in the Ghetto, and also has some reconstructions of what a room in the ghetto would have been like). From there we walked to the columbarium, and then to the Russian and Jewish Cemeteries. It started to pour rain & thunder, so we went inside the freezing-cold Crematorium, and looked at the displays, which included a reconstruction of a dissection room, and the crematory machines. Finally, we went to the National Cemetery and the Small Fortress. The Small Fortress is where the Nazis stayed, and it’s also where they executed prisoners, etc.

One of the most moving things about the visit was how beautiful and eerie the environment of Terezin was. The whole complex was a fortress built by Emperor Joseph in the 1780s and 1790s (see pictures on picasa website). It’s hard to believe that this was a ghetto, at the same time it’s easy to believe that it was the Nazis’ “propaganda” ghetto – it wouldn’t have been too difficult to renovate it and make it look like a nice place to live.

We walked back to the Ghetto Museum, got on the bus to Prague, and 45 minutes later were back in the city. We took a bus back to the hostel, changed, and headed over to the Municipal House to see the Prague Symphony Orchestra. They played in the Smetana Hall (beautiful, art deco!). They played a (boring) overture by Kabelac, Rachmaninoff piano concerto #2 (with Eugen Indjic), and Stravinsky’s Petrushka. While not an exceptionally exciting concert, it was good, and it was nice to go to a live orchestra concert (I have yet to go to one in Paris).

After the concert we went to a restaurant listed in Sara’s guidebook, but it had already stopped serving dinner (yes, it was 9:30 pm…in Prague, people eat early). We wandered around, and found a bar still serving dinner, and went inside. It was a pretty crazy bar – the wall was decorated with very…lewd wall drawings. Anyway, we had dinner and hung out in the bar for a bit. Two old and slightly sketchy Czech guys sent beer to us…and then came and talked to us…which was interesting. Luckily the bar closed at midnight (yea, people go out early in Prague, too), so we escaped!

Jeudi, le 1 mars

Woke up, and headed over to Jewish Town. We saw the Spanish Synagogue, which was absolutely beautiful (done in a Spanish-Moorish style), the Old-New Synagogue (13^th century synagogue! One of the oldest existing synagogue in Europe, or something like that), and the Jewish Cemetery (beautiful, packed with tombstones). At this point Darcy left (she returned to Paris earlier bc her mom was visiting), and Sara and I continued on to the rest of the synagogues: Klaus, Pinkhas (white walls, with black & red hand-written names of all the Czech victims of the Holocaust), and Maisel (pretty on the outside, not much on the inside).

By this point, Sara and I were getting pretty sick of reading wall-texts in museums, so we decided to stop for a quick lunch. We saw a boulangerie-esque place, and walked inside. I guess Paris has impacted us more than we thought – this place was like the mecca for French tourists in Prague! It felt amazing to hear French again! We were all just missing the good, light, delicious food you get in France (Czech food is heavy, greasy, and way too filling!).

From there we went to Loreta, a beautiful baroque pilgrimage church/complex, with lots of different chapels, including one showing the Chapel of Virgin Mary Aching (a daughter of a Portuguese King who promised herself to the king of Sicily, then decided to stay faithful to Jesus, so she prayed to God to abolish the wedding – she was heard, she grew a beard, and the wedding was cancelled...but her father then ordered her to be killed on a cross…). Upstairs, there was a really extraordinary treasury, showing all different things that pilgrims brought to the church, including the famous diamond monstrance with 6,222 diamonds!!

After Loreta, we went to the Strahov Monastery, because Sara’s host dad told us that we couldn’t miss it. We only saw the library, which was really impressive – the first room had lots of medieval illuminated manuscripts on display from the collection (yea, I was very excited). Then, the next room had lots of different specimens of animals, including a Do-Do Bird (it looks like a turtle with wings). Then, there were 2 huge libraries – one devoted to philosophy, and one to theology, connected by a hallway with books on medicine. What with its medieval manuscripts and its Do-Do Bird, I think the Monastery may have been my favorite thing we saw in Prague!

Sara and I decided that we wanted to take a daytrip to Karlstejn Castle on Friday, so after our bus-ticket-incident we decided to get our train tickets for Karlstejn ahead of time. I said I had never seen anything more insane when I saw the bus station. That was because it was before I had seen the train station. Now that was insane. I took pictures, but the pictures cannot convey the madness. After walking to all the different levels, analyzing all the possible ticket lines, finding an information booth only to discover that they only spoke Czech, we finally found the English-speaking information office, where the woman told us to go to lines 1-15. Of course she didn’t tell us if we should be in line A, B, or C…but we decided to wing it. The line was huge, but it moved super-fast, and we bought our tickets quickly, and then rushed back to the metro, eager to leave!

We came back to the hostel and relaxed for a while. We decided on Mexican food for dinner (we were both craving margaritas, and Sara goes to Rice, so she’s used to having Mexican food, and there’s none in Paris). The restaurant was really good, and cheap, and we had a really nice time. After dinner we metro-ed back to our area, and decided to go to a bar. The first one we walked into, it looked like there was no bartender. That’s because he was playing darts with the other people in the bar. Did I mention that the dart board was next to the door? Yea it felt like we were being attacked. So we left…and then he ran after us…but we decided to keep going. So we went to the next bar, which was really quiet, and had a beer.

