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!

soooooorryyyyyy....

sorry everyone! i've been so caught up in everything that's happening here that i've neglected my blog. now that my three weeks of hell are over, i'm readying myself for the start of the actual semester. it actually began today, but as i've avoided having class on mondays, it begins for me at 10AM sharp.

since i'm an idiot, back at USF i registered for 21 hours of classes, something i'm regretting now... it shouldn't be too bad, though. on tuesdays, thursdays, and fridays, i have a french language/grammar class in the mornings, and then tuesday through friday evenings i'm taking different cultural classes: french cinema, written french, contemporary literature, and art from the renaissance up through impressionism.

i've managed to make a bunch of friends outside of my classes, which is really nice. my friend patrick from usf connected me with his friend elli, who's been living here for three years. through her i met a bunch of american students that are studying at beaux-arts for a semester, and we've been going out every weekend. i've made some french friends as well, who love practicing their english with me (which is annoying, since my aim in being here is to speak in french).

i haven't done much sightseeing since i've been here, aside from two trips to the musée d'orsay and one to the louvre. i haven't really even done much shopping... my purse's zipper broke on thursday, so i've been frantically searching for a purse but so far it's been to no avail, thanks to my budget. what i have been doing, though, is just experiencing daily life in paris; riding the metro and getting lunch at the patisseries and waiting in line forEVER at monoprix (which is like target+safeway combined). what i love about the parisian lifestyle is that, although everyone has a destination, there's no rush to get there. unlike americans, who overplan every second of their day and are always in a hurry to get somewhere a few seconds quicker, parisians don't mind waiting for things. it's something i've grown to appreciate.

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.

week one: complete

i have been SO. BUSY. this past week! waking up at 7 every morning, in class from 9 to 5 (with a two hour lunch break)... it's like having a real job. it's intense. we've been focusing primarily on grammar, of course on the two tenses that i hate the most and never use (subjunctive and conditional). but i'm making friends with some of the kids in my class, which is pretty cool.

last night i had made sort-of-plans to go to the louvre with two girls named sarah and taylor, since for whatever reason it was free for university students. when i got there, it turns out that the girls thought it closed at 8 so didn't go, which left me wandering around the louvre by myself listening to holst's "the planets" on my iphone. it was an amazing experience and i'm actually glad it's something i did by myself; i felt sort of ethereal, floating from hall to hall in a near-empty museum. when it closed at 10 i grabbed some food at the nicest mcdonald's i've ever seen, and made my way over to the champs-elysees, which is the metro stop closest to taylor's apartment.

after about an hour of wandering, i finally found it off on some side street that i didn't even know was there. it was a little frustrating that i couldn't find it, and by the time i got there i was so tired, but like i said there's something sort of romantic about wandering the streets of paris by yourself. especially when you don't have a map.

(i can just see my mom cringing at the thought)

anyway, it's raining right now and i'm doing laundry. sandrine's nephew whose name i don't remember is visiting. he's a student at edinborough (sp?) university and when i walked downstairs in my pj's this morning he was sitting at the computer with no shirt on (!)

which reminds me that every. single. french. man. at my school is positively gorgeous and it's driving me crazy! yesterday i saw this guy who is a dead ringer for a young bob dylan... it's uncanny. i think if i see him again i am going to ask to take his picture.

toute seule

mom and dad left this morning at 9am, which means that i saw them last night for the last time for five months. it was definitely very emotional; although i've been at university for a year and a half, they've always been but an hour away. now--if i'm homesick i just have to tough it out, i suppose.

luckily, gillian is visiting me in march so i'll get a little taste of home then :)

today was my second day of classes. it's 6 hours of french a day; from 9h-12h and then again from 14h-17h. it's exhausting. i've got 13 classmates. they're mostly american, but there's also a handful of asian girls, a guy from venezuela who is the only one younger than me, and also a scottish girl and a guy from yemen (random). i went to lunch with maggie, who is from connecticut, today. carlos the venezuelan has been living here since september and walked us to the best (and cheapest) pâtisserie in the area, winking at us as he left to meet a friend. caleb, the floridan with an awesome creole accent, got coffee with me yesterday during one of our short breaks. his parents are haitian, and apparently although the official language of haiti is french, everyone speaks creole, which is different enough for him to have to learn french despite creole being his first language.

once i get around to plugging in my camera, i'll post a couple snapshots of my room. i haven't brought my camera out at all; it's so bulky and i have way too much in my purse already, since i refuse to use a backpack.

anyway, i need to finish my grammar exercises before i go to sleep. i wanted to catch up on my shows tonight but i spent so much time downloading them that i only had time to watch project runway.... oh well! i know it's only 1:30 at home, but goodnight!

