Back to school today!
It’s kind of nice to have a little routine again. School in Paris is the best! I woke up around 9:00am and had toast with apricot jam for breakfast to switch things up. The jam here is so good! Then I took my time getting ready for the day. Amy left early to go to the city with some people to do a walk around 10:30am, but I stayed home and did some homework. I had to meet up with Mckenna and some others at the Institute building at noon anyways to go to photo museums for class.
It was interesting...I did a little experiment today. I figured that since I had to carry around a massive backpack all day (total sign of a tourist), why not dress like an American? So I did. And it made a HUGE difference as to the way I was treated! I wore a t-shirt, knee length jeans (the French don’t really wear long shorts), and my black Tom’s. Walking through Croissy, some construction workers saw me coming and said hello to me. That’s never happened before! Usually, strangers ignore each other. It threw me off a little bit. I listened to my iPod as I rode the train, walked through the station at Les Halles, and walked to class. On the train, a homeless man came up to me and asked for money (we see beggars at least every day on our trains, but they never really talk to me). Outside of the station, women came up to me asking for money to help deaf people in India and men came up to me asking to buy programs to something. I had my iPod in, so I couldn’t hear much but I felt bad walking past all of them. There’s not really much that I can do to help them, so it’s kind of sad.
Once I got to the Institute building, there was a bunch of people waiting there. A few of us hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so we ran to the café around the corner for a sandwich. I got a baguette with lettuce, tomatoes, and hard-boiled eggs. It was DELISH! Except that I failed at eating it gracefully and spilled it all over me. Seriously. It was on my shirt, pants, my chair, the floor, etc. It was embarrassing! But thanks to some water and a napkin, all was well.
A group of us decided that it would be cool to go to the Centre Pompidou (the museum of modern art) to check out a photo exhibit there. Unfortunately, it was closed on Tuesdays, so we had to find somewhere else to go. At Hotel de Ville, they were having a special Impressionist exhibit with paintings by Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, and a bunch of other amazing painters. It was so COOL! There was also a photo slideshow of what Paris looked like in the late 1800s-early 1900s. I can’t believe how much it’s changed! I always used to think it would be cool to be born in another time period...preferably, I would have liked to be a teenager in 1900 high society New York. Not like I’ve thought about it a lot or anything... (Ali, you agree with me, right? The dresses they wore then were AMAZING! J )
In culture class, it was another food day!!!! Macarons!!!! Seriously, if you’ve never had one, get on it because they are FABULOUS! M. Olivier brought 6 different flavors in and we each got three, so Mckenna and I shared so that we could try every kind. There was chocolate, pistachio, lemon, passion fruit, caramel, and get this...asparagus-hazelnut. You’d think the last one would be gross, but it was so good! I can’t really describe them very well...you can look them up at www.pierreherme.com because they’re just amazing. Look:
Delicious, right?! And only 120 euro for the whole class! (expensive...)
After photo class, a few of us walked around Paris for a bit trying to find a cheap crepe flipper. No such luck yet, but we’ll find one eventually! We walked around BHV (kind of like a fancy department store) for a while and then decided that we were tired and needed to go home. Little did we know it would take almost TWO HOURS to get back! There was another suicide on the main train tracks, so our train was delayed a LOT. That also meant that the first train back to Croissy was PACKED FULL. My face was in the pit of a guy who smelled like yesterday’s garbage and there was nothing I could do about it. It was miserable!
We didn’t get dinner again tonight, so Amy and I made pasta! It was definitely a success. M. et Mme. were out for the night too so it was nice to have the kitchen to ourselves. After dinner, I came upstairs to do homework and ended up falling asleep on my bed for an hour...probably not the best idea! At least I feel a little bit more rested though.
Oh! And one more random thought before I go to bed for the night:
In my closet, there are some bookshelves. On the bookshelves, there are books about Paris, books about Europe’s history, class novels, and a few Books of Mormon. Or is it Book of Mormons? I don’t even know. Anyways, I was curious to see if anyone had written in them intending to give them to our host parents. I opened the first one, found some vocabulary words in the front cover, and then a piece of paper fell out saying this:
December 3rd, 2009
Dear BYU Student,
You are now about to embark on a difficult adventure. Living with Laurence de Grandmaison. Hopefully, you aren’t as independent as we are. If you are, you may have some problems with Laurence. She is a control freak. She will probably really crack down on you guys because she had problems with us, or she will claim, “Cecile parce qu’elle a une tempar Latin.” I just wanted to give you a heads up on some things. She doesn’t allow you to eat in the kitchen between 9:30am and 7:00pm. Ridiculous even when we bought our own food. We resorted to storing it in our rooms. Best places are behind the headboard...thing on your bed, in a suitcase you can lock, or seriously buried in your clothes. She WILL go through your things. You may think ok I will just lock the door...nope. I tried that. She climbed under the metal blinds that she broke and took my key. She also has a big issue with cleanliness. If you are a little messy, I can guarentee she will say, “but you have to have order and be clean so that you can have a family and grow up...” she will then click her tongue, look at you expectantly, and say “its for you, not for me.” I apologize in advance for her cooking. If you look at the books next to her glass cabinet you will see 200 recipes “finisse” aux miro-onde...or something like that. She doesn’t know how to cook...sorry. Philippe is great. He was always nice to us. We still never figured out why she had such a big problem with us/me, but I hope you have a great time. Enjoy the city of lights. It really is amazing. Go to Pierre Hermé, Nicolas Flamel’s house, and Angelina’s. Best place for lunch when you go to school is the café around the corner. Pumpkin soup is the best. Francesco’s is also amazing. Well I hope you have a great study abroad. I hope you find this letter...but honestly she might find it. Oh, P.S. we left you mac and cheese. I will either hide it behind the bed or behind the books.
Love, Cecile and Laura
Can you say most random/ridiculous thing ever?! I’m slightly paranoid now, but I’m sure they were just exaggerating. After all, this experience is what you make it to be. I thought it was a fun find though. Definitely blog worthy. J
Anyways, it’s past 1:00am and I’m dead tired, so off to bed for me! Until tomorrow!
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