Un diner extraordinaire, un au revoir a Nyanya et les vacances!

This is a quick one since I have to head off to my final class before VACATION!! Wooo! Hard to believe that it's already here. I'm catching a train tonight at 19h06 which will take me to Mannheim, and then in Mannheim, I get on the train that takes me to Prague! Where I will sleep hopefully most of the way, and then arrive tomorrow at around 10am! Then I'll be in Prague until Saturday around noon when I will take the bus to Vienna to see my friend from high school, Peter Grassl -- and we'll do lots of Austrian things....should be lots of fun.

Last night is definitely worth writing about! A couple of years ago, my uncle, Allan, aunt, Jen, and cousin, Perrin, hosted a girl from Paris who was in the states with her school -- and so her family invited me over to dinner! For the most part, they all speak English (and French, of course) -- and they also invited their nephew who is American, goes to UCLA, and is here on a semester study abroad program -- he was incredibly nice too! The food was wonderful -- lots of little pasta dishes, these pieces of procuitto stuffed with ricotta cheese and some greens, tomatoes and mozzarella -- all was so so good!! But it was just a really great evening -- more wonderful people. It turns out that they know the American family that I know from swimming! Such a small world -- it boggles my mind.

Today, I had to say good bye to Marilu's mom -- which is rather sad. They're leaving on Sunday to take her back to Portugal. She's been so wonderful to have around -- even though she always antagonizes me for not wearing socks in the house...It will be a bit lonelier without her around!

Here's a picture of the two of us -- which makes me look like a giant, but that's okay! Such a sweet lady.

Probably won't be blogging until next week -- and hopefully, I'll have lots of fun things to share!

A bientot!

Un petit aventure a l'hopital, Les Descendants, et le soleil!

Well, now that we've begun a new week, I guess it's time to recount my little adventure with the French medical system! Because no abroad experience would be complete without a ride in the ambulance and a lovely evening in the Urgences!

Thursday night, I went to practice as usual...and about half way through, I had a little collision with Jean-Nicolas as we were both swimming backstroke in opposite directions -- he was sprinting, I was not. And we collided head first. He's fine -- and has a really hard head, and I sort of blacked out and then started falling asleep as I was swimming. It was pretty odd! I swam about another 400 meters, and then I decided it was probably best to get out of the water. Matthieu, my coach, helped me up and I went to lie down -- still feeling pretty off. Against my wishes, Matthieu called the ambulance who came and I got the whole neckbrace and put on a stretcher -- and then of course they were obligated to take me to the hospital....yippee.

So off I went in the ambulence with the paramedics -- Matthieu followed behind on his scooter and met us there. I'd say I was there for about 4 or 4.5 hours overall. The took me back, I had my neck xrayed just to be sure, and then they determined that it was just a concussion! And they gave me a prescription for painkillers (which aren't that helpful) and another to help with my nausea -- and then I ended up taking a taxi home around 1am. Fun, right?! Gotta keep life interesting.

That night I got to sleep with the neck brace that they gave me to take home -- so uncomfortable, but I finally got some sleep. Pretty much all day Friday and Saturday, I stayed home and made my way through the tv show Lie to Me -- along with keeping up with all the swimming results from the weekend! Which definitely kept me busy. Pastel kept me company on my couch and shared lots of fur -- he's so thoughtful.

Saturday, I took a little walk with Marilu, and then yesterday I started to get out a bit more. I had lunch at La Gitane, which is a restaurant down the street, with my friends Mimi and Kate -- really delicious onion soup! And then last night, John and Tia, who I know through swimming, invited me to go see The Descendants with them and then we went out for a Cambodian dinner. I really enjoyed the movie -- lots to think about. And dinner, of course, was delicious as well. It was a wonderful evening.

