It's been a while...

Back by popular demand: Larry's blog!

So I've been a complete slacker and done what I had hope I wouldn't do: stop writing in the blog halfway through the semester. You know it's one of those things where one weeks goes by, you get slightly discouraged, another week goes by, you get even more discouraged, and then it's a month and a half later, and you're pissed you let it happen. But that said, I am going to attempt to resurrect this thing, so you can keep track of my last month here in Paris.

So, as can be expected, a lot has happened since I last wrote: Amsterdam, my mom, London, my best friend, my penpal, and everything else that goes on while I'm in Paris.

Amsterdam was quite cool to visit. It's a city where bicycles and trams rule the streets, where marijuana and prostitution are legal. I visited the Van Gogh museum, which was really interesting because it was laid out in a very intriguing manner. It documented the different stages of his life, and all his works were organized in chronological order. It was nice to see more of his work than just Starry Night and his self portrait. I also went to the Anne Frank museum and walked through the house where she and her family hid during the Holocaust. I was incredibly moved, walking through the legendary bookshelf doorway and standing in the rooms where the lived before they were taken off to concentration camps. There was a ghostly feeling to the building, but at the same time, it felt like there was some sort of peace, that the souls of the people were glad that their story was being told.

The following weekend, my mom came to visit, which was absolutely great! Being her first time in Europe, her trip opened her eyes to so many things she had never seen before. I loved watching her eyes light up as we walked past Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe. Despite our three attempts to climb the Eiffel Tower, we were never able to due to the large crowds. I was really excited to share with her this city that has become such a huge part of my life.

Then I went to London for my birthday to spend it with my best friend Nick! It was an amazing weekend! We went to the Absolut Ice Bar, where everything from the bar to the seats to the classes were made entirely of ice! The put us in the thermal cloaks to keep us warm and we had 40 minutes to relish the occasion that was like nothing else. We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out and watching Ratatouille! What an incredible movie!! I had a wonderful time! Then two weeks later, Nick came to visit me in Paris! Like in London, we spent a lot of quality time hanging out and talking. We had an evening at the Louvre, and then some meals with my host family who absolutely adores him. :-)

Then last weekend, I went to visit the family of the penpal with whom I started to write back in 8th grade. I've been keeping in contact with her sister, and so I went to visit them outside of Lyon for the weekend. It was great to see them again after two years! We had several meals together and spent Saturday in Valence, where my penpal Mathilde lives and works now. It was a fun weekend and nice to see them again!

And finally, tomorrow I'm off on my Italian adventure with my friend Eugenia! We're taking the couchette overnight train to Venice, and from there visiting Florence and Rome. I am really excited and plan to see a ton of things! I'll fill you all in when I return!

Again, I'm sorry for anyone who has been awaiting an update (ie. Marg...), and I will try to keep up during the rest of my stay!

La campagne

Yesterday, Mimi wanted to take me out of the city and show me around the French countryside. So we got in the car (my first time in over six weeks!) and took off for the campagne.

She drove us through some old villages whose cobblestone streets were lined with picturesque, centuries old houses. Although the weather wasn't particularly beautiful, it was still stunning to see these buildings that are over a hundred years old. It all had such a particularly French feeling to it (imagine that). It was just very interesting, stunning even, to see buildings that resemble nothing back home. There was so much character to them.

Then she took me to a 19th century château where her daughter had her wedding in September 2006. Gorgeous. It was set on a property of several acres, with a pond complete with geese. It just seemed like a perfect place to have a wedding. I mean, who wouldn't want to get married at a château, right? There was a big banquet hall where they had the reception, which Mimi had beautifully decorated. There were also stables where the owners of the property keep their horses. It really was gorgeous.

Other than that, this weekend was pretty relaxing. On Saturday, I went to the library with Eugenia to get some work done, which was a nice change of pace from my inability to get work done in my house. It's like that back at home, too; I just can't concentrate when I'm not in a working environment. Oh well, I always seem manage :-)

I'm also starting to get excited for our trip to Amsterdam this weekend (besides the fact that we're taking a seven hour bus ride there and back). There are a lot of things there that I'm looking forward to seeing: the Anne Frank house, the Van Gogh museum, among other things. It should be a lot of fun, and I really enjoy the people who are going. The only problem is that it's a huge group (nine people), and huge groups are often the best. But it'll all work out and be a great weekend!

In any case, I've gotta get going. Since I'm not on my computer at home, I can't add pictures from this weekend, but I'll be sure to later. Ciao!

Longtemps...

My sincere apologies to anyone who's been frantically checking to see if I've made any updates. I know I must be so popular that I have the whole world wondering where I've gone ;-) But worry not, everything is going wonderfully.

