paris update
Hello!
It’s me again, once more. I have survived a full week with my family and life is good. I am so happy with where I am and my family is incredibly nice. I lucked out so much! Not only do I have a very friendly family who doesn’t make fun of my accent, but I also have wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee), a dryer (this is uncommon because electricity is apparently rather expensive), and a balcony! Okay, so the balcony is small and looks out over a small courtyard across to other apartment buildings, but it’s still really cool to say I have a balcony. There are also 3 very large cats who all love to come into my room at 7 am and make a lot of noise. This happens because the door handles are levers, which the cats can turn by jumping up and pushing down the lever…thus giving them access to the rooms. However, they are rather impolite cats as they do not close the doors behind them, instead leaving my door open for all the family to see into my room. Besides that, they are incredibly loud when they open doors. It’s just not nice. And yet, they make up for it when they curl up beside me at night as I fall asleep, listening to their purring. Then, once I have fallen into a wonderful sleep, they decide to leave and wake me up with the noise of their opening the door. It's fabulous.
Anyways, enough of the cats. I have fallen in love with Paris. Excluding metro line 4 north of Reaumur-Sebastapol, the rest of it as far as I know is rather wonderful (for those curious, the northern end of line 4 is something like Paris’ version of Brooklyn-it’s all people of African descent and arabs-read: scary for short white girls). I love the Latin Quarter with the Luxembourg Gardens and small streets that are good for shopping, eating, and enjoying a night out. The Bastille area is also pretty cool-that’s where you go for a happening night out. As for Montmartre, I went to Sacre Coeur with a friend on Saturday afternoon after visiting the Cluny museum in the Latin Quarter. We actually found it coming up the back way after wandering through a beautiful little park (where I had my friend take a picture of me which I really like-available in an attachment). Up in Montmartre, we had several amazing little finds…and one not so good one. The not so good one was the dinner we ate. After wandering around Montmartre for a few hours, we got hungry and found a small, cheap restaurant. Our first clue that it wasn’t good should have been the price…it was cheap...very cheap. Second, we should’ve noticed the red velvet walls. Well, we did, it's just that we at first thought they were quaint. Yes, this place actually had red velvet patterned wall paper. Thankfully, the dessert (chocolate ice cream) was good. I mean it was good. I just wouldn’t recommend going back to the restaurant simply for the ice cream-it wasn’t that good. As for the good finds, my friend (Katelyn Fischetti from Elon) and I decided to check out the little church in the shadows of Sacre Coeur--Eglise Saint Pierre. It is a beautiful little church with an adorable father and some great artwork. Katelyn and I wandered in just after Mass had finished and the father was standing by the doors. When she and I came in, we said hello to him (in French) and he took our hands and asked us what country we came from. After we told him we came from the US, he said in broken English, “I no speak-a English.” We quickly assured him that it was okay because we spoke some French. He then blurted out, “etudiantes?!” (students?). After that, he became distracted by someone else and Katelyn and I slipped away. However, we both want to go back to a service there sometime and maybe meet the father (Father Zabiega as we later found out) again. Small bit of trivia: I learned from one of my host sisters that the eldest daughter of my host family was married at that church a couple of years ago. Pretty cool, huh?
Wandering around Montmartre, we also walked over to the Moulin Rouge just to see it. A bit disappointing, but the surrounding area is very…lively, shall we say. At the very least, if you have any problems with the porno industry, stay away from this area.
In other news, I spent a lovely Friday evening with Kat Lynn (a friend from high school who was in Paris for a few days on her way to school in Ireland). She and I also hung out Thursday, eating dinner together and generally talking. On Friday, we met up and wandered through the Louvre together because it is free on Fridays after 6 for those under 26. We had a fabulous time and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, besides taking many pictures and being unable to get away from the Winged Victory of Samothrace (la Victoire de Samothrace).
Working my way backwards through the week, nothing of much note happened the rest of the time. On Tuesday, I went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate a birthday. We found a decently priced sushi restaurant and ate good sushi while having a blast together. Now that we’ve moved into our families, most of the other program participants have mellowed out and I’m beginning to enjoy spending time with them, especially Katelyn because she’s cool. Besides that, I did homework, ate a few dinners with my family, and attended class.