Today, I got up early and went to the medical clinic that's near Institut Catholique -- it, surprisingly, only took an hour or so for them to see me. The doctor said that all was fine, and that there's no problem with me traveling on Wednesday, and that in a week or two I can even try to swim! Just not pushing it...I had my two Monday classes as usual. My Catho class was just the professor handing back exams from last semester (which I didn't take) -- and then explaining the grading, and then finally reading out all of their grades from the fall semester. Talk about embarassing....But it was a beautiful day -- sunny and almost warm! Definitely starting to feel like spring -- of course, now that I say that, I'm sure we'll get another cold streak....

Here's a picture from the country a few weeks ago -- I just thought that the sky looked pretty cool!

Well I'm off to bed -- I've been pretty wiped out! But feeling better every day, and hopefully, that will just continue.

A bientot!

Un DQ, un salon musical, et une explication du texte a Paris III...

So Sunday, I had day number two of my swim meet. I only swam the 100 back -- because my coach was nice enough to scratch me out of the 200 free. I qualified first for the Senior/Junior age group, and then came home to nap and eat after the morning session. I went back to the pool around 3:30 to warm up -- and then had the joy of sitting around getting cold for the next hour and a half! Well all that waiting was for nothng! Because I got disqualified! I would have won, but apparently, I kicked a bit on my stomach after I flipped over to do my turn. OH WELL. I had my bit of frustration -- but such is life. I guess they just don't like Americans!

I bought a ticket for a "Salon Musical" at the Opera Garnier on Sunday night. At only 10 euros, it was hard not to! The salon musical series takes two composers at a time, and then a selection of musicians from the Opera orchestra played a piece of each composer. Sunday's performance was a piece by Rimski-Korsakov and then one by Popov. Both pieces were really nice --at first, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a full orchestra, but the small group of musicians turned out to be really great. My seat wasn't too amazing, but I still had to find the usher to unlock the door to the "box" where my seat was -- I shared it with this couple who I know more about than I EVER wanted to know, a seemingly normal woman, and these two Asian ladies who stood the entire time and didn't stop taking pictures. But other than that -- it was a lovely evening.

Today, the weather finally turned from bitterly cold into somewhat mild -- and there was even the scent of spring in the air! It's been so nice. I can only hope it continues. Today was also some what of a nervewracking day -- I had to give an "explication du texte" o about 30 lines of 16th century French poetry in front of my class at Paris III. Alain helped me last night with understanding it and some of the prononciations which definitely helped. I still got up and I'm sure that I turned about as red as a tomato and felt like I had sweat dripping through my shirt (attractive, right?). I made it through -- and my professor said that I expressed myself well in French (hooray!) -- and that I only misunderstood the last 6 lines...it definitely could have been worse. And she said that even people are French have difficulties with it! And I'm glad it's over!

I almost forgot! I had a wonderful start to the morning with the mail -- I got a package from my father with some great file cards with my name on them! Which I'm sure will be incredibly useful. And I also got a great package from the TN Aycocks! They sent me a box of brown sugar, a big bag of chocolate chips, the Harper's Bazaar Fashion Guide to Personal Style (which looks great!) and a cute little bag.

Alrighty! I think that's about it -- I took yesterday off to swimming which was glorious -- and I'm contemplating continuing that vacation...but I'll try to make myself go tonight.

Here are a few pictures from the past few days --

My favorite kitty!

L'Opera Garnier!

I'm glad no one saw me trying to open the door myself....

A bientot!

L'Orangerie, Encore une compete, et le baby-sitting....

So I am currently doing the last of that list -- not actually sittng on babies, but guarding these two adorable French boys as they sleep -- or as one sleeps and the other keeps wandering out because he can't sleep.

Yesterday, I succeeded at forcing myself to do a cultural activity! I went to L'Orangerie -- or the place where Monet's big paintings are....First of all, it's not overly easy to find. The metro stop is Concorde, but then you have to walk all the way around the Tuileries and pass by the Jeu de Paume museum as well -- and then L'Orangerie is this long skinny building over closer to the Seine. It's clearly an old building -- and right outside the giftshop, they have models showing the evolution of its architecture which is really interesting. The two long white oval rooms with Monet's Les Nymphaes (http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/homes/home_id25184_u1l2.htm) -- it's really quite something, but at the same time, you get up close to these enormous panels and realize it's just a bunch of random brushstrokes -- but I guess every painting is...