Vendredi, le 2 mars

Woke up early, and went to the train station. Found the train, and waited for it to open its doors. Finally it did, but it opened them on the other side of the tracks. So everyone ran to across the tracks to that side of the train. Then the doors closed. And re-opened on the right side. So everyone ran back. It was priceless. The train ride was uneventful, though slightly scary since the conductor didn’t announce any stops. When we got to the Karlstejn stop, however, you could see the castle up on the hill, so it was pretty clear we were in the right place.

We left the train station, and followed the signs for “Hrad” (“castle” in Czech) across a bridge, through some pretty desolate areas, into the town, and up the mountain/hill. The castle is gorgeous (again, see pictures) – it really looked like it just came out of a fairy tale! You can only go into the castle on a tour, but when we got to the ticket office, we found out that the next tour was in an hour-and-a-half (it’s not exactly prime tourist season). Sara and I hung out and talked for a while, then realized that this really obnoxious group of Spanish high school students were going to be on our tour, so we got tickets for the next tour (another half-hour later).

We were pretty freezing when it was time for our tour, and were really looking forward to going inside the castle. Well it turns out that castles are cold. The tour was really good, and we learned about kings and patron saints of Prague (in one week I learned more about St Wenceslas than I thought possible), and got to see lots of the rooms of the castle. After the tour, we went to the town and ate goulash in a cafe (which was actually more like someone’s house – you basically ate in the dining room, and could look into the small kitchen where they prepared the food).

In the café we met this guy named Gregoire who is from Paris, but works in Poland. He offered to buy us coffee, but we declined, and went to the train. Well we saw Gregoire again. At the train station. And on the train. He kept asking us about places to go out in Prague…it was…interesting, considering he’s 36. Well he gave us his card in case we wanted to meet him & one of his “friends.” Hah, no.

Finally back in Prague, we metro-ed to our hostel, relaxed, then went to dinner at this upscale Thai restaurant that the guy who works at the hostel recommended. The food was delicious, and again extraordinarily cheap. We came home, watched Grey’s, and went to bed early.

Samedi, le 3 mars

Last day in Prague! We woke up early, packed, checked out of the hotel, and went to the Mozart Museum. The Museum was kind of a let-down – it was the house that Mozart stayed in while he composed Don Giovanni, but it just had copies of random letters and pictures, and was not organized in any coherent way.

From there, we headed to the Nardoni Museum, which is Prague’s Modern and Contemporary Art museum. It was pretty cool – the architecture was a bit like a rectangular version of the Guggenheim, and it had lots of Czech artists, as well as a very impressive collection of French impressionists and post-impressionists.

Unfortunately, it was time to leave, so we took the tram back to the hostel. We got to the hostel, and the incompetent girl who works there had locked herself out when she went outside to smoke. So that was great. She doesn’t really speak English, so she was like “Sorry girls we must wait.” And then she just banged on the windows of the hostel (but I mean, who will be there at 2pm?). Luckily, after 20 minutes, someone came and opened the door…so we ran in, grabbed our stuff, and ran to the metro. We took the metro to the bus station, where we waited 45 minutes for a bus to the airport. At this point we were freaking out, afraid we’d miss our flight. Luckily, the airport was empty, and we were able to check in without a problem.

2 flights later, we were back in Paris! I’ve never been so happy to hear French. I was literally skipping. We took the RER back to the city, and went to meet Darcy’s mom at her hotel in the 7^th. We drank some wine and talked for a while, then headed home. I got home, and my host mom was still up, so we talked about my trip for a while, and then I went to bed…and woke up at 1pm the next day :-).

All in all, a good trip. It was great to feel so independent and confident in a completely different country, with a language that does not resemble English (or French) at all. While I had a great time, it made me so happy to be studying in Paris, where there are tons of things to do every day, where it’s warm(ish), where I speak the language (sort of), where things are somewhat efficient (I never thought I'd say that).

Pre-Prague Update

Mardi le 20 février

Had my TD in the morning, which was actually much more interesting than the one last week. Madame gave a very interesting lecture for the first hour and a half on Masaccio’s The Trinity, and then in the last half-hour, one of the French students gave an exposé about the Payment of the Tribute Money, a fresco also by Masaccio. While I haven’t been too impressed by French students’ behavior in lecture class (aka talking while the professor lectures, and not taking any notes), this girl’s exposé was really impressive, especially for a first-year student. At the end, Madame gave her comments, some of which were substantial, others were more grammatical—she corrected the girl’s use of masculine and feminine (so if a 19 year old French student isn’t always right about masculine versus feminine, then there’s hope for the rest of us!), and told her to never begin a sentence with “donc.” I thought it was pretty interesting for a teacher to correct a student’s speaking/use of language…definitely would not happen at Williams.

After TD, I had Atelier, where we learned about “la plupart de” vs “la majeure partie de,” à + infinitive (J’ai passé toute la nuit à lire ce livre stupide), “il s’agit de + infinitive,” and some vocab.

I decided that I needed to do something cultural, so after Atelier I went to Musée d’Orsay. I saw the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist rooms, and went downstairs to see Courbet’s Burial at Ornans, plus some other works by Courbet that we had talked about in TD the week before (it’s pretty cool to hop on a metro, and 15 minutes later to stand in front of a painting that you learned about from slides…). But the Musée was completely packed, so I left after about an hour and a half, deciding to “profiter” of the nice weather, and go for a run.

I practiced, had dinner with the fam, then met up with friends at the Pont des Arts. On the weekends the Pont des Arts is packed with people having picnics and hanging out, and we thought that it might be like that during the week…but we were wrong. It was pretty sketchy, so we walked over to Chatelet, and went to a bar called Café Oz, that some of my French friends had recommended…but it was pretty lame. So we went home.

