Hey there everybody,
It is currently rainy and cold in Paris, although this morning we had some flurries, which made me oh so happy. I just finished another great weekend in Paris, exploring at random and hanging with friends. Friday, I did some work and watched a movie for class during the day, and then headed over to explore the Louvre for a bit. It’s so great, my student card gets me free entry, so I can basically just pop in and explore for a bit, one of the many things I love about being a student in Paris. That night, Kristin and I went to a poetry slam at one of her french friend’s apartment, which was pretty cool, although the french was a bit hard to understand. After the poetry slam, most people left, and a few of us stayed and hung out for a bit
(I started this post and didn’t finish it, so here we go I’m finishing it now-Tuesday night); one of the guys had a guitar so we sat around singing and listening, until it was time to leave and catch the metro. Saturday, I headed over to the Musée d’Orsay, as I had yet to visit it, again getting in for free with my nifty “history of art” student card that Sweet Briar gives us. For dinner, I met up with my friends Abby and Jen, who had just come from a wine testing, and befriended the waiter who had been running it! He and Abby hit it off, so the four of us went to dinner, followed by a cool bar in his neighborhood, and then a sort of club that has live music. It was a fun night, Jen and I had a good time dancing and enjoying the french rap, while Abby and her new french boy did there own thing. We stayed out pretty late, but made the metro, phew. Sunday, I got a call from Xavier, who wanted to hang out. We were going to go on a ride on his motorcycle, but then it started raining and getting really cold, so he picked me up (with his sister’s car, haha, oh Xavier)and we just went and hung out at his place for a bit. It was fun, he has a couple guitars-and he’s really good, so I made him give me a little concert, he even sang a bit-Hotel California, Sweet Home Alabama, Cendrillon (a famous french song), haha, it was great. Unfortunately, my guitar playing was really rusty, makes me sad I can’t play regularly here, but I managed to play some basic chords so we could play together, very cool.We then got a cheap bite to eat at a pannini/kebab place not far from his apartment, and sat and talked for a bit before I headed out to meet up with Alex for a concert. Me, Alex, and two french friends from her Russian concert went to the Frightened Rabbit and Death Cab for Cutie concert, which was realllly great. It was at a small venue, so nice, as in the states they fill up stadiums! I was so happy to see Frightened Rabbit (a Scottish alt rock band), I have been listening to the CD of theirs I have a lot this past month or so, and was so excited to hear they were coming to Paris. We all had a great time at the concert, and then I headed home, as I had class early the next morning (and by early I mean 10 o’clock, my life is pretty tough…). I spent Monday freaking out about the fact that I now have a deadline for the Compostela application, Dec. 1st, and re-emailing my professors, who hadn’t responded to my emails. I also was putting the finishing touches on my essay due Tuesday, and sent it off to my consultation guy so he could look it over via email. He said it was really good overall, which made me really happy, and gave me a couple suggestions for word choice; I think it’s pretty good, so we’ll see. That night I met up with Kristin at Bar Cristal as usual, to catch up on the events of the weekend. It was nice to talk to her, as always, although we found out that our favorite bartender, Dan, is leaving Bar Cristal at the end of the week! We were of course very upset, and he told us to come back this Sunday for his last night...pretty sad, sigh. In any case, it was still good to see Kristin, although we’re both starting to think about the end of this semester, and getting sad about leaving . Today, I turned in my paper and such, and then went to a Wolf Parade concert, which was absolutely AMAZING. It was another small, indie venue, and Alex and I got there early as there wasn’t assigned seating. We got to be right up against the stage, first row standing; it was such an amazing concert, the band members were like an arm’s length away, sooooo cool. And here we are, I’m taking some time to finally give an update on my life, haha. I’m doing really well, as you can probably tell I’ve been amazingly busy, especially since I’ve gone out every night for like the past two weeks, ack. As I said, I’m going to Amsterdam this weekend, from Thursday night to Sunday night, and am so so so excited to see my friends, it should be an amazing weekend. So yes, I love you all and sorry I’ve kind of dropped off the face of the earth, the lack of internet is a problem as usual. Hope everyone has fun at Thanksgiving, I’m superjealous-I’m guessing I wont be getting any turkey or pie this year , haha. Love you all, don’t have too much fun without me,
Brit
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
another week in Paris
Hey everyone! so another week in Paris is passing by, I cant believe i only have about a month left! this week was jam-packed with the stupid application, as well as my big essay, which i think is actually coming out to be pretty good. I spent most of Tuesday working and running around finding internet access, as always, and spitting out mini-essays for my application. That night, I met up with Xavier to go see the new Jame's Bond movie, and he surprised me by picking me up in a car-pretty sweet, since he works for the rental car company he was able to use it. when we got to the theater we realised we had about an hour to kill, so we headed over to a nearby Irish pub and played a game of pool. I totally won, dad you would be proud (although not really because he just happened to be more terrible at it then I was), although I dont think he was too happy about being beat by a girl, haha, oh well. the movie was good, although i didnt remember the first one at all so had some trouble following it, but just watching Daniel Craig run around was fine with me ;). It was fun, and maybe I will see him again this weekend, he has mentioned that he knows some cool jazz clubs, which would be cool. Wednesday I again spent the day running around going to class and trying to get work done, and at night I met up with kristin again over at St.Michel. We went to this place specializing in Italian ice cream, as they boasted like 22 flavors of hot chocolate, which sounded perfect. instead of regular hot chocolate, what it ended up being was basically just hot melted chocolate, not what we were expecting but definitely delicious. so we talked and caught up, she had actually gone to a party tuesday night and met this cool Norwegian girl, who told her about another party on thursday night at the German House (theres a big university area with different houses for different nationalities). So me, Kristin, and Olivia ended up going to this German party last night; it was pretty fun, everyone was just hanging out talking and playing ping pong and foosball in their main room. We headed home a bit after midnight, as they had to close down; another good night, although i was pretty tired from all the work from the week. so yes, this brings me to today, Friday, i dont know what my plans are for the weekend, but it will be nice to have some down time in Paris, to finish up my paper and do a little more exploration of the city...Maybe the Musee d'Orsay. Anyways, gotta go watch a movie for my cinema class, but love you all and will write again soon! Brit
Thursday, November 13, 2008
BERLIN
Helllooo,
Or, should I say, guten tag! I just got back from a great weekend in Berlin with Joe and Olivia, another amazing but exhausting trip! We left Thursday after our Atelier class, and went straight to the Orly Airport. What follows was a typical transportation nightmare in Paris, of course. We arrived with plenty of time, and as soon as we walked in we wandered over to the departure screen to check on our 6:40 flight…to discover it had been delayed to 10:15 pm (at the earliest). We were pretty upset, for one thing getting in that late would cause problems with the hostel as check-in hours were limited, but we saw that there was another flight to Berlin originally scheduled for around 4pm that was also delayed, so we figured we would try to switch onto that flight. As we had already checked in online, we thought the best way to deal with this was to just through the security and talk to the people at the gate for the first flight, which we did. Unfortunately, they informed us that for flight changes and the like we would have to go back downstairs, so after talking to the security guards we went back out and down, joining the big line at check-in we were so hoping to avoid. After standing in line for forever, as the check-in was amazingly slow, we finally got up to the counter to explain our situation. Of course, they informed us that we were again in the wrong spot, and pointed us over to the “easy jet” information/help area. Increasingly frustrated, we went and waited in line some more, and then were finally able to talk to someone who could help. We were successfully able to switch to the earlier flight, which was then scheduled to leave at the time our original flight would have left (6:40). They gave us a new print-out, and we headed back up to security, assuming that since we didn’t have bags and had essentially checked in at the info desk, we could just go right to the gate. So on we went, going through security a second time, much to the amusement and confusion of the security guards, and found our way to our new gate. It was pretty crazy, everyone was really upset by the four hour delay, so the poor airport crew was basically just getting yelled at and everyone was getting more and more frustrated. We found a spot and settled in to wait, until around 6pm, when the airport crew announced that there would be a free snack for all those waiting for the flight, in an attempt to quell some of the more angry customers. We happily walked over and got in the long line for free food, when after about a half hour of standing in line my friend Olivia got a call on her cell phone. We watched as she got increasingly panicked while taking on the phone, and then she hung up and informed us that it was someone from check-in, calling to tell us that they were about to close and we still had to check in, and saying basically to really hurry up because they might not be able to do it. We ran off in a panic, heading out of security and explaining what the problem was a second time, and ran down to check-in, where the check in lady grabbed us and made some walkie-talkie calls. In the end, she was able to get us on checked in and on the flight, and with our new tickets in hand, and her yelling at us to hurry, we made our way back to security a third time. By this time the security guards found us pretty funny, “the little family” of silly Americans who just weren’t having any luck. We did however, get successfully through again, got some of the remaining free food, and settled back down to wait for check-in. Finally, the plane arrived, and we took off only about a half hour after when our original flight would have left, big sigh. So yes, so began our trip to Berlin, but luckily it got much much better from there.
