4 juillet-- bon fête nationale pour les americains!
Bonjour!
I am absolutely exhausted yet again (the never-ending stairs around here are getting to me... I feel like I'm continuously on a stairmaster at the gym for hours and hours) but I promised an update tonight so that is what I will do, starting with yesterday:
3 juillet--
Yesterday, my morning class was fine. The afternoon class, however, was a nightmare. The building that my schedule said the class was in is waaaaay down and around the block, so I walked down there and when I got there, zero people. Waited until about 5 til 2:00pm then went back to the main office. They said, "oh your tuesday and thursday classes must've gotten swapped, so go to the tuesday class now." Of course, that building was right next to the first one I went to, so I had to go alllllllll the way back over there. And of course, the 25 minutes that it rained yesterday is the 25 minutes that it took to sort all this BS out. So I get to that class, and it's the right professor but wrong class. She's like, "oh no, you're in my oral class, not my writing class! oral is on tuesday!" so I went back AGAIN to the front office where they FINALLY looked me up in the computer and apparently the class got changed randomly and no one felt the need to let me know this. Once I get to the class they have me in it's now about 1/2 hour after the time I was originally supposed to be there. My feet hurt and are getting blisters from being wet in the rain, I'm tired from walking all the way down and around the block and back TWICE, and to top it off, the writing class they gave me is still not the level I'm supposed to be at. I'm at intermediate 1 and the writing class is intermediate 2. I'm not very good at writing in French at all (Marie is way better than me) yet they gave her an elementary 2 writing class. WTF, Institut Catholique, wtf? I'm a little concerned about that class being too hard for me, but Dr. Morris said I should just stick it out since he is the one that gives our grades and he will be basing the vast majority on our basic M-F class anyway (the writing is only on thursday afternoons, the oral is only on tuesday afternoons, the one everyday is just la langue française where we work on everything).
After school, we went to the Musée D'Orsay, which is a museum of art from the mid 1800's to about 1914. It was really awesome, and there are pictures up on the post from last night. We went because it stays open late on Thursday nights, and it's reduced price (5.50 euros instead of 7.20). Marie and I had a great time but were definitely ready to go by the time we did. We were starving (we skipped dinner at the dorm to go) so we stopped at a Greek place and got really awesome chicken pitas with drink and fries for about 6 euros.
4 juillet--
At breakfast this morning, the nuns had decorated for us for the 4th of July. The picture of the card they sent us is in the "random" pictures album on facebook (link in previous post). They also gave us each a free postcard, which I gladly took because they are expensive here! Morning class was fine, we listened to a cool French song and had to decipher the lyrics, and did some activities about feminine and masculine adjectives. Pretty cool. After lunch (2pm), Marie and I went to the Arc de Triomphe, since it was such a pretty day today. It was freaking massive, and the pictures are on facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2246483&l=2916b&id=7017887
Then we got back to the dorm and hung out for a little bit and then took the metro up to the Louvre (it's free for young people after 6pm, closed at 9:45) and I just have to say Holy Freakin Cow!!! There are like no words to fully express the epicness of that place. We saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo!!! Pictures will be edited into this post later tonight so keep an eye out for them. They will be up on facebook shortly too, so if you are my friend on there, you can go there to see them too. Pictures for the Louvre here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2246489&l=e8ba9&id=7017887
Le Week-end--
Tomorrow it is supposed to rain, so we are going to the catacombs which is this underground tunnel where they moved thousands of bodies to after the cemeteries of Paris started overflowing in the 1800's. There's skulls and bones lining the walls, and it's badass. We didn't want to spend a pretty day underground, so we're going tomorrow when the weather's supposed to be crap. Sunday, since it's the first sunday of the month, most museums (including the Louvre) are free so we are going back to it (we maybe saw a quarter of it today, but probably not even that much). But we did see the big stuff (ML, VdM) so we can skip those on Sunday which is where the biggest crowds will be anyway. More pictures to come!!