I was thinking about why I haven't written in a while. It's mainly because, you know, at first, I had a million new things happening to me all at once. It was barely possible to keep track of all of them. And then as time went on, my activities became more regular, which I think is pretty cool. I'm adapting to this French way of life so that it's not all brand new to me anymore. Also, I've mainly been going to class and coming home and going out every once in a while.

So one thing that's really been bothering me since I've been here is the fact that we don't have a dryer, just a washer. I hate to be an energy waster, but I have some clothes that simply need to be dried or else they'll be forever stretched out. So I went on a mission to find a laundromat so I could dry the clothes that needed to be dried. And it was successful! So this morning, I put my clothes in the washer so they'd be ready when I came home for my Monday/Wednesday mid-day break, and when I got home, I carted them in Mimi's caddy a few streets down to the laundromat. I had also bought a nice Bounce substitute, and I must say I was quite pleased with the results. I'm not going to do it every time I do laundry, but maybe every other. I feel like a stupid American doing it, though... oh well.

So this past weekend I had a little bit of a disaster. We decided to go to a discothèque on Friday night, which turned out to be a lot of fun! In order to catch the metro before it closed, we left at about 1:15. However, when we got to the station, we were told that it had already closed! So we went to the bus stop to check on the night bus schedule, and that just wasn't going to work out. A few French kids waiting there also said just to take a taxi, but I didn't want to pay for that. My friend Emily also had to get home, too but she doesn't live anywhere close to me. Eventually, we decided that we were going to walk, but of course I wouldn't let her walk alone, so I went with her and decided I would just sleep there. We walked all the way from Charles de Gaulle - Etoile to her house, near Nation... which was about 7 kilometers... we didn't get to her house until after 3:00, and we just went straight to sleep! Now the following morning, she didn't want to have to explain to her host mother why she had a boy in her bed, so I played fugitive for about an hour until they left for the market. By playing fugitive, I mean hiding out in her room and on her balcony! Let's just say it was interesting.

Then on Saturday night, I went out with Chloé and her boyfriend for the evening. We get a long really wonderfully, and dinner was really nice; we had crêpes for dinner and dessert. I hadn't really liked crêpes salées (the salty, meal ones), but this time it was so good! Then after was chocolate and banana!

Speaking of crêpes, it's so hard for me to resist them when I walk past a stand. They are just so so so good with nutella and banana. Eugenia and I are addicted. I think desserts are what I am addicted to the most here: crêpes, pâtisseries, mousse au chocolat. They're just so good anywhere, everywhere, all the time! I have no come across a bad dessert since I've been here.

D'accord, il faut que je vous laisse, mais je vais essayer d'écrire plus souvent!

Petites choses

One of the things I really love about being here is discovering the differences between French and American cultures. When I first got here, it was all about the big things: the toilet separate from the rest of the bathroom, the tub with the shower head and no curtain, dinner regularly at 8:30 pm. But now that I've been here for a while, I'm starting to notice (or be informed of) things a little more subtle. For example, last night at dinner, Mimi asked why I kept my left hand at my side or on my lap while I ate. I explained to her that when I was young, my mom would constantly tell me to keep my arms off the table and that it was sort of rude to eat like that. Mimi found this odd because apparently in France, it's rude to keep your hand off the table and that you should always rest your arm/wrist on the edge of the table! So from now on, I'm going to keep my wrist on the edge of the table while I eat.

I love finding about these little nuances that make a culture what it is!

Changement!

So, we found out yesterday that there are entirely too many people registered for the translation course, something like 22. So the academic adviser came in to our class to tell us that they're going to form a second section, and that it would be in the afternoon and not in the morning.

This got me excited because there's a course at the Institut Catholique de Paris that I wanted to take. We have the option to take classes at several outside universities, including the ICP and the Sorbonne. The class that interested me was French Grammar... I know it sounds dorky, but everyone knows about my fascination with language, and this is a grammar and linguistics course, so pretty much right up my alley. My adviser also suggested for me not to take it in fear that it might be too difficult. Besides, it conflicted with Translation. But when I heard that I might actually be able to take it, I decided to give it another shot asking her! She agreed after my request to let me take it. I figured, if it's too hard, I can just drop it, and if it's just challenging enough, I can get a tutor at IES to help me if I need it.

The only problem with it is that it's at 8:00 am.

...

Luckily it's only one day a week, but of course it had to be Tuesday! In addition to the two hour lecture class in the morning, in the afternoon I have the TD (which stands for travaux dirigés), which is sort of like a TA session but more intense. After the TD, I have to truck it to the Cité Universitaire for the chorale rehearsal! Tuesdays are going to be quite long, I imagine...

I also had to drop the Paris Museums class to make room for Translation, which is fine because I'd rather be doing this new class anyway.

Right now, I'm home on my nice three and a half hour break between classes. It's definitely a good thing to be able to come home and eat rather than go out to eat or grab a baguette sandwich on the go. That stuff definitely starts to add up!