We got in to Berlin at around 830 or so, and caught a train from the airport to a station not too far from our hostel. The first thing we noticed about Berlin was that it was freezing; luckily I had learned my lesson in Belgium and Prague and had pulled out my winter coat, plus two layers of sweaters, yes! After a bit of walk from the train station we found the hostel pretty easily, and gave the owners a call so they could come check us in. The hostel was pretty good, about 10 people to a room, so we dropped off our stuff and then headed out to catch a very late dinner as we were pretty hungry. We found a place not far from the hostel that was open til midnight, and served yummy and pretty cheap food. After a nice long dinner, where we used our handy new maps and a guidebook from Sweet Briar to plan out the all we wanted to see. Then it was back to the hostel for a somewhat early bedtime.
The next morning we got up around 9, and found a good café for some hot chocolate and a Danish, breakfast of champions. One of the girls told us that the free tour offered through the hostel was really good, so we decided to do that, meeting up with the group at around 10:25 for the free 3.5 hour tour that hit all the major sites of Berlin. Our tour guide was this amazingly attractive and funny British guy, so I was a happy camper, and on the tour we saw so many incredible parts of Berlin accompagnied by some historical background and little stories. We started by Brandenburg gate, where we also got the longest history lesson-which I found helpful as my history is a bit fuzzy, and then we went over and took a look at the Reichstag. Then it was over to a parking lot, which was actually the spot where Hitler’s Bunker was located (where he actually committed suicide). The spot is unmarked, and the bunker itself is destroyed and inaccessible (it is not advertised basically in an effort to prevent a site where Hitler fans could gather and such). We then saw the Holocaust Memorial (officially called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a really controversial memorial is it cost millions and millions of dollars, which many Berliners thought could have been better spent (for example on a shuttle to the nearby Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp). The memorial basically consists of a whole bunch of concrete rectangles of varying heights, right in the center of Berlin. We also saw Checkpoint Charlie, which our tour guide explained was really not that interesting, as everything they have setup there is new and fake, but it was still good to see. We of course saw a section of the Berlin wall; it’s so hard to believe it was up until only about 20 years ago…pretty crazy. We saw the TV tower as well as a variety of other newer and historical buildings, all of which I have forgotten the name (German is hard…), as well as the Nazi Book Burning Memorial, located in the square where about 20,000 books were burned, and consisting of a glass covering in the ground, which you look down and see an empty bookshelf (which supposedly could hold 20,000 books)-I’ll let you guys figure that one out, pretty straight-forward. We ended the tour at Museum Island at the Berliner Dome, so impressive. By the end of the tour we were pretty tired from all the walking, and also amazingly cold-the sky was permanently overcast for our visit. We loitered in the Berliner Dome for a bit and tried to come up with a plan of action, deciding to walk around and explore randomly, and eventually pick up some dinner. We eventually found a place, at this point we were really hungry having essentially skipped lunch, so we sat down and got some nice German food-sausage and beer! We finished off dinner with some amazing apple streudel, taking our time and soaking up some heat. Then it was off to the Jewish Museum, which had some really interesting exhibits; the building itself had a very interesting and symbolic design. We then walked around and back over to see the Brandenburg Gate at night, and to explore the Reichstag-which is free to the public, and which we could climb to the top and get an impressive view of Berlin at night (as well as a glimpse of where government business goes down). After a long stop at the Reichstag we started the hike back to the hostel, eventually stopping at an Irish pub not far from the hostel. It turns out it was Karaoke night, so we stayed for a while and laughed at all the drunken Germans singing random English/American songs (“Country road”, “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, “Thunderstruck”), it was very amusing. Then it was off to bed, we had done so much walking and were exhausted.
The next morning we got up again at around 9, and headed out on a really long walk that would eventually take us to a famous statue of an Angel (commemorating the victory of the Franco-Prussian war), and then down to Zoo station (as Olivia particularly wanted a picture at the station, she’s a big U2 fan and apparently they have a song about it). It was SUCH a long walk, and afterwards we stopped and got some yummy Thai noodles for lunch. Then it was off to Charlottenburg, a gourgeous palace (the Berlin version of Versailles). We did the free audio guide, and explored a whole lot of the palace, which took a few hours, including the garden (which I think would be much more impressive in the summer). By the time we were done it was nightfall, and we decided to check out Potsdamer Platz, the business area at Berlin, very modern with the Sony center and such. We took the metro, as it was pretty far from Charlottenburg, and were exited to discover a mini little Christmas/Winter fair, with an artificial hill you could go tubing on!!! Joe and I were very excited, and immediately ran over and got in line among all the little kids-so much fun, reminded me of a mini version of the amazing tubing/sledding hill in Canada-so great. We then wandered around and looked at some of the booths that were st up, and then headed over to see if the Imax theater had anything interesting-as we were at this point very cold and tired, and were running out of things to do. However, there wasn’t really anything worth seeing, so we decided to grab an early dinner of Bratwurst at the little fair, followed by this desert that consisted of a circular pastry thing covered in a vanilla-sauce, which was tasty although I still don’t really know what it was. Then it was time for another epic walk through the city; we stopped along the way at a starbucks for some hot chocolate, and spent a long time just talking and warming up, not to mention resting our feet. Then we braved the cold and continued the walk back, stopping a couple times to check out a few stores, and a long time at this huge book store, where I read a “then and now” book featuring some incredible before and after pictures of Berlin-so much was destroyed. By this time it was getting late, so we headed back to the hostel.
