I decided to sleep in this morning -- I think that the entire week caught up with me today because I just felt exhausted. I took my time and leisurely ate breakfast with Marilu, and then attempted to do some reading...and also cleaned up my room! Which is always my favorite way to feel productive without actually doing much....
Around noon, I left to go to the "Ecole Aujourd'hui" where I had volunteered to help teach swim "lessons" to elementary school kids. I stopped by Simply (one of the grocery stores near my apartment) and grabbed a sandwhich -- which are pretty cheap -- which was actually on multigrain bread (yum!) and had chicken pieces, hard boiled eggs, a little cheese, and some lettuce! They called it their "Chicken Ceasar". It actually wasn't bad at all!
I took the metro to the Edgar Quinet stop and then the school was just about a block away. There I met Cara Colker-Eybel who is a swimmer at Wesleyan and is here for the semester! As soon as she said her name, I knew who she was -- she's really good (a Wesleyan record-holder in several events). But how crazy that we're both from NESCAC schools and actually compete against each other, and we both happened to end up volunteering at the same school teaching swim lessons. So odd!
But we accompanied the kids (about 60 of them?) to a pool at a private school, and discovered that the lessons were more like play time in the water. I had been given the more advanced kids (about 7), and although I've taught swim lessons before -- 7 kids is a LOT to teach. Not to mention that they are bouncing off the walls with energy, are alternating between speaking English and French, and just kept jumping in the water! So I attempted to do some things with them, but it was rather difficult to organize and get there attention! I'll try again next week.
From there I headed to Reid Hall to talk to Martine who helped me "inscrire" pour the swim team! And then took the metro home to make cookies (chocolate chip, and yes, I know I have a baking problem -- Marilu says I can bake as I please, but for my own health's sake, I should probably stop) with the intention of bringing them on our group trip to Versailles on Sunday! I thought it would be nice to have some for the ride there. They seemed to be less spread out than usual -- I think it's because I added more flour (which is basically what I do at home anyways). I also chopped up a bunch of chocolate bars (milk and dark), which makes them delicious!
Around 6:30, I started my walk to swim practice! It's really a pleasant walk, and the weather was beautiful today, so I figure I may as well walk while I still can! There was an hour of "PPG" (or drylands) tonight, so we did about 30 minutes of abs, and then about 15-20 minutes of whatever we wanted. Then we swam from 8 to 9:30. Lots of butterfly! And luckily, I'm getting used to swimming long course -- it really doesn't seem like the pool goes on forever, which is really nice!
BUT, the really exciting part, was that I was greeted by some of the girls with les bisous! (aka the French greeting kisses -- which I don't really understand) Les bisous seem to be exchanged between girls and between a girl and boy, but the boys just shake hands with each other. It's very odd. And then some of the swimmers were greeting the coach that way -- which I also found bizarre. Anyways, it was exciting none the less. And then I talked with Marie-Sophie, who's been there every day with me. She's 15 and really sweet -- and everyone kept asking me if I was from England! I guess it's not obvious by the way I speak? Who knows.
I took the metro home from practice and ate some fresh green beans and marinated chicken that Marilu had left me and then had some grapes! The grapes here are delicious -- even with the little seeds inside! Then we watched cupcake wars, where the vegan girl won. I still think that vegan cupcakes (or vegan dessert in general) is a complete oxymoron. How can you have good desserts without butter or eggs or milk or chocolate that has milk or anything?! I don't get it.
But today, the picture of the day is of Pastel, who decided this morning to hide underneath the couch under my bed. He's really quite silly, but it works out because then it reminds me of Riley...Note his tail in the first picture....
A demain!
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