Oh! I also found a pool! I went swimming on Saturday and then today after classes. I plan to go almost every day except Sundays. Thankfully, they had a 3 month pass for about 100euros so now I can go whenever the pool is open for the next 3 months! It felt so good to finally get back in the pool after 2 weeks…I love swimming. My only qualm with it is that most French can't swim. I mean, yeah...they can get from one end of the pool to another, but people! please pay attention to the slow lane/fast lane signs! It you're getting lapped all the time, it might be a good idea to switch to a slow lane. Sorry, it's just that I'm afraid I'm really going to hurt someone at the pool because most of them really can't swim...and sadly, most of them are women. On a good note, I actually started pacing myself off another swimmer who paused and told me that I swim very well. He was very nice and I'm hoping he'll be there tomorrow so he and I can swim together (read: he and I were the two fastest people in the two designated fast lanes--we lapped everyone else, including those wearing fins and paddles).
As for a few other important areas of my life, I might have found a salsa place. At the very least, it looks good online. I would go this Friday, except my host brother Thomas' apartment was just finished being renovated, so he's having a party on Friday night, to which I am invited--of course I'm going. I also found out where the Parisien Quakers meet-Sundays at 11 pm. I plan to go check that out next Sunday.
I know I had trouble my first week abroad (I was actually kind of miserable), but I am now so happy where I am that I only miss a few things that are especially close to my heart, but as those are people, I can’t do much about it. Thankfully, those whom I most want to see will be coming to see me at the end of the semester, which makes me incredibly happy.
Despite the odd smells on the metro (and at the end of the day, believe me, there are some very odd smells-none of them good), I could easily see myself coming back here again later in life. The Paris I have found is beautiful and full of hidden charms, most of which are the random gardens everywhere. Even though people don’t sporadically smile here, I smile enough for them. I am so incredibly blessed…I have a wonderful host family where the love is ever-present, a beautiful city to explore, books to read, friends with whom to talk, the ability to talk to my family and friends back home via email, good food, a garden to walk through every day on my way to the metro, a pool nearby, a great graduate assistant, and so much more. The only real downside is that I actually have to do homework.
Okay, I'm going to bed now so I can wake up to go swimming...followed by class. I'll catch back up next week and if you know anybody who might like to be put on this email, just let me know. Also, a big thanks to those of you who responded to my last email--it was so good to have even a little bit of news from home...please keep it up! I miss all of you, but I'm pretty happy here. So, I'll see most of you in the spring.
Amanda
It’s me again, once more. I have survived a full week with my family and life is good. I am so happy with where I am and my family is incredibly nice. I lucked out so much! Not only do I have a very friendly family who doesn’t make fun of my accent, but I also have wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee), a dryer (this is uncommon because electricity is apparently rather expensive), and a balcony! Okay, so the balcony is small and looks out over a small courtyard across to other apartment buildings, but it’s still really cool to say I have a balcony. There are also 3 very large cats who all love to come into my room at 7 am and make a lot of noise. This happens because the door handles are levers, which the cats can turn by jumping up and pushing down the lever…thus giving them access to the rooms. However, they are rather impolite cats as they do not close the doors behind them, instead leaving my door open for all the family to see into my room. Besides that, they are incredibly loud when they open doors. It’s just not nice. And yet, they make up for it when they curl up beside me at night as I fall asleep, listening to their purring. Then, once I have fallen into a wonderful sleep, they decide to leave and wake me up with the noise of their opening the door. It's fabulous.
Anyways, enough of the cats. I have fallen in love with Paris. Excluding metro line 4 north of Reaumur-Sebastapol, the rest of it as far as I know is rather wonderful (for those curious, the northern end of line 4 is something like Paris’ version of Brooklyn-it’s all people of African descent and arabs-read: scary for short white girls). I love the Latin Quarter with the Luxembourg Gardens and small streets that are good for shopping, eating, and enjoying a night out. The Bastille area is also pretty cool-that’s where you go for a happening night out. As for Montmartre, I went to Sacre Coeur with a friend on Saturday afternoon after visiting the Cluny museum in the Latin Quarter. We actually found it coming up the back way after wandering through a beautiful little park (where I had my friend take a picture of me which I really like-available in an attachment). Up in Montmartre, we had several amazing little finds…and one not so good one. The not so good one was the dinner we ate. After wandering around Montmartre for a few hours, we got hungry and found a small, cheap restaurant. Our first clue that it wasn’t good should have been the price…it was cheap...very cheap. Second, we should’ve noticed the red velvet walls. Well, we did, it's just that we at first thought they were quaint. Yes, this place actually had red velvet patterned wall paper. Thankfully, the dessert (chocolate ice cream) was good. I mean it was good. I just wouldn’t recommend going back to the restaurant simply for the ice cream-it wasn’t that good. As for the good finds, my friend (Katelyn Fischetti from Elon) and I decided to check out the little church in the shadows of Sacre Coeur--Eglise Saint Pierre. It is a beautiful little church with an adorable father and some great artwork. Katelyn and I wandered in just after Mass had finished and the father was standing by the doors. When she and I came in, we said hello to him (in French) and he took our hands and asked us what country we came from. After we told him we came from the US, he said in broken English, “I no speak-a English.” We quickly assured him that it was okay because we spoke some French. He then blurted out, “etudiantes?!” (students?). After that, he became distracted by someone else and Katelyn and I slipped away. However, we both want to go back to a service there sometime and maybe meet the father (Father Zabiega as we later found out) again. Small bit of trivia: I learned from one of my host sisters that the eldest daughter of my host family was married at that church a couple of years ago. Pretty cool, huh?