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

a post from sunday night

still no internet. i will put this up when i can eventually get wifi working.
i went to the musee d'orsay with my parents yesterday, and it was fantastic. i've got a bit of a degas obsession, so it was absolutely fantastic getting to see so many of his dancers in one spot!
there was a special exhibit going on while we were there called 'art nouveau,' which centered on the sort of psychedelic surrealism of the 60s and 70s. in a side room labelled 'psychedelisme,' the walls were covered in concert posters and album covers and the like. one of the posters turned out to be from the fillmore in san francisco, advertising a yardbirds show in 1967 that my dad had gone to! to quote him, you know you're getting old when you can revisit your youth in a french museum...

we went to a cool little jazz club that night with tim ryan, who is the founder of m-audio and an old friend of my dad's. the atmosphere in this place is great! scribbles and album covers decorate the walls, and there was a piano player, bassist, and singer/trumpeter playing all night.

today, i met up with my parents again and we walked from their new hotel in the 6th (i think) down to the louvre, up to the opera house, and back around. we didn't stop in the louvre, but we went inside the opera house and did a self-guided tour. i was absolutely overwhelmed by all of the ornate, gilded, painted, carved, and molded art that covered the walls from floor to ceiling!

it was particularly special for me because ever since i can remember there has been a print of chagall's ceiling hanging above the couch in my family's living room. it was breathtaking in person; the colors were much more vibrant and vivacious than i could have ever imagined.

we had dinner with tim ryan again tonight, at his family's apartment (which happened to be down the street from my parents' hotel). his place is absolutely beautiful, but the best part was his amazing art collection. he focuses on surrealism, and tries to collect pieces from the artists that are still living on from that period. his pieces were all beautiful and the stories that went along with them were fantastic as well.

and now here i am, needing to sleep because i start my first day of classes tomorrow at 9AM.... oh dear. wish me luck!

an update from saturday morning

i moved into my host family's home last night. they live on the fifth floor of this great old building on the avenue de versailles, which is in the 16th district of paris. they're great people; the mother, sandrine, is in school for web marketing, but still finds time to prepare AMAZING meals for her three children and their friends. there are two twins, clara and valentin, who are 13, and an older sister ines, who is 16. last night sandrine's boyfriend arnold was over for dinner as well; the two of them prepared chili con carne (yum!) and an amazing apple crumble that i positively devoured. during dinner all the siblings and their friends were talking so quickly that it was really difficult for me to follow along; sandrine and arnold made an effort to speak slowly, which i appreciated. arnold even offered to give me cooking lessons! after dinner i hung out with ines and her friend whose name escapes me. they were much better about speaking slowly and repeating themselves... i feel like an infant sometimes, it's frustrating. they like all the same music and movies as i do, which is pretty cool. i conked out pretty early though; i was exhausted.

my room is actually on the seventh floor, which can only be accessed by a stairway inside their apartment. this is an old apartment building so the 6th and 7th floors are what used to be the maids' quarters. there are several rooms up here; mine is a single room with a bed, desk, armoire/etc, as well as my own sink and shower. there is a communal toilet on the floor as well. it's almost like a dorm, except i don't know any of the others that live here, and i'm much more a part of the family downstairs.

the bed isn't too comfortable but i hope to find a mattress pad today. the shower turned cold halfway through so i didn't get to condition, but i think there's a knob somewhere that will allot more hot water to my room. the walls are overwhelmingly white, but i plan on finding some posters or pictures or something.

sorry everyone!

i promise i'm not dead!!!! I've been having trouble connecting to the internet in my apartment so I haven't been able to blog to my full potential. i've been writing everything down, though, and will try to post it all up tonight because i think i've finally got it figured out.

right now i'm sitting in cafe mirabeau, which is on the corner of my block and right above the metro line I took to school this morning. we're about to head off to a chocolatier/pattiserie that Steven Rothfeld says we MUST visit for macaroons and cafe creme...yum!

arrival

tonight is my first night in paris. we arrived after a pleasantly uneventful flight, got stuck in traffic on the way into the city, and checked into our lovely little hotel (which is entirely dedicated to henri iv) in the quartier latin. walking down to a little bistrot for dinner, all i could notice was bookstore after bookstore along the street; luckily they were all closed or i would have dragged my parents into each one!

it's freezing out but i love it, because i get to bundle up in my wool coat and huge scarf. after dinner (i had lamb and pasta), we walked up and down a few streets, stumbling upon a church my dad had heard of with supposedly perfect acoustics, and picked up fliers for the bach recital tomorrow night and the chopin on monday.

we also found the 'manga cafe,' which instantly awakened the 15-year-old in me that would listen to japanese rock and cuddle up with a pile of comic books every night. their collection was insane; every manga i had ever heard of and so much more (plus a wii and guitar hero and wifi and everything you could ever need)! i ended up buying vol. 3 of a comic called 'the kurosagi corpse delivery service' that i used to read in high school.

the best part is that they were all translated into french!

anyway, now i'm back in the hotel and messing around on the free wifi, resisting sleep even though i've been awake for about 40 hours and am SO TIRED.



also: at the airport i bought 'nightlight,' which is the harvard lampoon's parody of the vampire series 'twilight,' and it was hilarious! everyone should read it. seriously.

t-minus three days.

so have i mentioned that i am moving to paris? yes. i am. on WEDNESDAY.

i am moving to paris on wednesday.



after weeks of anxiety, i finally learned where i will be living for the next five months. my french host family has a fifth floor apartment on the avenue de versailles, a bit farther from school than i expected but still in a great little area.

two doors down from my building is the 'restaurant san francisco,' which i find ironic yet strangely comforting. (oh, how i love google maps' street view function!)



so at the moment i'm procrastinating; i've done three loads of laundry and have one more + all the handwashing i need to do, and then it's PACKING TIME. i have two humongous red suitcases (the lightest in the world!) sitting on my bed, positively gaping at me.

time to get things done, i suppose!