À demain!
Kaylin
I am absolutely exhausted yet again (the never-ending stairs around here are getting to me... I feel like I'm continuously on a stairmaster at the gym for hours and hours) but I promised an update tonight so that is what I will do, starting with yesterday:
3 juillet--
Yesterday, my morning class was fine. The afternoon class, however, was a nightmare. The building that my schedule said the class was in is waaaaay down and around the block, so I walked down there and when I got there, zero people. Waited until about 5 til 2:00pm then went back to the main office. They said, "oh your tuesday and thursday classes must've gotten swapped, so go to the tuesday class now." Of course, that building was right next to the first one I went to, so I had to go alllllllll the way back over there. And of course, the 25 minutes that it rained yesterday is the 25 minutes that it took to sort all this BS out. So I get to that class, and it's the right professor but wrong class. She's like, "oh no, you're in my oral class, not my writing class! oral is on tuesday!" so I went back AGAIN to the front office where they FINALLY looked me up in the computer and apparently the class got changed randomly and no one felt the need to let me know this. Once I get to the class they have me in it's now about 1/2 hour after the time I was originally supposed to be there. My feet hurt and are getting blisters from being wet in the rain, I'm tired from walking all the way down and around the block and back TWICE, and to top it off, the writing class they gave me is still not the level I'm supposed to be at. I'm at intermediate 1 and the writing class is intermediate 2. I'm not very good at writing in French at all (Marie is way better than me) yet they gave her an elementary 2 writing class. WTF, Institut Catholique, wtf? I'm a little concerned about that class being too hard for me, but Dr. Morris said I should just stick it out since he is the one that gives our grades and he will be basing the vast majority on our basic M-F class anyway (the writing is only on thursday afternoons, the oral is only on tuesday afternoons, the one everyday is just la langue française where we work on everything).
After school, we went to the Musée D'Orsay, which is a museum of art from the mid 1800's to about 1914. It was really awesome, and there are pictures up on the post from last night. We went because it stays open late on Thursday nights, and it's reduced price (5.50 euros instead of 7.20). Marie and I had a great time but were definitely ready to go by the time we did. We were starving (we skipped dinner at the dorm to go) so we stopped at a Greek place and got really awesome chicken pitas with drink and fries for about 6 euros.
4 juillet--
At breakfast this morning, the nuns had decorated for us for the 4th of July. The picture of the card they sent us is in the "random" pictures album on facebook (link in previous post). They also gave us each a free postcard, which I gladly took because they are expensive here! Morning class was fine, we listened to a cool French song and had to decipher the lyrics, and did some activities about feminine and masculine adjectives. Pretty cool. After lunch (2pm), Marie and I went to the Arc de Triomphe, since it was such a pretty day today. It was freaking massive, and the pictures are on facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2246483&l=2916b&id=7017887
Then we got back to the dorm and hung out for a little bit and then took the metro up to the Louvre (it's free for young people after 6pm, closed at 9:45) and I just have to say Holy Freakin Cow!!! There are like no words to fully express the epicness of that place. We saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo!!! Pictures will be edited into this post later tonight so keep an eye out for them. They will be up on facebook shortly too, so if you are my friend on there, you can go there to see them too. Pictures for the Louvre here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2246489&l=e8ba9&id=7017887
Le Week-end--
Tomorrow it is supposed to rain, so we are going to the catacombs which is this underground tunnel where they moved thousands of bodies to after the cemeteries of Paris started overflowing in the 1800's. There's skulls and bones lining the walls, and it's badass. We didn't want to spend a pretty day underground, so we're going tomorrow when the weather's supposed to be crap. Sunday, since it's the first sunday of the month, most museums (including the Louvre) are free so we are going back to it (we maybe saw a quarter of it today, but probably not even that much). But we did see the big stuff (ML, VdM) so we can skip those on Sunday which is where the biggest crowds will be anyway. More pictures to come!!
À demain!
Kaylin