This morning we got up at 715 to get our stuff together and head over to the train station. Unfortunately, we missed the first train to the airport, as it was amazingly confusing, but were then able to grab some breakfast at a little place in the station. We then successfully caught a train and made it to the airport with plenty of time, catching our flight without any problems (although it was delayed about 30min, no big deal). So yes, that was Berlin, probably the most historically interesting city I’ve visited so far. As always, I was glad to come back to Paris today, I love this city so much, I literally start to miss it when I’m away. Plus, it’s so nice to actually speak the language! I was getting tired of communicating via charades and pointing, haha. Germany was very cool though, I would love to see more of it at some point.
This week my main focus will be to do my first “Commentaire Compose” for my litterature class at Paris III, which is basically an around 8 page paper due next week, in french of course. The french style of paper writing is very different than what I’m used to, so it’s definitely going to be challenging. Wish me luck! I also have been communicating with the Study Abroad people at Kenyon, and have learned that it is better to apply through the University of Kansas to go to Santiago de Compostela, as it offers much more support (like Sweet Briar), and apparently there have been some problems with credit transfer and grades when students enroll directly in the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. I was pretty freaked out when I heard this, as Kenyon never mentioned this stuff to me, so am somewhat frantically trying to get myself enrolled in the UK program-which techinically should have been done by Oct. 11, whoops. Fortunately, I talked with someone at UK, and they said that the main reason they have that so early is so that people can get a visa, and they made it sound like I should be able to get in fine if I apply now, as I am soooo lucky in that I have a British passport and don’t need a visa (that passport has saved my life, thanks Dad-you are brilliant). Unfortunately, I still have to get together a pretty extensive application to the program, which consists of getting lots of signature from Kenyon and teacher reccomendations, all as quickly as humanly possible, ahhh! It’s gonna be tough, so this week will be devoted to getting all that straightened out, so I can go spend the Spring semester in what is supposed to be an absolutely gorgeous town in Spain (not far from the ocean!). Sam is going through all this as well, hopefully she wont have any trouble and we will be able to do this amazing program together! I’m already starting to get excited. At the same time, I’m running out of weekends in Paris, which is scary! It’s going to be really hard to say goodbye to everyone-I’ve made some really great friends, and have fallen in love with this city. But anyways, life is good, I’m also already getting excited to be home for Christmas-I miss you guys! So yes, hopefully this next week will be a productive one, with some Paris exploration mixed in. Love you all, hope all is well, keep a look out for some post cards!
Brit
Or, should I say, guten tag! I just got back from a great weekend in Berlin with Joe and Olivia, another amazing but exhausting trip! We left Thursday after our Atelier class, and went straight to the Orly Airport. What follows was a typical transportation nightmare in Paris, of course. We arrived with plenty of time, and as soon as we walked in we wandered over to the departure screen to check on our 6:40 flight…to discover it had been delayed to 10:15 pm (at the earliest). We were pretty upset, for one thing getting in that late would cause problems with the hostel as check-in hours were limited, but we saw that there was another flight to Berlin originally scheduled for around 4pm that was also delayed, so we figured we would try to switch onto that flight. As we had already checked in online, we thought the best way to deal with this was to just through the security and talk to the people at the gate for the first flight, which we did. Unfortunately, they informed us that for flight changes and the like we would have to go back downstairs, so after talking to the security guards we went back out and down, joining the big line at check-in we were so hoping to avoid. After standing in line for forever, as the check-in was amazingly slow, we finally got up to the counter to explain our situation. Of course, they informed us that we were again in the wrong spot, and pointed us over to the “easy jet” information/help area. Increasingly frustrated, we went and waited in line some more, and then were finally able to talk to someone who could help. We were successfully able to switch to the earlier flight, which was then scheduled to leave at the time our original flight would have left (6:40). They gave us a new print-out, and we headed back up to security, assuming that since we didn’t have bags and had essentially checked in at the info desk, we could just go right to the gate. So on we went, going through security a second time, much to the amusement and confusion of the security guards, and found our way to our new gate. It was pretty crazy, everyone was really upset by the four hour delay, so the poor airport crew was basically just getting yelled at and everyone was getting more and more frustrated. We found a spot and settled in to wait, until around 6pm, when the airport crew announced that there would be a free snack for all those waiting for the flight, in an attempt to quell some of the more angry customers. We happily walked over and got in the long line for free food, when after about a half hour of standing in line my friend Olivia got a call on her cell phone. We watched as she got increasingly panicked while taking on the phone, and then she hung up and informed us that it was someone from check-in, calling to tell us that they were about to close and we still had to check in, and saying basically to really hurry up because they might not be able to do it. We ran off in a panic, heading out of security and explaining what the problem was a second time, and ran down to check-in, where the check in lady grabbed us and made some walkie-talkie calls. In the end, she was able to get us on checked in and on the flight, and with our new tickets in hand, and her yelling at us to hurry, we made our way back to security a third time. By this time the security guards found us pretty funny, “the little family” of silly Americans who just weren’t having any luck. We did however, get successfully through again, got some of the remaining free food, and settled back down to wait for check-in. Finally, the plane arrived, and we took off only about a half hour after when our original flight would have left, big sigh. So yes, so began our trip to Berlin, but luckily it got much much better from there.
We got in to Berlin at around 830 or so, and caught a train from the airport to a station not too far from our hostel. The first thing we noticed about Berlin was that it was freezing; luckily I had learned my lesson in Belgium and Prague and had pulled out my winter coat, plus two layers of sweaters, yes! After a bit of walk from the train station we found the hostel pretty easily, and gave the owners a call so they could come check us in. The hostel was pretty good, about 10 people to a room, so we dropped off our stuff and then headed out to catch a very late dinner as we were pretty hungry. We found a place not far from the hostel that was open til midnight, and served yummy and pretty cheap food. After a nice long dinner, where we used our handy new maps and a guidebook from Sweet Briar to plan out the all we wanted to see. Then it was back to the hostel for a somewhat early bedtime.
