joyeux pacques!

hello all! as always, apologies for the lack of updates recently. blogging doesn't seem to be my strong suit.

anyway, today is easter of course. my host family is all out of town this weekend, so i've had the place to myself for the past couple of days and decided to break my sedentary streak and go for a walk since it's been so gorgeous out. i thought i'd share a few photos!







^that's the street corner i live on. fantastic, isn't it?

in other news, i'm heading to barcelona on friday for the weekend and i'm so excited! it'll be my first time leaving paris since i moved over here (unless you count eurodisney, which i visited last weekend). i can't wait to explore a new city- i've never visited spain after all. i can't wait to see all the gaudi architecture as well- i think it's fantastic!

the weekend after that i'm shipping out to rome for a week to visit gillian, alex, and the pope, which will be an adventure and a half, i'm sure. i've got some busy times ahead!

almost like being at home...

wow! i am so awful at this blogging thing! sorry guys, i keep meaning to update this but it keeps slipping my mind. seeing as i've exhausted almost every other method of procrastination, though, i think it's time for another update, don't you?

this week has been fantastic. gillian (http://ciaobella-gmr.blogspot.com/), my dear friend and ex-roommate who is studying abroad in rome at the moment, spent her spring break sleeping on my trundle bed and exploring the city with me. she arrived on tuesday evening and we watched gossip girl, drank sparkling rosé, and ate macarons. when i was in class she'd run errands or go to museums, and we spent the rest of the time shopping, eating, and walking- i think my feet are about to fall off from all the walking we did.

a highlight of the week was our evening at the hemingway bar, which is the famous bar at the ritz hotel. apparently it was hemingway's favorite place to be in the entire world, or at least whenever he visited france. gillian bought me a birthday drink and we basked in the intellectuality of it all. (i have no idea if that is actually a word, which is ironic i suppose.)

other highlights included our night at the queen, which is a dance club on the champs-elysées; rose ice cream at laduree (and everything else at laduree); crepes up at the top of montmartre; posing on top of a subway grate in front of the moulin rouge...



she left yesterday evening, which i then spent catching up on all my tv shows from the weekend (i was too exhausted and too broke to go out). today i went to the petit palais, which is a museum on the avenue de champs-elysées whose permanent collection showcases art nouveau from the 20th century. it was super packed because they just opened an exposition on yves saint laurent (wasn't there one at the de young recently?) but luckily, since i was there for the permanent collection, i was able to bypass all the lines. i am now attempting to convince myself to write the "journal entry" required of me for my art class, which is supposed to be a reflection on my reactions to the pieces i saw in said museum. they weren't all that moving, though- it was mostly plates and chairs and things like that. there were some beautiful vases, though; maybe i'll talk about one of those.







also! my dad is blogging his bike trip in the countryside of new zealand here: http://dave-biketrips.blogspot.com/ check it out!

it's snowing<3

the view out of my classroom window:

homesick.

last night was a lot of fun. i watched nightmare before christmas in french with the twins, and then went out to meet elli and her friends. elli is a friend of one of my friends from usf, and he hooked the two of us up on facebook. she's american but has lived here for quite a while, and along with her i also met bram, lauren, and jaynie, who are studying here for a semester at beaux-arts.


^that's me, jaynie, and bram

we went to a tiny little bar called 'le pantalon' and it was PACKED! we made some french friends, like julien and arnaud and the cryptically-named '05' (seriously, that was his name). it was a great time, but somehow between getting off the metro at ellie's and later getting in a cab to come back home, i lost my wallet. i think i probably left it in the cab- i just got off the phone with the people at wells fargo, cancelling my credit card and one of my debit cards. luckily, i kept one of my debit cards back in my room, so i'm not without money. i did lose my international student identity card (waste of $25) and my ICP identity card, but i think i can get another one pretty easily. it's a learning experience!


this morning i slept in waaaay too late. when i woke up and went downstairs, my host family was having lunch. it was awkward, because the arrangement is that i have breakfast and dinner with them... all i wanted was to grab a piece of bread for breakfast, but i ended up sitting awkwardly with them while their visiting nephew/cousin told stories in rapid french that i'm assuming were hilarious, given the rest of the family's reaction. so i just gunned it back up to my room afterward, and i've been sitting in here all day. i want to go to a patisserie or something but as it's sunday i think everything's closed.

it wasn't really that bad, but the awkwardness about lunch plus the language barrier plus not having close friends here just all added up today...it doesn't help that my internet is acting up and it's just another thing on top of it all. i'm skyping with my mom later tonight, so that should help a little bit :) i'm just really starting to realize how foreign this country is...

also i'm reeeeeally hungry.

some pictures

raspberry macaroon with rose creme fraiche at l'audrée

the chagall ceiling at l'opera

a letter written by sartre at an autograph shop on rue bonaparte

don't remember who did this but the proportions stuck out to me.

and of course, degas and his dancers. my favorite.

host cat~

KITTEH