Catching up

Hello all! Sorry I’ve been so useless at this whole blogging thing lately. What with exams, trying to figure out my schedule for next semester, planning a week and a half of traveling, and everything in France being on sale, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to sit down and write. Plus, I don’t even know where to start. Plus, I’ve noticed that I sometimes blog when I’m trying to procrastinate schoolwork, and I haven’t actually had much of that lately…or at least none that could be procrastinated any longer. So now I’m procrastinating translating this document for someone, and I’ve got a good chunk of time to try to put the last couple weeks into words.

First of all, while I have the time and because I promised I would try to recap…

Paris: The Reader’s Digest Version.

~~On Thursday, we got on a train and headed to Paris. After checking in to the hostel and dropping off bags, went straight to the Ile de la Cité area because that’s where mostly everything is, and because we decided that the boat tour of the Seine would make a good introduction for Flippers. So we decided to do the tour later in the evening so we could see everything lit up, and then wandered around for a while, mostly enjoying the fabulous window displays of Paris, but also doing some touristing and souvenir buying. We ended up eating dinner in this little Italian restaurant where my mom, grandpa, and I had eaten almost 8 years ago the first time I was in Paris. That made me really happy. Then, we did the boat tour, which was cold, windy, and absolutely gorgeous. The Eiffel Tower was glittering for the first ten minutes of the tour, off in the distance (it does that every hour on the hour after dark…a sight to see, let me tell you), and all of the buildings were lit up and wonderful. It was the third time I’ve done that tour, and I don’t think it will ever get old. Anyway, after the tour, we wandered around in search of a good café to get some hot chocolate and ended up in this pretty chic place in the Latin Quarter where a little jazz band was playing. We drank overpriced hot chocolate and enjoyed some good music before heading back to the hostel and falling into bed.
~~Friday morning, we got up bright and early so as to miss the lines at the Eiffel Tower. Success! We hardly even had to wait to buy tickets to climb the first two levels of the tower. On the first level, my camera had a break down, which sent me into a bit of a panic, but we continued to enjoy the tower and the views and the trek up the 700ish stairs. To ease my panic, when we left the Eiffel Tower, we went on a mission to find a camera store to see if they could figure out if the memory card in my camera was totally shot or just minorly challenged. Turns out it was pretty shot, but they were able to save most of the pictures on it…for a price. That being done, we hit the Champs Elysées and were quickly sucked in by the Sephora, which is actually a total make-up superstore, not just Sephora. Two hours and 100 euros later, we headed back to the hostel to get ready for Cabaret. Before the show, we went on a free tour of Montmartre, which was really great. Montmartre is a part of Paris that I’m really kind of fascinated by, but have never really spent much time on. I mean, it was an artist’s haven—home to many great artists, including my favorite painter, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—and it’s where Amélie was set/filmed. Plus it’s pretty and there are a gazillion sex shops. What more could you ask for? Unfortunately, we had to leave the tour a little early to make it to Cabaret on time, which ended up being totally worth it because it was an amazing show. The dancing and acting were both spectacular, and they actually did a pretty good job of translating the songs into French (good enough that I bought the CD, in fact). Flippers lost a decent amount of the story because he doesn’t understand French, but he enjoyed the whole production enough that it didn’t matter much. After that, it was back to the hostel and bed for us cuz we were exhausted.
~~Saturday we did the early morning thing again to beat the lines at the Musée d’Orsay, which I much prefer to the Louvre. I mean, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Degas, Renoir…need I say more? Plus all the statues and a display of funky and awesome furniture, which Flippers and I thoroughly enjoyed. And the museum store, which we raided quite successfully. After the museum, we went to Luxembourg Gardens and people-watched and ate really disappointing crêpes before stopping off at the Pompidou Center and then going back to Montmartre to eat at the Café Deux Moulins, the café where Amélie was filmed. We had planned on having lunch, but ended up just splitting crème brulée (it was heaven) and tea/coffee. Last but not least, we toured the sex shops, and were disappointed to find that they were all really skeazy and not terribly exciting. I know, I know, what do you expect from sex shops, but I guess we just hoped for more considering it was Paris. Oh well…at least it proved distracting enough that we realized we were going to be late for our train if we didn’t hurry. So we metro’d/ran around Paris like madmen to pick up our bags at the hostel and then get to the train station panting, but just in time. We both crashed out on the train, and then got home, exhausted and gross, but very happy.

Whew…and that’s just the Reader’s Digest version…let’s just say it was a packed three days. And now, the Reader’s Digest version of the last two weeks…

~~Sales. In France in January, everything goes on sale. It’s government regulated or something that for two weeks, all the stores have to put their stuff on sale, and shopping is madness, but it’s possible to get some really good deals. I’m not a huge shopper, and I was kind of all shopped out after having Flippers here, but I have taken advantage of the sales to buy a couple fun things for myself, as well as some presents.

~~Exams. I worked pretty hard to finish my 10+ page essay for my Constitutional Law exam. I ended up writing it on environmental protections in the Constitution, which was a topic that I found interesting enough to make researching/writing the essay not completely miserable. I’m just glad it’s over, though. I also had my Portuguese exam…it was what you would expect from a beginning language class. I think I did fine. I still don’t know what my grades are in my classes, but I am at least confident that I didn’t fail any of them. This whole studying in France thing has really pushed me to accept that it’s ok if I’m not a straight-A student forever. I mean, grades are important and I would like to do well, but there’s only so much I can do in a completely unfamiliar system.

~~Trip planning. I’m leaving on Monday for Edinburgh, then going to Amsterdam, and then to Copenhagen. All the planning was pretty last minute, but my friend and I were pretty determined to make it work. And we did. I’m really excited. I don’t think I ever would have made it to Scotland if Katie (I can’t think of a good nickname right now…) hadn’t suggested it, but I think it will be fun anyway, and Copenhagen was a random decision. I think it’s going to be a really interesting little voyage.

~~Scheduling for next semester. Picking classes in this country is no walk in the park. French students don’t really have much choice in the classes they take. They pick their major and sometimes a concentration, and then the university determines what classes they will take and they get a schedule in the mail. Not so much for us. So slowly but surely I picked out classes that looked somewhat interesting and got them to work together time-wise, but then I had to work in my job, which was a huge pain, but I think I figured out something that should work. I came close to quitting, because this whole job is proving to be more difficult and frustrating than it should be, but really like the kids, so I’m going to do my best not to give up.

Um…I think that’s it for now. Thanks for making it through such a long update. I probably won’t be blogging again until I get back from my trip (and then hopefully I wont put it off this song again).

Biz.