Wandering around Montmartre, we also walked over to the Moulin Rouge just to see it. A bit disappointing, but the surrounding area is very…lively, shall we say. At the very least, if you have any problems with the porno industry, stay away from this area.
In other news, I spent a lovely Friday evening with Kat Lynn (a friend from high school who was in Paris for a few days on her way to school in Ireland). She and I also hung out Thursday, eating dinner together and generally talking. On Friday, we met up and wandered through the Louvre together because it is free on Fridays after 6 for those under 26. We had a fabulous time and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, besides taking many pictures and being unable to get away from the Winged Victory of Samothrace (la Victoire de Samothrace).
Working my way backwards through the week, nothing of much note happened the rest of the time. On Tuesday, I went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate a birthday. We found a decently priced sushi restaurant and ate good sushi while having a blast together. Now that we’ve moved into our families, most of the other program participants have mellowed out and I’m beginning to enjoy spending time with them, especially Katelyn because she’s cool. Besides that, I did homework, ate a few dinners with my family, and attended class.
Oh! I also found a pool! I went swimming on Saturday and then today after classes. I plan to go almost every day except Sundays. Thankfully, they had a 3 month pass for about 100euros so now I can go whenever the pool is open for the next 3 months! It felt so good to finally get back in the pool after 2 weeks…I love swimming. My only qualm with it is that most French can't swim. I mean, yeah...they can get from one end of the pool to another, but people! please pay attention to the slow lane/fast lane signs! It you're getting lapped all the time, it might be a good idea to switch to a slow lane. Sorry, it's just that I'm afraid I'm really going to hurt someone at the pool because most of them really can't swim...and sadly, most of them are women. On a good note, I actually started pacing myself off another swimmer who paused and told me that I swim very well. He was very nice and I'm hoping he'll be there tomorrow so he and I can swim together (read: he and I were the two fastest people in the two designated fast lanes--we lapped everyone else, including those wearing fins and paddles).
As for a few other important areas of my life, I might have found a salsa place. At the very least, it looks good online. I would go this Friday, except my host brother Thomas' apartment was just finished being renovated, so he's having a party on Friday night, to which I am invited--of course I'm going. I also found out where the Parisien Quakers meet-Sundays at 11 pm. I plan to go check that out next Sunday.
I know I had trouble my first week abroad (I was actually kind of miserable), but I am now so happy where I am that I only miss a few things that are especially close to my heart, but as those are people, I can’t do much about it. Thankfully, those whom I most want to see will be coming to see me at the end of the semester, which makes me incredibly happy.
Despite the odd smells on the metro (and at the end of the day, believe me, there are some very odd smells-none of them good), I could easily see myself coming back here again later in life. The Paris I have found is beautiful and full of hidden charms, most of which are the random gardens everywhere. Even though people don’t sporadically smile here, I smile enough for them. I am so incredibly blessed…I have a wonderful host family where the love is ever-present, a beautiful city to explore, books to read, friends with whom to talk, the ability to talk to my family and friends back home via email, good food, a garden to walk through every day on my way to the metro, a pool nearby, a great graduate assistant, and so much more. The only real downside is that I actually have to do homework.
Okay, I'm going to bed now so I can wake up to go swimming...followed by class. I'll catch back up next week and if you know anybody who might like to be put on this email, just let me know. Also, a big thanks to those of you who responded to my last email--it was so good to have even a little bit of news from home...please keep it up! I miss all of you, but I'm pretty happy here. So, I'll see most of you in the spring.
Amanda