The next morning we got up around 9, and found a good café for some hot chocolate and a Danish, breakfast of champions. One of the girls told us that the free tour offered through the hostel was really good, so we decided to do that, meeting up with the group at around 10:25 for the free 3.5 hour tour that hit all the major sites of Berlin. Our tour guide was this amazingly attractive and funny British guy, so I was a happy camper, and on the tour we saw so many incredible parts of Berlin accompagnied by some historical background and little stories. We started by Brandenburg gate, where we also got the longest history lesson-which I found helpful as my history is a bit fuzzy, and then we went over and took a look at the Reichstag. Then it was over to a parking lot, which was actually the spot where Hitler’s Bunker was located (where he actually committed suicide). The spot is unmarked, and the bunker itself is destroyed and inaccessible (it is not advertised basically in an effort to prevent a site where Hitler fans could gather and such). We then saw the Holocaust Memorial (officially called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a really controversial memorial is it cost millions and millions of dollars, which many Berliners thought could have been better spent (for example on a shuttle to the nearby Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp). The memorial basically consists of a whole bunch of concrete rectangles of varying heights, right in the center of Berlin. We also saw Checkpoint Charlie, which our tour guide explained was really not that interesting, as everything they have setup there is new and fake, but it was still good to see. We of course saw a section of the Berlin wall; it’s so hard to believe it was up until only about 20 years ago…pretty crazy. We saw the TV tower as well as a variety of other newer and historical buildings, all of which I have forgotten the name (German is hard…), as well as the Nazi Book Burning Memorial, located in the square where about 20,000 books were burned, and consisting of a glass covering in the ground, which you look down and see an empty bookshelf (which supposedly could hold 20,000 books)-I’ll let you guys figure that one out, pretty straight-forward. We ended the tour at Museum Island at the Berliner Dome, so impressive. By the end of the tour we were pretty tired from all the walking, and also amazingly cold-the sky was permanently overcast for our visit. We loitered in the Berliner Dome for a bit and tried to come up with a plan of action, deciding to walk around and explore randomly, and eventually pick up some dinner. We eventually found a place, at this point we were really hungry having essentially skipped lunch, so we sat down and got some nice German food-sausage and beer! We finished off dinner with some amazing apple streudel, taking our time and soaking up some heat. Then it was off to the Jewish Museum, which had some really interesting exhibits; the building itself had a very interesting and symbolic design. We then walked around and back over to see the Brandenburg Gate at night, and to explore the Reichstag-which is free to the public, and which we could climb to the top and get an impressive view of Berlin at night (as well as a glimpse of where government business goes down). After a long stop at the Reichstag we started the hike back to the hostel, eventually stopping at an Irish pub not far from the hostel. It turns out it was Karaoke night, so we stayed for a while and laughed at all the drunken Germans singing random English/American songs (“Country road”, “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, “Thunderstruck”), it was very amusing. Then it was off to bed, we had done so much walking and were exhausted.
The next morning we got up again at around 9, and headed out on a really long walk that would eventually take us to a famous statue of an Angel (commemorating the victory of the Franco-Prussian war), and then down to Zoo station (as Olivia particularly wanted a picture at the station, she’s a big U2 fan and apparently they have a song about it). It was SUCH a long walk, and afterwards we stopped and got some yummy Thai noodles for lunch. Then it was off to Charlottenburg, a gourgeous palace (the Berlin version of Versailles). We did the free audio guide, and explored a whole lot of the palace, which took a few hours, including the garden (which I think would be much more impressive in the summer). By the time we were done it was nightfall, and we decided to check out Potsdamer Platz, the business area at Berlin, very modern with the Sony center and such. We took the metro, as it was pretty far from Charlottenburg, and were exited to discover a mini little Christmas/Winter fair, with an artificial hill you could go tubing on!!! Joe and I were very excited, and immediately ran over and got in line among all the little kids-so much fun, reminded me of a mini version of the amazing tubing/sledding hill in Canada-so great. We then wandered around and looked at some of the booths that were st up, and then headed over to see if the Imax theater had anything interesting-as we were at this point very cold and tired, and were running out of things to do. However, there wasn’t really anything worth seeing, so we decided to grab an early dinner of Bratwurst at the little fair, followed by this desert that consisted of a circular pastry thing covered in a vanilla-sauce, which was tasty although I still don’t really know what it was. Then it was time for another epic walk through the city; we stopped along the way at a starbucks for some hot chocolate, and spent a long time just talking and warming up, not to mention resting our feet. Then we braved the cold and continued the walk back, stopping a couple times to check out a few stores, and a long time at this huge book store, where I read a “then and now” book featuring some incredible before and after pictures of Berlin-so much was destroyed. By this time it was getting late, so we headed back to the hostel.
This morning we got up at 715 to get our stuff together and head over to the train station. Unfortunately, we missed the first train to the airport, as it was amazingly confusing, but were then able to grab some breakfast at a little place in the station. We then successfully caught a train and made it to the airport with plenty of time, catching our flight without any problems (although it was delayed about 30min, no big deal). So yes, that was Berlin, probably the most historically interesting city I’ve visited so far. As always, I was glad to come back to Paris today, I love this city so much, I literally start to miss it when I’m away. Plus, it’s so nice to actually speak the language! I was getting tired of communicating via charades and pointing, haha. Germany was very cool though, I would love to see more of it at some point.
This week my main focus will be to do my first “Commentaire Compose” for my litterature class at Paris III, which is basically an around 8 page paper due next week, in french of course. The french style of paper writing is very different than what I’m used to, so it’s definitely going to be challenging. Wish me luck! I also have been communicating with the Study Abroad people at Kenyon, and have learned that it is better to apply through the University of Kansas to go to Santiago de Compostela, as it offers much more support (like Sweet Briar), and apparently there have been some problems with credit transfer and grades when students enroll directly in the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. I was pretty freaked out when I heard this, as Kenyon never mentioned this stuff to me, so am somewhat frantically trying to get myself enrolled in the UK program-which techinically should have been done by Oct. 11, whoops. Fortunately, I talked with someone at UK, and they said that the main reason they have that so early is so that people can get a visa, and they made it sound like I should be able to get in fine if I apply now, as I am soooo lucky in that I have a British passport and don’t need a visa (that passport has saved my life, thanks Dad-you are brilliant). Unfortunately, I still have to get together a pretty extensive application to the program, which consists of getting lots of signature from Kenyon and teacher reccomendations, all as quickly as humanly possible, ahhh! It’s gonna be tough, so this week will be devoted to getting all that straightened out, so I can go spend the Spring semester in what is supposed to be an absolutely gorgeous town in Spain (not far from the ocean!). Sam is going through all this as well, hopefully she wont have any trouble and we will be able to do this amazing program together! I’m already starting to get excited. At the same time, I’m running out of weekends in Paris, which is scary! It’s going to be really hard to say goodbye to everyone-I’ve made some really great friends, and have fallen in love with this city. But anyways, life is good, I’m also already getting excited to be home for Christmas-I miss you guys! So yes, hopefully this next week will be a productive one, with some Paris exploration mixed in. Love you all, hope all is well, keep a look out for some post cards!
Brit
Exams are icky...and over!