Mercredi, le 21 février

History of Paris through its Monuments. Had lecture in the morning, which was pretty boring, as usual…the prof just rambles for an hour and a half. After lecture, Darcy and I grabbed lunch, and metro-ed over to Louvre, for the class visit. We learned about the construction of the Louvre, and then saw les Colonnes de Buren (cool striped columns in the Jardin du Palais Royal).

After 2 hours outside, we were pretty freezing, so Darcy and I found a cute tabac near the Louvre, and grabbed some hot chocolate. After warming up, I decided to actually go inside the Louvre, and continue with my goal of seeing every room of the Louvre. I saw the Medieval Objets d’Art (my favorite so far!), a room of Italian sculpture, and the beginning of Italian painting.

It was still sunny outside, so I decided to walk home from the Louvre. It took over an hour, because I decided to explore roads that I’d never been on before, but it wasn’t too cold, and it was nice to become familiar with a new part of the 7^th.

I practiced, and worked on my exposé. It was Ash Wednesday, so my host family went to mass at 8pm, and we ate dinner around 9:45, and I went to bed soon after.

Jeudi, le 22 février

Woke up and went running, then had Atelier, where we learned about entrer dans/sortir de et monter dans/descendre de, lots about comparatives – plus que/de, autant que/de, moins que/de, et aussi que, and when to pronounce the “s” in “plus”.

After Atelier, Darcy & I went to the cute Traiteur Italien to get pasta à emporter, which we ate in the Jardin du Luxembourg. After relaxing in the sun, we went to a café near the Sorbonne to do work until our Impressionism class at 4.

Impressionism class was awful, as usual. The professor is extraordinarily boring, and does not appear to know too much about Impressionism. He was lecturing about Corot, and other pre-Impressionist artists, but he would show slides, and forget the names of the painters, the titles of the images, or the dates…basically he wasn’t really helping himself gain the respect of the students. By the end of the 2 hours, you could barely hear the prof because the students were talking so loudly.

After class I did a little grocery shopping, then came home, practiced, had dinner, and went out. We went to Bar 10, one of my favorites in the 6^th – it’s this cool cellar covered with artsy movie posters, and they serve delicious Sangria. After Le Dix, we went to Cristal. Sadly, le Cristal was not as much fun as usual…mainly because we met creepy 40 year-old French guys who wouldn’t stop talking to us (one thing about bar culture in France I will never understand is the really old French guys trying to hit on 20 year olds…).

Vendredi, le 23 février

Woke up early for my 9am (not 10am, thanks, Sorbonne) Renaissance class. It turned out to be well-worth the early wake-up. The professor is young, smart, and engaging. His lecture was very focused and well organized, and he uses powerpoints (aka doesn’t mumble names, dates, and titles, since they are typed and on the screen). He talked about Brunelleschi, and the Florentine Renaissance, and when he finished his lecture at 11am, it felt like only 30 minutes had passed.

After class I decided to brave the Sorbonne library. I walked in and tried to find a book on Sainte Chapelle that I had been meaning to read…but I got really confused by the whole closed-stacks deal…so I left. I got half-way to the metro station, and decided to really brave my fear of French libraries, so I turned around and went back to the library, filled out a book request form, and got my book (it sounds stupid, but it was a mini-personal triumph)! I ended up reading the book for about 4 hours, and came home at 4:30.

I went running in the Champ de Mars, and on the way home decided to take a different, longer route. While running on Boulevard Garibaldi, I spotted this really sketchy guy who is peripherally friends with some of my French friends… I freaked out, ran in the opposite direction, and decided that Paris is really a small city.

I came home, packed my suitcase for Prague, and had dinner with my host parents. Madame had prepared this amazing pre-departure dinner – delicious salmon, salad, and crème brûlée (because she said I couldn’t leave France without having homemade crème brûlée). Monsieur was slightly unhappy, because he said it wasn’t “vrai” crème brûlée, because Madame’s torch-contraption wasn’t working, and she had to use the oven…

After dinner I went to the fête that Antoine and Vincent organized. My host parents thought I was insane for going out the night before a 10am flight. And they were right…

The fête was in a 3-story bar that they had rented out for the night. The bar was on the top floor, then the next floor down had couches for people to hang out and talk, and the 3^rd story was a dance floor. I talked more with the girls in the group, which was nice (Parisian girls are intimidating!). I also met Antoine’s brother, and another Antoine, who were both really nice. Well it was a really fun night…but I came home at 4:30 am, fell into bed, and woke up at 6:30 to leave for Prague! (Another update on my week in Prague will come soon!).

La vie est belle!

Mardi le 13 février

Tuesday was my first day of classes at the Sorbonne. In the morning I had my TD, which is the French equivalent of a conference/section component of a lecture class in the US. I ran into another girl from Sweet Briar in the park by the Centre Michelet (the Art/Archeology Center for Paris I and Paris IV), so we walked in together. The classroom was huge, but there were only 15 people in the class. The class was actually pretty boring. The prof talked extremely fast (even the French students got lost and missed dates and names), but she was nice. Still, it was a 2 hour-long class (and you’re not even allowed to have water, so you get really thirsty), and she just talked about one painting, Courbet’s Burial at Ornans. The set-up of the class is also really strange, because this is the TD for 5 lecture classes – Renaissance Art, Impressionism to Expressionism, Indian Art, Modern Iconography, and Chinese Art – and yet in our weekly TD we focus on only one work of art, and they are all either Impressionist or Renaissance. That’s fine for me, since I’m taking the Renaissance & Impressionism classes, but it seems pretty pointless for the people taking Indian Art…

After TD, I went back to Sweet Briar for my Atelier d’Ecriture class, where we learned about “de” for forme negative, rendre vs. faire (“je pars, tu ne peux même pas me rendre heureuse”), discuter de qch/qqn, and “avoir lieu.”