Family dinner tonight! Haven't had one in quite a while.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Beaucoup d'activité!

Wow, looking back, it's been quite a while since I last wrote, and a lot has happened since then!

I ended up going to the Musée d'Orsay on Thursday with the group from IES. It was really great because we went on a guided tour, and I have to say, our tour guide knew a lot! The entire museum is filled with the art of people who went against the grain in the 19th century, creating works that were beyond the realm of comprehension for the people of their time. It's a weird feeling after seeing all these famous pieces of art in pictures and in replicas and then finally seeing them in real life. Like the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, it's kind of surreal that I had Monet's water lilies and Degas' ballerinas in front of me.

Then on Friday, we went to the Père Lachaise cemetery, where famous people like Edith Piaf, Molière, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison all rest. I find cemeteries relaxing. I guess it's kind of like knowing that all the people there are resting peacefully. I don't know, maybe that's kind of weird. We also had our own personal tour there, too. Our friend Celeste had gone the previous weekend, and one of the guards showed her around, so when we came, he took us around, too. So that was nice not having to navigate on our own and being taken exactly where we wanted to go. In the corner, there were memorials for the people who died in the concentration camps during WWII, which all really moved me a lot.

Over the weekend, we did more walking and the like and went out on the town, but nothing else too exciting.

Mimi had been gone for about five days, and I got really excited when she came back. She's so nice and we get along really, really well. I also spent some time with Chloé while Mimi was gone. My family is really great.

But I do miss my family at home. I try to talk to them every once in a while, but it's just not the same as seeing them. Yesterday there was a suicide bombing in Israel, the first in over a year, and although I know Michelle isn't there and wasn't harmed, it still made me worried. I hope she's having fun with those cows on the kibbutz!

Tonight I've got my chorale rehearsal. The conductor is really funny and reminds me a lot of Mr. Brown. It's nice to be back in a chorus; I've really missed it. I've missed singing in general, actually. Aurélie's husband is a singer/actor, so I should talk to him and see if there's anything I can get involved with on his end.

I've got class soon, so I've gotta run.

Ciao!

So tired

I'm finding that I'm always tired. I wake up in the morning, and I'm tired. I go through the day, and I'm tired. I get home at night, and I'm tired. It can't be that I'm still jet-lagged... I've been in Europe for almost two weeks now. I think all the walking we've been doing is what's getting to me. Seriously, we walk so much everyday, just exploring different parts of the city. Also, spending the day speaking and listening to French is tiring. It takes a lot more concentration that I had thought... I realized it the most last week when I was pretty much falling asleep standing up, and I pretty much had no idea what was going on. I just have to remember that I do actually have class at 9:00, so I need to get my sleep.

On a nicer note: I joined a chorus! I saw a poster up at the IES center advertising for the chorale at the Cité Universitaire, so I went and asked about it. I had an audition that night (Tuesday), and by audition, I mean I sang some scales. Then I stayed for their rehearsal. We have practice every Tuesday night from 8:00 to 10:30, and the first concert is on March 14. The concert has a waltz theme, and we're singing some pretty well-known tunes from things like La Traviata and The Merry Widow. It's pretty cool because the Cité Universitaire is where all the international students studying in Paris live and hang out and stuff, so the chorale is full of people from all over the world. The girl who brought us four IES students actually is an American girl who works at IES. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought she was French. She speaks impeccably and is so comfortable and familiar with the culture. I hope one day I'll be like that.

I wish that I spoke in French more often with my friends when it's just us. We tend to resort to English, and it has now become the default for us when we're off on our own. I think originally we would do it just because it was easier, but now I think we kind of consider it our only option, even though that's clearly not the case. I think I might suggest that we speak in French more often.

Oh! I also have my class schedule:

Translation
French Cinema and Society
Introduction to French Literature
Paris Museums
Theatre and Representation

I'm really excited about all of them!

Yesterday, a couple of us went to the Louvre for just a little bit. I was saying that I wish I had more of an appreciation for art. Sure, things can be pretty and well depicted and things like that, but I don't really know what else to think about them or how they can be interpreted. That's one reason I'm looking forward to the museum class; I have a feeling it's going to give me a little bit more insight on art appreciation.

I'm going to try to go to the Musée D'Orsay tonight because it's free for anyone under the age of 25! I've wanted to go all the other times I was here but never had the chance.

So, I'm going to Amsterdam on March 6 for the weekend! We're taking a bus (...because it's cheap) overnight and just going to explore. All the people I've talked to who have been there before say it's a really fun city, so I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Mimi is in the mountains until Tuesday... I wish I could have gone with her!

Oh, and I'm still not over the fact that the Euro is worth about $1.50. Really annoying...

I have to head out to a meeting with someone at the IES center. Hope whoever is reading this is enjoying it. :-)

A bientôt!