Hey there everybody,
So after much studying and overall mental pain I have finished my two midterms this week, yayyy. Monday was the cinema “partiel”, and it actually went okay. It consisted of four questions, and we had 90 minutes to basically answer them in a short essay style. I took the whole time, and I think I answered the questions pretty well, although my french was definitely not that good, haha. Fortunately, they take the fact that I’m a foreign student into account, so as long as my ideas are good and I was able to get them across, all should be well. Afterwards I headed over to Sweet Briar for my Atelier class, and was delighted to find a package from dad…my new Ipod!!! I was very very happy. After class, and a snack with Alex, I rushed home and got it all set up, life is good again . I even have room now for some music videos, and lots of pictures (I’ve been looking a lot at our pictures from Provence-makes me happy to see you all). That night, I met up with Kristin at Bar Cristal, as usual, and Alex tagged along and was introduced to the magic that is our favorite bar. I even discovered my new favorite drink, called a Monoco or something like that (I don’t know how it’s spelled), that basically tastes like a Shirley Temple, yummy. We had a really good time hanging out and catching up, me celebrating finishing with my stressful cinema exam. Tuesday was a national holiday here, Armistice day, so no classes. It was perfect, as my Art History exam was Wednesday, so I pretty much spent the whole day studying, plus I was feeling pretty sick so I took a nice long nap, and feel significantly better now. So today (Wednesday) I studied some more for my Art History exam, heading to the Louvre to re-look over the stuff we talked about on our visits, and then headed over to Sweet Briar for our exam. It is half of our grade, and was only 20 multiple choice questions. We graded it in class, and I got a 20 out of 20, yayyy! My teacher was impressed, and I was very very happy, all the studying paid off, I am an expert of the French Renaissance . So yes, very successful day, and now I’m about to head out for our class in the Louvre. Afterwards I’m meeting some friends and we’re going to the movies to see “The Ducess” (with Keira Knightley), which is opening tonight, should be fun. Tomorrow I’m off to Berlin after my Atelier class, with my friends Joe and Olivia. I’m so excited, I’ve heard so many good things about the city, and I’m so ready for an adventure after a week of so much stress and studying. Love you all, and will post upon my return to Paris. So excited! Much love,
Brit
So after much studying and overall mental pain I have finished my two midterms this week, yayyy. Monday was the cinema “partiel”, and it actually went okay. It consisted of four questions, and we had 90 minutes to basically answer them in a short essay style. I took the whole time, and I think I answered the questions pretty well, although my french was definitely not that good, haha. Fortunately, they take the fact that I’m a foreign student into account, so as long as my ideas are good and I was able to get them across, all should be well. Afterwards I headed over to Sweet Briar for my Atelier class, and was delighted to find a package from dad…my new Ipod!!! I was very very happy. After class, and a snack with Alex, I rushed home and got it all set up, life is good again . I even have room now for some music videos, and lots of pictures (I’ve been looking a lot at our pictures from Provence-makes me happy to see you all). That night, I met up with Kristin at Bar Cristal, as usual, and Alex tagged along and was introduced to the magic that is our favorite bar. I even discovered my new favorite drink, called a Monoco or something like that (I don’t know how it’s spelled), that basically tastes like a Shirley Temple, yummy. We had a really good time hanging out and catching up, me celebrating finishing with my stressful cinema exam. Tuesday was a national holiday here, Armistice day, so no classes. It was perfect, as my Art History exam was Wednesday, so I pretty much spent the whole day studying, plus I was feeling pretty sick so I took a nice long nap, and feel significantly better now. So today (Wednesday) I studied some more for my Art History exam, heading to the Louvre to re-look over the stuff we talked about on our visits, and then headed over to Sweet Briar for our exam. It is half of our grade, and was only 20 multiple choice questions. We graded it in class, and I got a 20 out of 20, yayyy! My teacher was impressed, and I was very very happy, all the studying paid off, I am an expert of the French Renaissance . So yes, very successful day, and now I’m about to head out for our class in the Louvre. Afterwards I’m meeting some friends and we’re going to the movies to see “The Ducess” (with Keira Knightley), which is opening tonight, should be fun. Tomorrow I’m off to Berlin after my Atelier class, with my friends Joe and Olivia. I’m so excited, I’ve heard so many good things about the city, and I’m so ready for an adventure after a week of so much stress and studying. Love you all, and will post upon my return to Paris. So excited! Much love,
Brit
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Reims, and Paris goodness
Hello everyone.
I apoligize in advance for this post, as it will probably be as convoluted and full of typos as usual, as I am trying to carry on conversations on AIM, listen to Band of Horses, and update my blog at the same time. So here we go. Thursday I did go to the book store to see David Sedaris, he read some stories (always hilarious), and then did a book signing afterwards, which was very cool. He drew a little picture of Abraham Lincoln trapped in a turtle's body in mine (I'm still not entirely sure why...but ok), very cool. That night I ended up going out Kristin and Joe. We found this English bar called the Long Hop, which was a pretty cool bar; it was also student night, so we got drinks half-price, always good. Afterwards we grabbed a crepe and called it a night, heading back in time to catch the metro. Friday I slept in until like 1pm, catching up on some much-needed sleep, and then I spent the day studying for my Cinema midterm tomorrow. I headed over to Paris III and staked out a spot, and then re-watched most of several of the movies. In the evening I headed home and ate an early dinner, jumpy from sitting and watching movies for so long. Feeling impatient, as none of my friends were ready to hang out, I gave Xavier a call to see if he wanted to meet for a drink or something. He did, so I headed back down to Montparnasse to meet up with him. He then took me on a really long walk to find this cafe/bar he wanted to show me that he seemed pretty excited about. However, when we finally arrived it was pretty quiet-apparently they usually have great live music and everything on Friday nights, but the waitress explained that there wasn't one this weekend for some reason :(. We were pretty disappointed, but stayed and had a couple beers, talking and getting to know each other a little better. After a while, I explained that I had promised to meet up with my friends (which was true), so he walked me to the metro and we rode together for a bit before he got off and headed home. I then met up with Kristin, as well as our friend Caroline and two of her friends that were visiting-one of which was Sarah (Heather's friend that I met in Prague). We hung out and talked for a bit in the St. Michel area, before heading home, as they were pretty exhausted from travelling and it was getting a bit late. Saturday morning, I got up at 7am (argh!), as Sweet Briar had a trip to Reims. It was a really good trip; we did a tour of the "Caves" of Champagne, which also included some weird contemporary art scattered throughout it, and got to taste a glass at the end-very good. Afterwards we were given some time to grab lunch and wander around Reims, before meeting in front of the cathedral. We then had a long tour of the Cathedral (Notre Dame), part of which was outside-it was FREEZING. By the end everyone was practically running to the warmth of the bus, and we headed back to Paris, getting in at around 7. My friend Jen and I then went to find some dinner, again in Saint Michel. After walking around a bit, we decided to call it a night, as all of our friends were either out of town, broke, tired, or just had too much work to go out. This was fine with me, i had gotten up at 7 am after all. Not the most exciting over Saturday nights, but a very good day overall. Today, I studied in the morning, then headed over to Kristin's house for lunch-her host mom insists on a huge sunday lunch, and had suggested that Kristin invite a friend over to share it. I of course was more than happy to oblige, my host mom doesn't feed me more than she's required to, so a free lunch is always good. After lunch, we ended up watching an episode of the Colbert Report via her laptop, and then just wasting our time talking and distracting one another. Finally, around 6pm I decided it was time to head home and actually get some work done, so off I went. And here I am, back at McDonald's to use the Wifi, and to take a break from studying...I'm really hoping my exam tomorrow goes okay, since it is all in french, and my first cinema class, i'm kind of stressing. Also, the Professor neglected to post a bibliography, with suggested books and such to read on the subject, until like yesterday; so basically it was utterly worthless, and really frustrating...I had been checking for it online for like two weeks, and he didn't put it up until two days before the exam, ARGH. I'm just going to hope that it's not really necessary. That's the thing about the french system, the teachers will give you a list of like 20-50 books, and you're just supposed to kind of pick a few at will to read...or not, as my literature advisor essentialy told me to do. So we'll see how this goes, hopefully I don't fail miserably, or misunderstand a question and lose my ability to communicate in French :). Wish me luck, love you all,
