Anyways -- this past week was fairly hectic!
Wednesday night, we had our next play for my theatre class, which to put it mildly -- was extremely bizarre. It was called Ex Vivo/In Vitro, and was about making babies, and the roles of parents and surrogates, and definitely went into more detail even though I couldn't understand the entirety. There was even a naked man wearing a pregnancy belly! Who would have thought...My architecture visit was cancelled for the day because our professor was sick -- so I went to the market with Marilu instead...
Thursday, I began preparing for the Thanksgiving Partie Deux that took place at my house on Friday night (an event that Marilu and Alain do every year with the student that they are hosting). I made my chocolate cheesecake, grasshopper pie, cornbread from scratch (one to put into the stuffing, and one to eat), and oatmeal bars (my dad's favorite)! Busy morning, but I was pretty efficient....We had an interesting class discussion about the movie we had watched on Tuesday evening (L'ennemi Intime) -- it seemed that everyone was pretty shocked about how things went while France was occupying Algeria...and also, that France didn't recognize it as a war until 1999. Thursday night, I swam with the younger kids so that I could meet MADDIE GIEGOLD (Amherst '13) and have dinner with her. I met her at the metro station at around 9:30, and we came back and ate some cheese tarts and had a wonderful time catching up.
We both went to swimming early on Friday! It was really fun for me to show her where I'm swimming, who I'm swimming with, and introduce her to my coach! I think she'll be pretty much the only one who will actually see the comparaison between my experience at Amherst and my experience here in Paris.
To make up some classtime that we missed, my architecture class met at the Musee Carnavalet at 11 for a visit and a basic overview of everything we've learned this semester. It's a really cool place -- it takes you through the history of the city of Paris. We had a break for lunch around 12:45 and went to our professor's favorite falafel restaurant -- L'As de Falafel -- where we all ordered the Falafel Special and some frites to share among us. Well. I've decided that I really don't like falafel. I don't know if it was the sauce filled with coriander (or cilantro) that made it difficult to eat (well, I'm sure that didn't help) -- but it wasn't one of my more favorite things I've tried in Paris (or elsewhere). We went back to the museum, via a really neat used book store, and spent about another hour wandering around until about 3 when he said that we had finished.
From the museum, I headed back home and began to cook for my Thanksgiving dinner. I made the same stuffing that I made last week -- with bread, apples, onions, sausage, and pecans -- and added the cornbread which only made it better...And then Marilu started on the turkey (which came in a box...?), and as we got closer to dinner time, I made mashed potatoes, and green beans with some melted butter and toasted pecans. I had about 10 friends come -- and they did quite a good job with leaving us with few leftovers. The cornbread was a big hit, as was the stuffing -- and actually, the green beans! Then we had the cheesecake, pie, and oatmeal bars for dessert. It was a lovely evening, and we all sat around the living room chatting afterwards until we were all tipping over from being so sleepy....
Maddie stayed with me both Thursday and Friday nights which was wonderful, and so we both crashed soon after the guests had left on Friday night...Yesterday, she woke up to go meet some friends, and somehow (I still can't figure out how), I slept until noon -- and was still tired...so that kind of threw me off a bit. I spent the rest of the day beginning my theater paper for tomorrow, studying some architecture, going to swimming, and then having some leftover stuffing and green beans for dessert while watching the Election of Miss France 2012 -- Miss Alsace won, just in case you were wondering.
Today has been a pretty peaceful day as well. Both yesterday and today have been fairly blah outside (interpret as you wish) -- I met up with Maddie and two of her friends around 5 this evening and we walked to the Ile St. Louis so that they could get Berthillon ice cream -- I tried a spoonful, and it was indeed heavenly. I recommend the salted butter caramel...and I think they would say the same. But the island was beautifully decorated and lit up for Christmas -- and we had a nice time wandering through the streets. From there, I followed them to the book store Shakespeare & Co. which was also just as wonderful. It's not a big place, but it's filled to the brim with all sorts of books -- mostly in English, some new and some used. I found two that looked moderately entertaining and bought them for some upcoming bedtime reading -- I'm about done with the one English book I have, and it's difficult for my brain to relax when I'm reading French...
I have quite a few pictures from the past few days -- it's difficul to choose which ones to show! Here are a couple of my favorites...
As opposed to imitation chicken clothes?
Alain, Me, and Marilu after Thanksgiving Partie Deux!
Berthillon decorated for Christmas!
So I guess that wasn't the shortest entry, but oh well. Lots of fun stuff going on here! My goal is to find at least one Christmas-y thing per day to take a photo of and post it -- I have a few saved up just in case....
A bientot!
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