I rushed home from TD, grabbed my viola, and headed over to the Ecole Normale for my viola lesson. I was afraid I was going to be late, but that didn’t matter, since my teacher was running 2 lessons behind. I sat and listened to the two lessons--the first was with a prospective student from Argentina, the second was with his friend who has been here for the year. From a “musical” standpoint, the lessons weren’t too interesting, since the students weren’t very advanced, and my teacher just talked a lot about adjusting the chin rest. From a…linguistics perspective…it was fascinating to observe the lessons, and see how he used a mix of English and French to talk to native-Spanish speakers who spoke some English and French…Then I had my lesson, which went really well, and he told me lots of crazy stories about his career, and about going to Paul Hindemith’s house and finding a recording of him playing with a famous pianist, and realizing how awful it was…hah apparently Hindemith didn’t practice much.

Came home, dinner w/host fam plus Constance (after the kids went to bed), bed.

Mercredi le 14 février

Woke up and went running in the rain, then headed over to Sweet Briar for my Monuments class. In the morning we learned about the Marais, and then we had an hour long lunch break, before meeting in the Marais. I went to L’As du Falafel (famous and amazing falafel place) with some other Sweet Briar people before going to Pont Marie to begin the walking tour. It was freezing, and pouring rain, so the visit was not too fun. We saw lots of old Hôtels, the remnants of the first enceinte (wall) around Paris, the Church St-Paul St-Louis, and a medieval street…but after walking around outside for 45 minutes, Monsieur realized that everyone was too busy being miserable to pay any attention, so we went to the Musée Carnavalet, a museum of Paris’ history. The museum was actually pretty cool—we only had time to go to a few rooms, but I definitely plan to go back. We saw models of ancient Paris, and a girl gave an éxposé on the Bastille in front of a model of the Bastille, built from stones taken from it during the Revolution.

I went back to Sweet Briar with some of the girls in the class, because there was supposed to be a Valentine’s Day party…which turned out to not exist. So I went back to the 15^th with a girl who lives two blocks away, and we went to a café/boulangerie to meet her friend who teaches English in Paris through the French Consulate.

Came home, had dinner with the fam, and then went out to Aussie Bar with Claire, Kate, Jen, Sam, and Sara. They were having this ridiculous Valentine’s Day party where they give you stickers with numbers on them, and then these cards where you could send messages to other people in the bar ("accepteriez-vous un verre?" "voulez-vous danser?" "une discussion s'impose" "j'ai croisé votre regard" "je suis prêt(e) pour l'aventure" "je brûle de désir...répondez moi" "rejoignez moi", and my personal favorite, "je vous écris...")…so yea we had a lot of fun sending ridiculous messages to the tables around us, or to just random numbers.

Jeudi le 15 février

Had Atelier d’Ecriture in the morning, where we learned about rapide vs. vite, the construction “comme + le” – “Comme tu peux le supposer, je suis très fâchée,” and “Comme le disait mon grand-père, la vie est belle,” and tellement/tant/si.

After Atelier I went home planning to go for a quick run before class at 4, but the quartier had a water problem, so the water was off until 4…I decided that I didn’t want to stink up the Sorbonne, and instead grabbed a sandwich and met Sammy, Darcy, and Sara in this really quiet and beautiful park by Darcy’s apartment. It was about 55 degrees and sunny, so we just sat around and talked in the park until about 3:30, when I left for class.

Class was my first lecture at the Sorbonne – Impressionism through Expressionism. It was also pretty boring…It was a two-hour lecture, but the prof couldn’t get the slide projector to work for the first 30 minutes. Then for the next hour and a half he talked (painfully slowly) about salons and World Expositions…needless to say, it was hard to stay awake. The French students also seemed to have problems concentrating…after the first 15 minutes of lecture, there was a dull murmur, as the students carried on their own conversations. After class, this French girl asked me if I had passed my exams to get into the course, because she had had a hard time with it. I explained that I was an exchange student, so I didn’t need to pass the exams, and she said “oh, PHEW.” I really wanted to say something like “well, I’m sure that if you paid attention in class it wouldn’t be too hard to pass the test,” but I restrained myself…

Came home from class, had dinner, then met up with Jen and Sara at le Cristal. After there, we went to Le Mix, a club where every Thursday they have this huge party for International students. It’s technically associated with Erasmus, an exchange program for all countries except the US (I think) – it’s the program that the people in L’Auberge Espagnol are on – but it was free for all International students. It was a lot of fun, and really cool to meet not just French people, but people from lots of other countries – Germany, Italy, Switzerland, England, Morocco, Tunisia, Argentina, etc.

Vendredi, le 16 février

Woke up at 8am, very tired from the discotheque, and got to the Sorbonne at 9:45 for my 10am lecture class. A class was going on in the amphitheatre I waited with 2 other Sweet Briar students, and about 20 other French students until 10:20…when we realized that this class was not going to end any time soon. We went up to the office of the Sorbonne, and found out that they had changed the time of the class from 10-12 to 9-11 without telling anyone…so that was cool. We figured it was pointless to go to the lecture after missing the first 45 minutes, so everyone left.