Anyways, I spent about an hour perusing the Monet pieces and also went downstairs to the other collection which included many different artists -- from Picasso to Renoir to Cezanne (many of whose pieces had been loaned to the Musee du Luxembourg for its Cezanne exhibit) to Modigliani. Many names that I've heard before (maybe from the movie, Midnight in Paris?) -- and so it was nice to finally see their work!

Today was spent at a swim meet -- yawn (well, literally at this moment...yawn). I only swam the 200 back which was fine -- the only problem was that there's no separate pool for warm up and warm down, so you kind of have to go cold turkey. This morning wasn't so bad because I swam about 20 minutes after the warm up time had ended....this afternoon was another story -- I swam an hour and a half after the warm up had ended....and it hurt. They had divided the finals up by age group, so I was in the Junior/Senior heat -- where there were only three of us...but I won! Woo hoo! The girl that came in second was only 10 seconds behind me....(but overall, I think I would have been third?).

Well I'm going to try and take a little nap and hope that Mr. I-Don't-Want-To-Go-To-Sleep changes his mind soon!

Here are few pictures that I took around the L'Orangerie yesterday -- it was a beautiful, yet chilly, day!

I felt like I was interrupting.....:)

A bientot!

La froideur! Et PGs.

So clearly, I've been falling behind a bit. Again. And there's really no excuse because besides classes and swimming, I haven't had too much to do!

My classes have continued to go very well -- I'm learning more about the European Union than I could ever want to know, which is great, especially since I'm learning it from Europeans! Who are particularly enthusiastic about the subject. My France and Europe professor continues to be wonderful -- her class is so interesting, and it's been fascinating to learn the reasons behind and how the EU was formed.

My historical geography class of the EU is kind of an interesting class -- well, the subject matter is interesting. Especially when the professor brings his slide projector from 1974 and projects slides of different European countries on the wall to show us the landscapes! People continue to talk throughout the class which gets pretty obnoxious -- but the professor has an entertaining way of dealing with it. Either he calls the person out, or he just starts talking really quietly....

I have an "Explication du Texte" about a verse of Ronsard's Discours on Tuesday -- which is a 15 minutes presentation a l'orale. In front of the entire class. Which is entirely full of trendy French students. Yippee! I know what I'll be doing tomorrow....

I had a particularly wonderful lunch today with my friend Louisa who introduced me to a new restaurant right down the street from Catho called PG's. It's run by an American but it's got quite the variety of options! We each got a "PG" which iin this case stands for "Pain Grille" (or toast) -- and it was kind of like a little pizza. I got the "Best of Bayonne" which had proscuitto, eggplant, melted cheese, and then some parmesan sprinkled on top -- it was delicious. And it also came with a side salad. A little pricy -- but overall, a wonderful meal, especially on such a chilly day!

So yes, the icy temperatures continue to make Paris a little drearier than usual -- it's hard to get motivated to go out and do things when each time I step outside my nose starts to run. Everyone seems to walk a little more quickly and the metros are a little busier -- I'm hoping it gets warmer soon!

Here's a picture of the wonderful lunch that Louisa and I had today --

A bientot!

La compete et la neige!

So when I woke up this morning at SIX AM -- what should I see outside, but SNOW. IN PARIS. Who would have ever thought!!! It was actually the pretty kind of snow that was gently floating -- and there was barely a layer on the ground, but apparently that's still enough for people to completely freak out!

This weekend was one that was consumed by a swim meet - surprise! It was one of the "Meetings Nationaux" -- which I believe is a fairly competitive meet, but not tip-top. It was in Massy, which is a suburb of Paris, which wasn't too far (about 20 minutes by car, and about an hour by RER -- which luckily I only had to do once!). I was so excited that it was in a realllllly nice pool with touchpads and everything! So fancy!

