So my architecture professor said that we're having an Indian Summer, but Marilu said that it's still too early! It hit 80 degrees today -- too hot in my opinion. I'm sitting in my room with my windows open and still sweating.
I guess I have two days to recount! Yesterday was overly hectic -- over 7 hours of class, and then a 2.5 hour play! I had my first two classes at Institut Catholique, which is actually a real French university! My first class was Economic Thought (rough translation) -- which is taught by a Mexican woman who (I'm pretty sure) has a doctorate. It was a bit hard to follow, and it was really intimidating....and her accent didn't make it any easier!
After that class (from 9-12), I headed back to Reid Hall after finding a great boulangerie for lunch -- I got this delicious salad that had some lettuce, with 4 pieces of juicy cantelope and procuitto on top, and then covered with some pieces of parmesan. So good! And I asked for some wheat bread instead of the baguette, and the lady gave me 4 pieces of delicious multigrain bread!
I had my History of France and Africa class and then rushed to get back to Institut Catholique for my Economics of Development class with Nick and Emily (Heckman). Again, somewhat intimidating! But at least I had some people with me, and we even met some other Americans who were sitting behind us -- they seemed to be even more lost than we were....
From there, we all rushed to La Comedie Francaise (!) to see L'Avare for our theater class. Pretty amazing to have Moliere's old theater right here to go see the play. The actors were great, and if I had had the time to eat dinner, it would have been amazing! But I was pretty hungry, which made it hard to thoroughly enjoy!
I had to wake up early again today to get to La Sorbonne to sign up for courses for next semester (because it's easier to do it now than next semester). I signed up for a class about the religious wars in the 1500s -- which will satisfy the last requirement for my French major!
For my architecture visit today, we went to Le Marais, which I've seen before, but it was still interesting to take another tour and learn some other things about it. It's really quite an incredible neighborhood -- some of the only remaining streets from before the 1800s when everything was 'modernized' by Le baron Haussman.
I had a great swim practice this afternoon -- it's really a nice group of people and we started to really get into a difficult practice today which felt really good. After practice, I headed home for my baking adventure of the week! Drum roll.....triple chocolate cookies! AND, I made a groundbreaking discovery! I finally found out the difference between baking powder (levure) and baking soda (bicarbonate de soude) -- it turns out that I had been using levure for my chocolate chip cookies instead of bicarbonate de soude! Whoops! That would explain why they were so flat...So I'm glad that I figured that out. The only slight difference continues to be using cane sugar instead of brown sugar, which I know are not the same thing, but I used cane sugar for the cookies tonight, and they turned out really really well! Alain gave them the thumbs up!
I decided to take today just a little easier today -- but I should probably get to doing some reading!
Again, sorry no picture, but I'm sure that our weekend in the Loire Valley will provide some good ones!
A bientot!
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see a picture of the Istitut Catholique.