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| the Louvre |
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| Le Tour Eiffel |
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| Arc de Triomphe - Champs Elysées |
Spent the last two hours walking around my neighborhood, which is host to one of the most famous cemeteries in France...so I strolled around and looked at the family tombs of famous dead diplomats. Was a pretty pleasant afternoon. Now I'm back at rue Paul Strauss ready for my afternoon nap before I do some much needed grocery. Apparently it's a French thing to only buy what you're going to use in the next day or two. The fridge is dead empty. So is my stomach. So that leaves me doing grocery 2x a week so that I don't end up having more stuff in the fridge for myself than a family of 5 has for itself.
Isabelle (my host mom) is an actress. She hasn't been around much so I haven't gotten to chat with her too much. But, she does leave me some french food on the stove before she leaves, which as long as the cats don't get to it first, is usually delicious. Her fiancée, Giles, is supposedly a genius in the baking department, which I'm really excited to experience. Isabelle is literally exactly what I was expecting when I was told I'd be living in a house in the 20e (used to be a working class neighborhood, kind of still is) with a single actress mom (sort of), her 3 kids, 4 cats (there are at least 6), dog, (and add in guinea pigs, mice, and fish). The kids are still on vacation chez grand-mère, so I haven't met them or the dog. Hopefully I like them more than I like the cats. Then again I normally hate cats and I can tolerate these. Good sign.
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| Living room at rue Paul Strauss at night |
Last night, went to Salsero in le Quartier Latin, right around the corner from the Notre Dame and basically on the Seine. Got entirely lost for about 30 minutes, then found the bar (which sucked). Whoever chose that place to meet up with Sciences Po kids for the first time is not my favorite person. Instead I went to Le Petit Pont (a cafe/bar two doors down), where they served us drinks on fire. Needless to say, I was highly satisfied with the change of location. Unfortunately, the metro stops running at 1:30 while Parisians dine until all odd hours of the night. As I was leaving the bar around 12:30, there were still many people casually strolling in to sit down.
Took the metro back. I was worried since it was so late and my neighborhood is pretty isolated at nighttime. Rule #1: No eye contact with ANYONE. Oops. Made eye contact with a middle-aged man. Apparently that means one of two things, yes, I would like to enter into conversation with you or yes, I would love it if you would blatantly stare at me for minutes at a time. After a certain point I really couldn't help myself so I shot him a death glare and he continued staring. Now worried I'm going to be the first American student in Paris to get kidnapped I got out at the next stop and got back on a few cars back. Other than that, nothing super sketchy. If you even make eye contact with guys here they start cat-calling, which is really disconcerting especially after being able to smile at everyone and chat with strangers back in the American burbs. So now I'm making a conscious effort to look angry and stare at my feet, which is making it really easy to get lost.
Other than the creepy men, this city is incredible. Can't believe I'm actually here.
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