Brit
I apoligize in advance for this post, as it will probably be as convoluted and full of typos as usual, as I am trying to carry on conversations on AIM, listen to Band of Horses, and update my blog at the same time. So here we go. Thursday I did go to the book store to see David Sedaris, he read some stories (always hilarious), and then did a book signing afterwards, which was very cool. He drew a little picture of Abraham Lincoln trapped in a turtle's body in mine (I'm still not entirely sure why...but ok), very cool. That night I ended up going out Kristin and Joe. We found this English bar called the Long Hop, which was a pretty cool bar; it was also student night, so we got drinks half-price, always good. Afterwards we grabbed a crepe and called it a night, heading back in time to catch the metro. Friday I slept in until like 1pm, catching up on some much-needed sleep, and then I spent the day studying for my Cinema midterm tomorrow. I headed over to Paris III and staked out a spot, and then re-watched most of several of the movies. In the evening I headed home and ate an early dinner, jumpy from sitting and watching movies for so long. Feeling impatient, as none of my friends were ready to hang out, I gave Xavier a call to see if he wanted to meet for a drink or something. He did, so I headed back down to Montparnasse to meet up with him. He then took me on a really long walk to find this cafe/bar he wanted to show me that he seemed pretty excited about. However, when we finally arrived it was pretty quiet-apparently they usually have great live music and everything on Friday nights, but the waitress explained that there wasn't one this weekend for some reason :(. We were pretty disappointed, but stayed and had a couple beers, talking and getting to know each other a little better. After a while, I explained that I had promised to meet up with my friends (which was true), so he walked me to the metro and we rode together for a bit before he got off and headed home. I then met up with Kristin, as well as our friend Caroline and two of her friends that were visiting-one of which was Sarah (Heather's friend that I met in Prague). We hung out and talked for a bit in the St. Michel area, before heading home, as they were pretty exhausted from travelling and it was getting a bit late. Saturday morning, I got up at 7am (argh!), as Sweet Briar had a trip to Reims. It was a really good trip; we did a tour of the "Caves" of Champagne, which also included some weird contemporary art scattered throughout it, and got to taste a glass at the end-very good. Afterwards we were given some time to grab lunch and wander around Reims, before meeting in front of the cathedral. We then had a long tour of the Cathedral (Notre Dame), part of which was outside-it was FREEZING. By the end everyone was practically running to the warmth of the bus, and we headed back to Paris, getting in at around 7. My friend Jen and I then went to find some dinner, again in Saint Michel. After walking around a bit, we decided to call it a night, as all of our friends were either out of town, broke, tired, or just had too much work to go out. This was fine with me, i had gotten up at 7 am after all. Not the most exciting over Saturday nights, but a very good day overall. Today, I studied in the morning, then headed over to Kristin's house for lunch-her host mom insists on a huge sunday lunch, and had suggested that Kristin invite a friend over to share it. I of course was more than happy to oblige, my host mom doesn't feed me more than she's required to, so a free lunch is always good. After lunch, we ended up watching an episode of the Colbert Report via her laptop, and then just wasting our time talking and distracting one another. Finally, around 6pm I decided it was time to head home and actually get some work done, so off I went. And here I am, back at McDonald's to use the Wifi, and to take a break from studying...I'm really hoping my exam tomorrow goes okay, since it is all in french, and my first cinema class, i'm kind of stressing. Also, the Professor neglected to post a bibliography, with suggested books and such to read on the subject, until like yesterday; so basically it was utterly worthless, and really frustrating...I had been checking for it online for like two weeks, and he didn't put it up until two days before the exam, ARGH. I'm just going to hope that it's not really necessary. That's the thing about the french system, the teachers will give you a list of like 20-50 books, and you're just supposed to kind of pick a few at will to read...or not, as my literature advisor essentialy told me to do. So we'll see how this goes, hopefully I don't fail miserably, or misunderstand a question and lose my ability to communicate in French :). Wish me luck, love you all,
Brit
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
VICTORY!
Yayyyyyy OBAMA! We are all so excited for Obama's win, I had a good time celebrating with the french, but wish I could have been back in the states for such an amazing win, I still can't really believe it. I feel like I can finally state with pride that I'm American, although now I don't know what all the random french people will ask me now that the election is over-Obama vs. McCain was always our main topic :). Gotta go to class now, but will post soon about my election night, hooray!
...And back. So election night was difficult as usual, as Paris is want to be. Kristin and I started out at Porte Maillot around midnight for an Obama party, where we ran into our friends Maura and Lucy. It was huge, so many people standing in this gigantic line; we waited around for like an hour and a half before anything happened, and then chaos pretty much broke loose. Everyone was trying to get in, and it got scary crowded and out of control. They also announced that if you hadn't RSVP'd there was no way you were getting in, so as Kristin and I hadn't we headed out, with Maura and Lucy throwing in the towel as well. As we walked away, we ran into a big group of our Sweet Briar friends, so we decided to all go to a place by the Louvre that was supposedly having an all-night party. We took our friend the night bus, which took forever, and finally arrived, only to realise that the bar had to close at 2 (apparently the police hadn't given them permission to stay open allnight or something). Now we were all pretty frustrated, as it was cold and we were basically nowhere close to any bars, plus everything was closed. Fortunately Kristin had a newspaper page with some info about places to go on the election, so we headed out in what turned out to be the wrong direction. We realized this a good 15-minute walk into it, changing plans and heading on a long walk to a place in the 3rd arrondissement. We finally arrived, by now at like 3 in the morning, and entered the main building/mayor's building of the arrondissement, where there was a big screen set up and a bunch of people crowded into a room watching the election coverage. We shouldered our way in to get a view, and i ended up mostly standing there for two hours just watching Barack pull in the votes. It was really cool, everyone there was so excited for Obama, and there was such a mix of people. Lots of Africans, actually, but also a lot of random French people with a few Americans mixed in. It was pretty great, each time Obama won a state everyone would cheer, so much emotion and excitement. At 5 they closed, giving us all a donught on the way out. At this point we had to wait for the metro, which doesn't open until 530, so we walked around a bit, of course it was drizzling, and found a metro station. We finally caught the metro home at around 6, after an unsuccessful search for public bathrooms, so i got home at round 630, still a bit wired from the red bull i drank to keep myself going. I got home and turned on the tv to catch the latest election updates, and got to see Obama and Biden celebrating with their families on stage, so cool. So yes, that was my election night, tiring but wonderful.
