Brrrr!

So it's now officially become winter in Paris -- it only took until the end of January! Imagine that. I really shouldn't be complaining -- as I'm writing this, the thermometer on my laptop says Paris is a balmy 32 degrees (Fahrenheit). But I'm afraid that the mild weather that's been here for the past few weeks has really spoiled me, and now it's a bit of a rude awakening. It's kind of funny to see everyone suddenly bundled up with layers upon layers and rushing from one place to the next to stay out of the cold.

I'll consider today as my "real" first day of school -- or class? I left a little early to step my Monoprix to pick up some more notebooks, and then I took the metro to Institut Catholique for my Geographie de l'Union Europeenne class. I stood outside the room with the other 25 or so students for the professor to finally arrive at around 11:15 (for a class that was supposed to start at 11) -- he didn't seem too concerned.

I don't know if I used this analogy before -- but the first day at Institut Catholique (or maybe at any French school?) feels exactly like the scene in Legally Blonde where Elle Woods is at her first class at Harvard Law School (if you are struggling to recall this scene -- take a minute http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZIonnMTLUA). But literally, I sat down and took out my notebook (which, don't worry -- was NOT heartshaped in any sense) and looked around at almost everyone who was taking out a little laptop. The professor frequently mentioned the work that "we" had all done last semester -- a reference to which was utterly moot to me. But it gradually got better -- the professor is really great and I think that the course will be very interesting. I got a little nervous when we were told that each one of us would be doing an expose in front of the class.....me - speaking French - alone - in front of 25 other French students. Yikes. Luckily, I have some time to prepare.

From Catho, I took the metro to Middlebury for my Union Europeenne class -- speaking of great professors -- the two and a half hour class truly goes so quickly and really just seems like story time. She knows so much about the history and the European Union and it's refreshing that she doesn't need to read it from her notes and that she is so enthusiastic about Europe.

I went on a search for a new swim bag after class -- I stopped by the store Decathlon which is an enormous sport store near Madeleine that has literally anything relating to sports you could ever want. There was actually was an aisle dedicated to swimming things (which I was somewhat surprised about) -- and so I found a nice little bag that zipped closed (the main qualification) that was only about 13 euros. I was about to walk away to make my purchase when the woman standing next to me said "You need to find another color because that one's too bright". I kind of looked around a bit confused -- I mean, that was the only color of that bag....she asked me what I was using it for, and I said to hold my swimmings -- I guess she thought that a blue bag was a recipe for disaster and was going to attract every thief in Paris. After a bit of back and forth, I finally said "merci" for her input and quickly walked towards the check-out.

I was the ONLY one at swimming tonight -- which normally would have a been a refreshing change of pace, but I was more in the mood to be swimming with other people. But it was nice to not have to fight with 27392 other people who don't know how to swim in order to swim a full length.

I believe that's about it for today -- apparently, it's supposed to only get colder (yippee) which should make the coming days fun...Today's picture is one that I took last week -- I had slept in until about 11 in the morning and woke up to an interesting odor -- and found this!

With Marilu's mother here -- it's been very interesting to see what's cooking in the kitchen (literally). Like this! Certainly keeps me on my toes.

A bientot!