I went home and napped until 1, went running, and then went to the Louvre to meet Jen and Darcy. We saw the Napoleon Apartments, and then went to the French Sculpture garden. We ended up just sitting and talking there. There were 3 French guards standing and talking to each other, and we got really annoyed at them, because there was a group of 7 or 8 French guys who were literally caressing the sculptures, and the guards were too busy talking to each other to notice...so yea apparently it’s OK to touch the sculpture at the Louvre. We left the Louvre around 7:30 (it’s open until 9:30 on Fridays), and went home.

Had dinner, then went to Sara’s house for our traditional Friday night Grey’s Anatomy, which was nice & relaxing as always. Came home around 12:30, and went to bed.

Samedi, le 17 février

Woke up late, went running, and then went to the Marais to meet Darcy, Jen, and Sara. Darcy has this book of “Calm Places” in Paris, so we have been trying out different places listed in it for lunch, and today was Square Georges Cain. It’s this small, quiet, and beautiful garden/square, with faux-ancient stone sculptures and friezes, and lots of benches. Lots of families were there with their children, there was also a group of French girls who were sketching the sculptures in the garden, and there were two guys playing guitar. It was 60 degrees and sunny, so we just sat there and talked, read, and drew sculptures for the afternoon.

I started to feel really sick, so I left early and came home. When I got there, half the family was over, and FaFou started talking to me about life in the States, so I came in and explained about Ivy League colleges and about Princeton (where he lives). After that, I went to my room and napped a little.

Woke up, and got ready to go to a Franco-American “pot” (party) at Mme Hervier’s house (basically a mixer between Sweet Briar people and her son Peter and his friends). I got there late because the metro was running very slowly, but that didn’t really matter since I already know Peter and his friends (he’s friends with Sammy from Williams, so we’ve been to dinner and a few bars with them).

After the party Darcy and I met up with Sammy and Lisa at an Italian restaurant nearby, La Comédia, which is my new favorite restaurant – cheap and delicious, and if you come visit me, I’ll take you there :o). We walked around Rue Mouffetard after dinner, then went to the Pont des Arts and wandered around. Ended up back in St. Germain, and then just decided to go home…a pretty uneventful evening.

Dimanche, le 18 février

Another late morning, and another run in the Champ de Mars. Then I went to the Jardin des Plantes in the 5^th to meet Sara and Darcy (another 60 degree & sunny day!). It’s a little like a botanical garden – it’s huge, has a zoo, a museum of natural history, a museum of evolution, and is next to the Paris Mosque (another “calm spot”). Like most other gardens in Paris, it was filled with families “promenading.” We were planning to work, but ended up just talking, and reading through Paris guidebooks for the afternoon. Around 4 we left, and went to the Arènes de Lutèce, an old Roman amphitheatre where people come to play soccer and pétanque, and picnic. We met up with Kate & Claire, and talked while watching a group of old guys playing pétanque next to a group of elementary-school boys playing soccer.

Walked around the 5^th a little, went up to the Pantheon, and then walked to the Metro. Came home, practiced, had dinner with the fam, and went to bed early.

Lundi, le 19 février

Woke up at 9, went running in the Champ de Mars, cleaned my room, and headed over to the Marais. Grabbed lunch at l’As du Falafel, waited in line for an hour at the Centre Pompidou library, where I spent the afternoon researching my exposé on Église Saint-Sulpice. After spending 5 hours in the library, I decided it was time for an epic walk…so I walked from Centre Pompidou to my house (which took a good hour and a half). It was dark, so all the buildings were lit up, but still pretty warm. I went a way I had never gone before, which was nice – it was through the 7^th, on Rue du Four/Rue de Sèvres/Rue de Babylone. I discovered what might be the world’s most “chi-chi” grocery store, La Grande Epicerie de Paris (part of Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche). They organize food by countries, and I think I stumbled upon every ex-pat in Paris in the “Tex-Mex” (aka pretzels and guacamole) aisle.

Now I’m back home, about to watch the news with my host dad, have dinner, and either meet up with a few friends at a bar, or go to bed (10:30am TD tomorrow!).

Au Revoir!

Finally Up-to-Date!!!

Samedi, le 3 février

Day trip to Chartres! I woke up early and went running in the Champ de Mars, then met Jen, Sam, and Darcy at Gare Montparnasse to catch a train to Chartres. The train ride was only an hour and twenty minutes, and we were lucky enough to sit in the booth next to about 15 drunk French guys (yes, at noon).

We arrived in the station around 1:30, and walked to the cathedral, which was absolutely beautiful (see pictures on my website – e-mail me if you don’t have the link). We went inside to see the beautiful stained glass, choir, etc. Afterwards we walked outside and saw all the beautiful portals to the cathedral (I was being quite the art history dork, and was very excited about the early gothic vs. high gothic portals that we learned about in 101). It was a beautiful day, so we decided to walk around the town for a bit, and discovered that it is actually much larger than it looks like on the map. We went to a wine store and met a woman who had been an au pair in Boston a few years ago, and she talked us into buying some cheap red wine.