Yesterday, I swam the 100 back and came in 4th at finals -- and today I swam the 200 back and swam again in finals and came in 2nd! I swam another event today -- but it's not worth even mentioning that one....it was pretty ugly!

But yes, when I left home at 6:40 this morning to go and meet my ride -- the snow was falling! It was somewhat entertaining to see the driver (the mom of one of the other swimmers) talking about how serious the road conditions were getting and how everything might be closed -- and oh no! What if they have to cancel the meet! There was barely a centimeter of snow on the ground. Calm down, Paris! It's not that bad!

Honestly, that's about all to report -- I'm pretty exhausted so I'm about to head to bed! But I thought I'd briefly report on the meet -- and more importantly, the SNOW. Which will probably be gone by tomorrow....but who knows.

Here are a couple of pictures -- one of the pool where the meet was, and a view of the snow from my balcony!

A bientot!

BRRRRRRR!

You'll notice that the last Brrr title wasn't in all caps -- but this one definitely is!! This morning when I left for swimming, my thermometer read 16 degrees (Fahrenheit) -- and I regret to say that the warmer Parisian weather has without a doubt heightened my sensitivity to the cold....Paris has been bundled up like I've never seen before -- and I have been doing the same!

The past few days continued my first week of classes -- Wednesday, I had my class at La Sorbonne again, which I thought went really well. We continued our French history lesson of the 16th century, and then started to analyze the part of Ronsard's Discours that we had read. I continue to really enjoy the professor -- it's again, somewhat of a story time. There were a few students that hadn't been there the day before -- most of whom were sitting behind me. About halfway through the class, I looked behind me, and two of them were passed out (sleeping) on the desk with their heads on top of a sprawling arm. It was hysterical. One of the girls even had a sweatshirt rolled up under her head as a pillow. Too funny.

Wednesday afternoon, I had my "cours magistral" at Catho for the Geography of the EU course -- again, people talked throughout the entire class. I thought the professor was going to blow. It was interesting, as much as I could hear, that is -- and the professor had a projector to show us pictures of different European countries and their landscapes.

Thursday, I had my first class at FACO -- which is a private university that focuses on economics and social sciences. Nick, my friend from Hamilton, and I arrived a few minutes before class was to begin at 8, and we found the room that the schedule had listed. We sat there for about 20 minutes before anyone came in. We thought for quite some time that we were in the wrong place. It turns out we were in the wrong place -- but just that a number of the other students were too! There were only about 10 students in the class, which is quite refreshing, and they couldn't have been nicer! They were all so friendly with us and wanted to know more about where we were from and one even asked Nick's help on her expose in English! It was a great experience -- the class is Histoire Economique, and so we covered a lot of the economic theories that coincided with the English Industrial Revolution.

I feel like I didn't have much class this week -- but at the same time, I felt exhausted by the end! I think it was the constant uncertainty and always being a little wary of what's going on -- the only thing that was so much better than the first semester was how much easier it was to understand everything! And at least, I knew where I was going (mostly)!

I'm off to bed early tonight after a day of "relaxing" -- with the cold weather and a swim meet this weekend, I didn't want to risk catching cold and getting sick or worn out. As much as I've been going to practice, I'd like to at least see how well I can do! It's one of the "Meeting Nationaux" -- so it should be quite a bit more competitve than the other ones I've been to! So we'll see!

Other than the little bit of "homework" I've had -- I've been trying to arrange my travel schedule for the spring, which has been stressful! As I told my parents, you know when you're trying to sleep and you imagine yourself on a raft floating on the ocean all nice and peaceful? Well now if I try to imagine that -- I say to myself, "well how much did I pay for the flight to get here? Where am I staying? Does it include breakfast?" -- I guess it's a sad sign when my top go-to website is edreams.fr (like Travelocity for les francais).......Oops! But hopefully, it will lead to lots of fun adventures this spring! In particular, two VERY exciting ones with each of my parents -- which I'm thrilled about.

Here are two pictures from last weekend in the country which I rather liked (and hopefully didn't put in before -- and if so, oh well!)

A bientot!