l'avant veille

Saint Sulpice church - 2 minute walk from school. Delacroix.

Chapel of the Angels, where 3 Delacroix paintings are displayed.

the fountain outside the church

just my luck

dimanche

I don't think I ever simply pass an hour by in the States. I always have to feel productive. People don't make excuses for taking leisure time here. I absolutely love it. The phrase lazy Sunday must have originated in Europe. I thought that once I was here I'd be doing a lot less busywork/homework and a lot more chilling at cafes and drinking cappucinos (ie hot chocolates)...I was right. Not once have I been pressed for a deadline, but instead I have to keep up with readings for each class as and when I want.

The only vaguely stressful things on the horizon are the oral exams and the dissertations that are scattered throughout the semester. Each person in a class is assigned a class day to present their expose (oral). My first once is a little over a week away and the topic is UNFICYP (UN peacekeeping operation in Cyprus). That shouldn't be too hard...except UNFICYP is the operation that my professor was involved in so my research has got to be airtight. Wahoo. I'm great at making life-decisions. Why couldn't I just choose something really obscure and make some vague but intelligent theoretical analyses and get a 20/20? Whatever.

However, today I woke up at 12. I contemplated cleaning my room. I ate mango ice cream. I went to a diner (yes, the American diner - it's called Breakfast In America) and got pancakes. I figure since I'm here for the year I shouldn't feel guilty about indulging in a few diner trips here and there. Reminded me of Johnny's back in Boston.

Probably going to go eat some bread and Camembert, contemplate possibly doing some reading, fold my clothes, and take a pre-bedtime nap. My life is so stressful. 

busy busy busy

Well it's been awhile. I finally got my routine down and I don't feel entirely out of place navigating the metro. And I have homework. However I'm going to meet some friends for le diner ensemble and I've only got time to share some photo gems with you. Ok they're not gems at all, but I was at a cafe yesterday and I kept seeing ladies on bikes with heels so now every time I see that I'm taking a picture and posting it on here.

Saint Germain church down the street from my school.

10 years ago

At about this time I was on a school bus heading home from a ropes course field trip with my 5th grade class. Spent the rest of the day watching the news with my mom. Now I'm a decade older, sitting in a room overlooking a quiet Parisian street watching youtube news. Overheard a couple talking about "le onze septembre" on the metro yesterday. 

chocolate gorilla

Went shopping today. Held out long enough. On rue de Rivoli there are a bunch of normal people shops - Zara, H&M blah blah. The patisseries and chocolateries here literally have the most creative and delicious looking store windows you could imagine and I went into about 5 and got just one thing at each place. I'm pretty sure I could have done without the lemongrass and peppermint chocolate but the store window had a life-size gorilla...made out of chocolate...so I was morally obligated to go in.

My host fam is incredible - the kids are brilliant and I get to talk to them in French all day long. It gets progressively easier. I also don't absolutely hate the guinea pig now. It's just a mild dislike. Everything is different here. On the surface it just seems like another big Western city but when you have to live here you realize the little things that are bizarre (for me). To buy a fruit or veggies in the Monoprix you have to have someone weigh it and put a little sticker on it. The post office (La Poste) is also a bank and also sells phones. To mail things, you weigh them yourself by a little kisok and print out a stamp (I think you can mail stuff domestically with normal stamps though...). So many little things to get used to - the Velib, riding in traffic...people who say Boston is the most bike unfriendly city in the world don't realize how good they have it. Paris is friendly towards bikers...but only those with guts of steel. Today I was riding in a little bubble between two busses,  dump-truck, and 3 cars...pretty sure there weren't any lanes...and I was trying to read my map (really need to get GPS) and balance while not dying. I'm alive.

Yeah so I've got a truckload of pictures to share. Feast your eyes. I've got to read about the institutions of the EU...probably going to end up drinking a hot chocolate at a cafe and finishing Harry Potter #3 though. Really really need to deposit money in my new french bank account. And then use that money to buy a new french smartphone so I can text my new international friends and look at the french metro app instead of a big touristy map.

aforementioned giant mojito

street art

sorbet/gelato/ice cream

if you ask for a cone, it comes out looking like this...

macarons that i can afford to photograph...not buy

Russian dolls - of France

Russian dolls - US presidents

macarons

chocolate gorilla

The staplers are cooler looking here. Haven't yet figured out the hole-puncher. Don't hold your breath.

giant mojito

Yesterday was the Sciences Po day of integration and then pub-crawl around/through Bastille. I didn't meet my buddy (french student assigned to be my friend...poor kid) since the thing was so disorganized. However I did manage to skip out early and go eat a crepe...


Then I got to Bastille and found a gelato/coffee place to chill while waiting for everybody else. There was a Floridian who was so "American tourister" I really couldn't handle it. No effort to speak French whatsoever. He just spoke English with the barista and expected things to work like back home and got frustrated when the barista had a hard time understanding him. I had a hard time understanding him too since he wanted to know exactly which of the 30 or so flavors were yogurt, which were gelato, which were sorbet, etc. There's a sign, genius. He sat next to me and I asked him if he'd ever thought about getting a phrase-book. 


The pub-crawl was quite entertaining and there was an 89€ giant mojito involved. I paid 5€ for a coke. It was great. Best coke I've ever drunk in my life. Really.


A few days ago we toured around the Marais - we walked over a bridge near the Notre Dame and there were a bunch of keys locked onto it. If you write the name of you and your lovah then you'll stay together forever, I think is the general idea. But then I saw this...

China & Germany.

Let's see. We went on a boat cruise of the Seine, got rained on but still saw some awesome monuments. Had a family-style dinner with lots of cheese, bread, wine, and the best hummus I've ever eaten. OH YEAH also went to supposedly the best falafel place in the world. It was quite spectacular. Now I'm hungry again writing about it. So many other awesome things happened but I'm in the mood for a run so I'll update later maybe. Ran past a prison yesterday. It was pretty creepy. I ran fast. Probs gonna go the other direction today.

Stalls along the Seine - books, postcards from 1930s Paris, paintings.