We took the train back around 4:30, and returned to Paris by 6. It was really nice to get away from Paris for the day, and be in a more peaceful setting. That night Darcy and I went out to dinner with our friend Sam from Williams, and some of her friends (some French, some from her program). We went to this Japanese restaurant that her friend wanted to go to, and the dinner was extraordinarily awkward. Everyone was really tired, and the French guys who no one knew very well (they were friends w/one of her friends there) didn’t talk much. After dinner we went to the apartment of one of the guys who lived “nearby” (aka 15 blocks away, and up 6 flights of stairs). We sat around for an hour, until we could finally make a graceful exit (pretending to be texted by friends). Darcy & I ended up meeting up w/some Sweet Briar girls in the 5^th, but everyone was tired from the trip to Chartres, so we went home pretty early.

Dimanche, le 4 février

On Sunday I went to the Marais to meet up with Marcy and Rob, 2 friends of my dad’s from Detroit. We went to the Memorial de la Shoah, the new Holocaust museum. It was a pretty impressive museum that I definitely plan to visit again – they had lots of “primary source” documents/materials including letters, photographs, Jewish stars that Jews wore on their coats, etc. While I already knew most of the history included in the wall text, it was interesting to see how the French presented the material.

Afterwards we walked around the Village St. Paul and ate lunch in a really cute café. Then we went over to Rue des Rosiers in the Marais – part of the Jewish quarter – which was amazing. Most things in Paris are closed on Sundays, but obviously not the Jewish quarter, so the streets were packed with people, and there were lots of street musicians, including a Klezmer band.

It was a gorgeous sunny day, so around 3 I walked over to Notre Dame to meet Darcy. On the first Sunday of every month all national museums and monuments are free, so we wanted to climb the towers of the cathedral…but I think the rest of Paris got the memo that it was free, and the line to climb up went past the back of Notre Dame…so we decided to cough up the 4 euros another time when we wouldn’t have to wait in line for 2 hours.

On Sundays the mayor of Paris closes down the streets that run by the Seine, so Darcy & I decided to go on an epic walk. We walked from Notre Dame to the 7^th, where we had kirs at Café Flores, one of our favorite spots. Afterwards I came home, and we had crepes for dinner! February 2^nd was apparently some holiday celebrating candles and light, and the tradition is to make crepes…but my host parents had dinner with friends on Friday, so we made crepes on Sunday instead. It was really fun – they had this hot-plate that made 4 mini-crepes, so they put it on the table, and you would pour the batter in, flip the crepe, eat it, and while you were eating it you’d start making your next crepe. So you had to work for your meal…and it was worth it! At dinner we had a pretty priceless conversation about the Superbowl – my host father, the soccer & rugby fan, asked me “is that the thing where Janice Joplin…Janice Jackson…Janet Jackson had her ouverture/couverture?” and after figuring out that “ouverture/couverture” means “wardrobe malfunction,” they all started laughing and he said “Oh you Americans, you are such puritans.”

After dinner I went to watch the Superbowl at an Anglophone bar, The Frog and Princess. We met up with this guy Eric who we met a few weeks ago at the Cristal – he’s half-American and half-French, and used to play football for a French team, so he was pretty set on putting together a Superbowl party. We met a lot of his friends, and it was pretty hilarious, bc most of them knew next to nothing about football. He had explained the rules to them earlier that week, and had given them jerseys to wear for the game. So they were decked out in either Bears or Colts clothes, but then they would just root for whichever team was winning (and they made fun of me a lot for rooting for the Bears even as they lost). We were also sitting next to these weird middle-aged guys who work for the US Department of Defense, and they reminded me of why French people “don’t like” Americans – they were loud and obnoxious, made fun of all the French people in the bar, and told Eric he wasn’t “American” because he didn’t grow up in the US.

We took a taxi home after the game (4:30 am…gahhh), and I went to bed right away.

Lundi, le 5 février

I woke up at noon, completely exhausted from the night before. I went running, and that was definitely the end of my productivity for the day. Sara & Darcy came over, we made sandwiches, planned our upcoming trip to Prague, and watched 4 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy (which I am now completely obsessed with…I have bought the first season off of itunes, but refuse to buy more…so I’m not sure how I’ll survive the next few months).

At dinner my host parents made fun of me for coming home so late, and about the Bears losing...it was kind of sad, but also sweet. They always make fun of Pauline because she comes home at 5am on Fridays and Saturdays, so it was nice to be treated in the same way.

Mardi, le 6 février

Woke up early and went for a run in the Champ de Mars, as usual. Also had a super-awkward conversation with my host mom. Tuesday nights the grandkids come over, so we eat dinner an hour later, and depending on who comes to dinner, it can last a long time. Last week it lasted till 11, and she told me that if I ever wanted to go out with friends after dinner on Tuesdays, I should tell her ahead of time and she would prepare dinner for me at 8:30, like a normal night. Well, I asked her if I could eat before 9:30 because I wanted to meet up with friends later, but she thought I was asking her to make me dinner at 10, etc etc. Anyway she finally understood me and everything was fine. But it was awkward, quand même. Then went to Sweet Briar for my Atelier class, where we learned about peut-etre: “Elle Est peut-être à Paris; Peut-être qu’elle est à Paris; Peut-être est-elle à Paris…” and then lots about indefinite & partitive articles.

After Atelier, I went with Darcy and Sara to the 8^th to find weights for them (because gyms are super-expensive). Outside the store we saw this guy chase after his friend and start to beat him up, but 2 policemen were inside the store with us and they ran out and ended the fight. I now have a little more faith in the French policemen. A little.