Other than that I've just been studying and stuff for school, and mostly sleeping to make up for the all-nighter that was my election night. Last night, however, Xavier gave me a call, and I ended up meeting him at Montparnasse for a drink after dinner. It was actually really fun, we went to a cool bar and got some delicious German beer, and one of his friends joined us, haha (apparently the friend invited himself, and Xavier couldn't say no). His friend was actually really nice and cute, and it was fun talking with the two of them in a combination of french and english, they've known each other for a long time and we had some pretty hilarious, and interesting, conversations. After the bar, it was too late to see a movie (Xavier's original plan), so we decided to walk around awhile before I had to catch the metro. It was a nice night, a bit rainy but still nice, and Xavier told me a bit about the area and showed me a cute little park, his friend trailing along on his bike. We walked around until a little after midnight, and then Xavier walked me to the metro and sent me on my way, as he apparently lived close by and could just walk home. It was a really nice night, it was nice to get to know him better, he seems like a really cool and interesting guy, and hopefully I will see him again soon :). So yes, there you go, romantic adventures in Paris, juicy stuff, haha. Now I have to go do some work before a consultation with one of the Sweet Briar professors who helps with Literature papers. Then i'm going to see David Sedaris with a couple of friends, yay, i'm very excited. Alrighty then, hope all is well with everyone, love you lots,
Brit
...And back. So election night was difficult as usual, as Paris is want to be. Kristin and I started out at Porte Maillot around midnight for an Obama party, where we ran into our friends Maura and Lucy. It was huge, so many people standing in this gigantic line; we waited around for like an hour and a half before anything happened, and then chaos pretty much broke loose. Everyone was trying to get in, and it got scary crowded and out of control. They also announced that if you hadn't RSVP'd there was no way you were getting in, so as Kristin and I hadn't we headed out, with Maura and Lucy throwing in the towel as well. As we walked away, we ran into a big group of our Sweet Briar friends, so we decided to all go to a place by the Louvre that was supposedly having an all-night party. We took our friend the night bus, which took forever, and finally arrived, only to realise that the bar had to close at 2 (apparently the police hadn't given them permission to stay open allnight or something). Now we were all pretty frustrated, as it was cold and we were basically nowhere close to any bars, plus everything was closed. Fortunately Kristin had a newspaper page with some info about places to go on the election, so we headed out in what turned out to be the wrong direction. We realized this a good 15-minute walk into it, changing plans and heading on a long walk to a place in the 3rd arrondissement. We finally arrived, by now at like 3 in the morning, and entered the main building/mayor's building of the arrondissement, where there was a big screen set up and a bunch of people crowded into a room watching the election coverage. We shouldered our way in to get a view, and i ended up mostly standing there for two hours just watching Barack pull in the votes. It was really cool, everyone there was so excited for Obama, and there was such a mix of people. Lots of Africans, actually, but also a lot of random French people with a few Americans mixed in. It was pretty great, each time Obama won a state everyone would cheer, so much emotion and excitement. At 5 they closed, giving us all a donught on the way out. At this point we had to wait for the metro, which doesn't open until 530, so we walked around a bit, of course it was drizzling, and found a metro station. We finally caught the metro home at around 6, after an unsuccessful search for public bathrooms, so i got home at round 630, still a bit wired from the red bull i drank to keep myself going. I got home and turned on the tv to catch the latest election updates, and got to see Obama and Biden celebrating with their families on stage, so cool. So yes, that was my election night, tiring but wonderful.
Other than that I've just been studying and stuff for school, and mostly sleeping to make up for the all-nighter that was my election night. Last night, however, Xavier gave me a call, and I ended up meeting him at Montparnasse for a drink after dinner. It was actually really fun, we went to a cool bar and got some delicious German beer, and one of his friends joined us, haha (apparently the friend invited himself, and Xavier couldn't say no). His friend was actually really nice and cute, and it was fun talking with the two of them in a combination of french and english, they've known each other for a long time and we had some pretty hilarious, and interesting, conversations. After the bar, it was too late to see a movie (Xavier's original plan), so we decided to walk around awhile before I had to catch the metro. It was a nice night, a bit rainy but still nice, and Xavier told me a bit about the area and showed me a cute little park, his friend trailing along on his bike. We walked around until a little after midnight, and then Xavier walked me to the metro and sent me on my way, as he apparently lived close by and could just walk home. It was a really nice night, it was nice to get to know him better, he seems like a really cool and interesting guy, and hopefully I will see him again soon :). So yes, there you go, romantic adventures in Paris, juicy stuff, haha. Now I have to go do some work before a consultation with one of the Sweet Briar professors who helps with Literature papers. Then i'm going to see David Sedaris with a couple of friends, yay, i'm very excited. Alrighty then, hope all is well with everyone, love you lots,
Brit
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Oh Paris, why must you test me? and Lloyd's visit!
Hey there everybody,
Sorry I’ve slacked a bit on the blogging, although honestly I didn’t have a whole lot to report last week, I’ve actually got a lot of school work (it was bound to happen…), so am not able to do the usual explorations. I did, however, just have a great weekend with Ryan (Lloyd), one of my best friends from Kenyon, who came from London to visit for a bit, yay! So yes, last week was kind of a stressful week, lots of me running around trying to find books to use for studying and a big paper, as well as trying to fix my Ipod (and failing…I am sending it home tomorrow as Paris does not have an Apple store here-apparently there is one being built, sigh). As for the internet, there is no progress, my host mom has officially given up on it, and I don’t want to move, so more nights at McDonalds for me…argh. Friday was really great, as Sweet Briar organized a trip to the Catacombes in the morning, super cool/creepy, and then afterwards a bunch of us went to this huge chocolate exhibit that was going on this weekend (the catocombes and chocolate, perfect for Halloween). Basically, it consisted of just a huge room filled with lots of booths/tables of chocolate producers, who gave out free samples and such, so great. After gorging ourselves on free samples, Kristin and I went to go try and find a movie theater by the train station, but after no success just ended up wandering around the area. We then went to the train station and met Lloyd, yay! It was really great to see him, although I admit it was kind of hard-so many memories of Kenyon that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with. After we met, we spent forever trying to get him a weekend pass, which took entirely too long as the automated machines are evil and only accept American credit cards about half the time, but we finally figured it out and headed out to find his hostel. Unfortunately, being Lloyd, he had managed to book a hostel in pretty much the sketchiest area of Paris-my good book says it’s known as the place to go for drugs…Lots of people trying to sell us packets of cigarettes, begging, and overall crowded scariness. Upon reaching the hostel, Kristin mentioned that her host mom was actually gone for the weekend, and that since she has an extra bed in her room she invited us to both just stay at her place for the weekend, perfection. So Ryan cancelled his reservation and we got out of there as quick as we could, stopping by Kristin’s house to drop off his stuff. Ryan and I then went out to dinner in the Bastille area, while Kristin ate the dinner her host mom made for her. We went to this really great Mexican place, getting a chance to catch up, it had been a while. Afterwards, we met up with Alex, Emily, Abby, and Jen at the Pub down the street we like to visit (happy hour til 11!), where we got a couple drinks and hung out for a bit before heading over to an Australian bar Alex had found, where you can play beer pong! Unfortunately, we only got in one game, as the place had only one table, but Lloyd and I were victorious, yesss. Then it was off to a café for a bit to chat, before me, Lloyd, and Kristin (who had met us at the beer pong place) decided to head out and catch the last metro home (the others decided they were going to pull there first late night in Paris and stay out til 5:30pm-when the metro starts running again. I don’t know yet if they acutally did, haha.) So off we went, catching the first metro no problem, and then waiting, waiting, and waiting at the next….And it didn’t come! Apparently we had just missed it, so we were far from home at 2am, and it was freezing and raining, ARGH. By this point, Lloyd and I were both really tired (he was going on two hours of sleep from the night before, and I was just exhausted from everything that week), but Kristin valiantly stepped up and figured out the night bus situation, which was my first time taking it. It was so miserable, so cold, so wet; we walked awhile to the station, getting lucky both times in that we only had to wait a bit when we got there, and finally made it back to her place a good 45 minutes later. We just were not having luck with transportation this weekend, Lloyd’s passes also gave us tons of trouble-the stupid machines rejected them the vast majority of the time. Fortunately, when we got back to Kristin’s place, she prepared some hot tea and a plate of cake that her host mom had told her to eat, and we watched an episode of the Colbert Report via her Wifi (lucky bitch ;). Overall then, it was okay, but such an ordeal.