I came home and my host mom knocked on my door at 8:10 and told me dinner was ready, so I came out a few minutes later to have dinner. Well there were about 8 people having aperitifs in the living room, so I figured that they would all be staying for dinner. I went into the kitchen and thought “that’s odd, she really didn’t make much food for 8 people…well whatever.” So I had a little tortellini and a little salad, and went back to my room to get ready to go out. At 9:15 my host mom comes to my door freaking out that I didn’t eat enough, and then explaining that she had made dinner just for Monsieur, Constance (2^nd oldest sister), me, and her, and not for all 8 people…and then she explained that usually on Tuesdays it is just us 3 for dinner, and that the past month has been “exceptional.” Anyway she made me eat a second dinner, which was sweet and kind of hilarious. We were all laughing about the misunderstanding, which was good, and made me feel a lot less awkward about asking to eat dinner early, etc.

I went out to meet up with Sam, Jen, Kate, Claire, and Darcy at this bar called the Moosehead, which was supposed to be really fun…and it was actually awful. So I learned my lesson – don’t go out on Tuesday nights, and don’t ask Mme to cook dinner early, or you’ll have to eat 2 dinners.

Mercredi, le 7 février

Had my History of Paris through its Monuments class, where we learned more about medieval Paris in the morning, and took a trip to the Musée Nationale du Moyen Âge (Musée de Cluny) in the afternoon. It’s a really amazing museum, with lots of well-preserved medieval art, including the original statues from Notre Dame, some of the original stained glass from the Ste Chapelle, and also the famous Unicorn Tapestries.

After class Darcy and I were both feeling pretty sick, so we went to a student café for a chocolat chaud, and then went to see the new film Molière near Odéon. My host mom adored the movie, and in fact most people who have seen it loved it, but I thought it was so-so. It was funny and clever – the premise was that Molière went to prison, and then got out bc this powerful/rich/old (married) guy wanted Molière to help him write a play to win the heart of some young noblewoman. He stays with the guy but pretends to be a priest named Tartuffe so that the wife doesn’t figure out what he’s really doing there. The story that then unfolds then serves as the inspiration for his play Tartuffe. One of the nice things about seeing movies here is that even if they end up being bad or so-so, at least you got to practice your French. Molière was especially challenging in this respect, since you had to pay very close attention to understand all the plays on words, etc.

After the movie I came home, and around 7pm I heard people coming to the apartment for cocktails. I sat in my room, dreading another huge and awkward family dinner, but I was pleasantly surprised! Bernard (Monsieur)’s mother who is 93, and his brother and the brother’s wife came over for dinner. Instead of being typically exclusive, they were really sweet and kept talking to me, and asking me questions. Mme and Monsieur told them that I “speak French very well, and play the viola very well.” Mme was really cute, and said that every time I practice in my room, she goes to the office (which is attached to my room) to type e-mails and listen to me. The sister-in-law told me that she just got itunes, and loves classical music, so throughout dinner she kept trying to get me to play for her. We had a really good dinner, and I finally felt at ease, which was sooo nice. Afterwards the sister-in-law tried again to get me to play for her, saying “Alexandraaaa you can’t escape me!!!” but I got out of it by saying that I didn’t want to disturb the neighbors, and by promising to play for her next time.

Jeudi, le 8 février

Had Atelier in the morning, where we learned some masculine and feminine suffixes, adjectives, and “tel” and “aussi” (more romantic phrases: “Comment peux-tu sortir avec un tel garçon? Commen peux-tu sortir avec un garçon aussi stupide?”).

After Atelier, Darcy and I walked through the Jardin du Luxembourg and into Saint-Germaine-des-Près in search of lunch. And we found an amazing lunch place – it was this really cute Traiteur Italien, where you could buy a huge box of pasta à emporter for 5 euro. We walked in, and the woman who worked there was really friendly and talkative. Everyone else who came in were regulars, and she knew them by name, which is really unusual here. We took our (delicious and cheesy) pasta and ate in the Jardin, while doing some people-watching.

After lunch I came home and went for a really long run, and returned home as it started to pour rain. I practiced for a while, caught up on some organizational things, and had dinner with the fam. I talked a lot at dinner – I’ve noticed this week that my French has begun to really improve. I felt so comfortable talking to my family, and making conversation. It was a really cool feeling to have my French just sort of kick into high-gear. All week I’ve felt so much more willing to talk to people in stores and talk to my family.

After dinner, since it was Thursday, we went to Le Cristal. An entire club soccer team was there, so we met lots of crazy guys. One of them actually works with Darcy’s host mom, so that was…interesting. Other than the soccer players, Le Cristal was pretty quiet, and we decided to call it an early night.

Vendredi, le 9 février

I had a viola lesson at the Ecole Normale at 10h15, so I had to wake up pretty early. The lesson was actually with Prof Xuereb’s assistant, who I actually might like better. We worked on Bach and Clarke, but she was really helpful with more general ideas about producing sound, and how to hold the viola.

After my lesson I decided to be “creative” and take a different metro home…this backfired, and I ended up walking past about 4 stations before realizing I was walking in the wrong direction. I finally got on the right metro, and headed home for lunch.

At 14h, I went to Sweet Briar, because Mme Grée was giving a tour of the Sorbonne Art History campus. She showed us how to get to the building, where our classes will be, and the library.

After the Sorbonne visit I decided to make my weekly visit to the Louvre, where I saw lots of European sculpture from the middle ages and the Renaissance. It was 5:30, but really nice out, so I went on what turned out to be an epic walk from the Louvre to my house…it didn’t seem that far in principle, but it was, and took over an hour of speed-walking!

I had dinner with my family, and then metro-ed over to Sara’s apartment to watch Grey’s. We were thinking about going to Amiens the next day, so figured we should have a chill night. The metro was kind of ridiculous – first at Segur, I was literally chased by this crazy guy. He followed me around for 10 minutes, and everyone was just staring at this, and not saying anything or making any sort of facial expression (very French). Then at Saint-Lazare, ANOTHER guy started following me, and then walking in circles around me while I waited for line 3. So yea it was a great night for the metro and me.

Samedi, le 10 février

Woke up early, planning to go to Amiens, but Darcy wanted to cancel the trip bc it looked like rain. We were all tired, and ended up sleeping til noon…which was probably better for me than going on a day trip. When I woke up, Mme and Monsieur’s son, FaFou (Francois-Xavier), who works in the US had already arrived. I went out in my running clothes and met him, which was slightly awkward…but whatever. I went running, and then Sara, Darcy, and I met near the Musée d’Orsay, to meet up with some other friends. While the museum usually closes at 18h, it closed at 16h, because the workers were “sort-of on strike” (also very French). Apparently the museum was free, and there were some guards, but I guess not enough, or they just wanted to close early to show their power. Either way, we got there at 15h30, at which point they had stopped admitting visitors.

We ended up going to the Petit Palais (free!) and just looking at their permanent collection for a while. Afterwards we walked over to les Invalides and hung out in the park, doing more people watching. I went home and changed for dinner, and met Sara, Darcy, Jen, Claire, and Kate for dinner in the 13^th (we had heard that restaurants and bars are cheap there, and decided to give it a try). It’s actually a really cool area – it was basically all students, and there were lots of restaurants with 3 course prix-fixe menus for 10-12 euro. It was still pretty early after dinner, so we went to a bar nearby for a drink, but it was kind of lame, and we decided to head back to the 15^th.

We met up with Eric and his friends for a while at the Cristal, but ended up going to the Breguet to see Vincent and his friends. Sara and Darcy wanted to catch the metro home, but I decided to stay since I live so nearby. We ended up going to one of their friend’s apartments, where they were just hanging out playing video games (whattt I thought that was just an American thing). Anyway it was a very French-filled night, and by 4am I was so exhausted that I could not understand another word that any of them said. I went home, expecting to be the last one in, but no. Pauline and FaFou came back at around 6am…hah. Apparently people stay out pretty late in France.

Dimanche, le 11 février

Woke up late (duh), and went running. Met up with Darcy for lunch in the park by her apt, and then went over to Opera to meet Sara. We walked around a bit, but the weather has been absolutely awful (a mix of sun and rain, and constant huge gusts of wind), so we saw a movie called Mon Frère Se Marie…which was sort of like Little Miss Sunshine, except awful. It was one of those movies that I think was sort of hard to understand anyway, but it was really slow, really angsty/sarcastic, and I was exhausted…so it was a bad mix.

After the movie we all needed a pick-me-up, so we went to a Sara’s favorite café near her apt in the 8^th, and had amazing chocolat chaud, while being served by the rudest French waiter yet – think mimicking everything we said, asking if our friend (Darcy) was lost downstairs in the bathroom and proceeding to yell down the stairs, etc. (Darcy’s host mom says that when they’re that rude they’re just trying to be funny…I’m not so sure about that…).

Came home, and had dinner with Mme and Monsieur, FaFou and the son of one of Mme’s sisters. FaFou talked a lot about the US, and it was kind of funny to hear his complaints – things like “bad sandwiches” and “bad cheese.” It’s funny because they make fun of Americans being fat and eating a lot, but then when asked about what constitutes an “American sandwich,” Faf answered that it’s half the size of a French one, and not much bread. Completely true! I’m not complaining, but it’s pretty unbelievable how much white bread people eat here. Faf also kept asking me how he could find “fromage blanc” in the US…apparently the dictionary translates it as “cottage cheese,” and he was very disappointed when he tried cottage cheese.

Lundi, le 12 février (FINALLY UP-TO-DATE!!!!)

Woke up this morning, and went into the kitchen, and Pauline told me that Caroline, the oldest sister, finally gave birth to her baby!!! It’s a boy, his name is Eloi, and he is huge. They called here last night at 2am, Mme came over to their apt, Caro’s water broke at 3, and she had given birth by 5!

Usually Madame does chores on Monday, but since she was busy chez Caro, Pauline was doing all the chores, so I helped her out for a while. I went running, and when I came back, Madame was home, with the two little girls, Selene and Izore (I have no idea how to spell their names. None.), and Arnault. I congratulated them, and then got ready to head out.

Met up with Sara and Darcy at the Centre Pompidou, because we wanted to check out the “library scene” in Paris. We waited in line for 10 minutes, and then got into the library, which was 3 floors, and pretty big. I started researching my oral exposé for my History class, which is in 3 weeks (no big deal, but nice to start early since it’s in French).

After the libes we went over to Sweet Briar to check the room and time for our TDs tomorrow (tomorrow is my first course at the Sorbonne!! It’s the TD (Travaux Dirigée) for my 2 CMs (Cours Magistrale). From there I went to the flower shop to get flowers for Mme, and then I came home. I practiced, wrote this monster-blog, had dinner, and am now here, FINALLY finishing my updating, and getting ready to go to bed. I solemnly swear to never wait this long before updating my blog again, because I never want to write this much in one sitting ever again.

Au Revoir!