Saturday started off pretty bad as well, with Kristin having a huge amount of trouble getting her Carte Navigo recharged (we have to do this each month to use the public transportation). After much difficulty, we did however make it to the Marais, where we visitied the Centre Pompidou, this huge, awesome modern art museum I had been meaning to check out for a while. It was very interesting, with the mix of really bizarre and incomprehensible art, as well as some of the better known artists such as Dali, Picasso, Matisse, etc. After exploring the museum for quite a while, we left and got some ice cream before heading to Saint Chappelle and the Conciergie. Unfortunately, by that time it was already around 5:30, so neither was open. However, it was a beautiful night in Paris, so we walked along the Seine, falling back in love with our oh-so-frustrating at times city. It was beautiful, so we walked around for quite a while, eventually meeting up with our friend Olivia and continuing up the Champs-Elysées. Then Ryan and I went off to find some dinner, and Kristin headed back to her place for hers. We went to the Latin Quarter and found a pretty cheap place with Panninis, yum. I even got a free cookie from the waiter . Then it was off to do more random wandering, which eventually took us to Shakespeare and Co, the famous English bookstore frequented by James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, etc. I ended up getting a book by David Sedaris that I had been meaning to read for forever (“Me talk pretty one day”); I mainly bought it because he is actually coming to Paris on Thursday, which is super exciting! His books are just really clever and funny, I really hope to see him and maybe get a copy of his new book. Anyways, Ryan and I also explored a bit of Ile St. Louis, at the end stopping in a little café to split some Berthillon ice cream, which is supposed to be like the best ice cream ever….it was pretty damn good. By that time we were ready to head back to Kristin’s place, as Ryan needed to submit an application before midnight (he likes to procrastinate). After talking and hanging out a bit we took Ryan over to Bar Cristal, where we had a couple drinks and had a good time laughing at our adorable bar tender. We stayed there until it closed at 2, before heading back to Kristin’s house for some more Colbert Report and then sleep. Sunday, we got up earlier, and Ryan and I headed to check out Les Invalides, a short walk from Kristin’s place. It was very cool, another site I hadn’t seen yet in Paris, where Napoleon’s tomb is located. There was also a really interesting museum, a large part of which focused on WWI and WWII, very interesting. We then headed over to the Pantheon, so Ryan could see it, he was very excited to see Rousseau and Voltaire in particular. After that, we called up Kristin, who met us for lunch in Montmartre. We had some delicious Indian food, and then headed up the steps to the Sacre-Coeur, again one of my favorite places in Paris. After sitting and listening to a rather unfortunate rendition of “Wish You Were Here”, we went into the Church for a bit, and then walked out to look at the little shopping area where lots of painters display there work. Then it was time to start heading back a bit, so we walked down and through the Pigalle, so he could see the Moulin Rouge, before hopping on the metro and heading back to Kristin’s house to get our stuff. Then it was goodbye, as Ryan had to catch his train home, so I rode the metro most of the way before sending him on his way back to London. Like I said, it was really great to see him, and share this city and these people that I have come to love. Hopefully I will get to visit him in London next semester, and he can do the same. So yes, good weekend, although now I have to get back to thinking about all the work I have to get done in the next week, ick. Wish me luck!
Much love,
Brit
Sorry I’ve slacked a bit on the blogging, although honestly I didn’t have a whole lot to report last week, I’ve actually got a lot of school work (it was bound to happen…), so am not able to do the usual explorations. I did, however, just have a great weekend with Ryan (Lloyd), one of my best friends from Kenyon, who came from London to visit for a bit, yay! So yes, last week was kind of a stressful week, lots of me running around trying to find books to use for studying and a big paper, as well as trying to fix my Ipod (and failing…I am sending it home tomorrow as Paris does not have an Apple store here-apparently there is one being built, sigh). As for the internet, there is no progress, my host mom has officially given up on it, and I don’t want to move, so more nights at McDonalds for me…argh. Friday was really great, as Sweet Briar organized a trip to the Catacombes in the morning, super cool/creepy, and then afterwards a bunch of us went to this huge chocolate exhibit that was going on this weekend (the catocombes and chocolate, perfect for Halloween). Basically, it consisted of just a huge room filled with lots of booths/tables of chocolate producers, who gave out free samples and such, so great. After gorging ourselves on free samples, Kristin and I went to go try and find a movie theater by the train station, but after no success just ended up wandering around the area. We then went to the train station and met Lloyd, yay! It was really great to see him, although I admit it was kind of hard-so many memories of Kenyon that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with. After we met, we spent forever trying to get him a weekend pass, which took entirely too long as the automated machines are evil and only accept American credit cards about half the time, but we finally figured it out and headed out to find his hostel. Unfortunately, being Lloyd, he had managed to book a hostel in pretty much the sketchiest area of Paris-my good book says it’s known as the place to go for drugs…Lots of people trying to sell us packets of cigarettes, begging, and overall crowded scariness. Upon reaching the hostel, Kristin mentioned that her host mom was actually gone for the weekend, and that since she has an extra bed in her room she invited us to both just stay at her place for the weekend, perfection. So Ryan cancelled his reservation and we got out of there as quick as we could, stopping by Kristin’s house to drop off his stuff. Ryan and I then went out to dinner in the Bastille area, while Kristin ate the dinner her host mom made for her. We went to this really great Mexican place, getting a chance to catch up, it had been a while. Afterwards, we met up with Alex, Emily, Abby, and Jen at the Pub down the street we like to visit (happy hour til 11!), where we got a couple drinks and hung out for a bit before heading over to an Australian bar Alex had found, where you can play beer pong! Unfortunately, we only got in one game, as the place had only one table, but Lloyd and I were victorious, yesss. Then it was off to a café for a bit to chat, before me, Lloyd, and Kristin (who had met us at the beer pong place) decided to head out and catch the last metro home (the others decided they were going to pull there first late night in Paris and stay out til 5:30pm-when the metro starts running again. I don’t know yet if they acutally did, haha.) So off we went, catching the first metro no problem, and then waiting, waiting, and waiting at the next….And it didn’t come! Apparently we had just missed it, so we were far from home at 2am, and it was freezing and raining, ARGH. By this point, Lloyd and I were both really tired (he was going on two hours of sleep from the night before, and I was just exhausted from everything that week), but Kristin valiantly stepped up and figured out the night bus situation, which was my first time taking it. It was so miserable, so cold, so wet; we walked awhile to the station, getting lucky both times in that we only had to wait a bit when we got there, and finally made it back to her place a good 45 minutes later. We just were not having luck with transportation this weekend, Lloyd’s passes also gave us tons of trouble-the stupid machines rejected them the vast majority of the time. Fortunately, when we got back to Kristin’s place, she prepared some hot tea and a plate of cake that her host mom had told her to eat, and we watched an episode of the Colbert Report via her Wifi (lucky bitch ;). Overall then, it was okay, but such an ordeal.
Saturday started off pretty bad as well, with Kristin having a huge amount of trouble getting her Carte Navigo recharged (we have to do this each month to use the public transportation). After much difficulty, we did however make it to the Marais, where we visitied the Centre Pompidou, this huge, awesome modern art museum I had been meaning to check out for a while. It was very interesting, with the mix of really bizarre and incomprehensible art, as well as some of the better known artists such as Dali, Picasso, Matisse, etc. After exploring the museum for quite a while, we left and got some ice cream before heading to Saint Chappelle and the Conciergie. Unfortunately, by that time it was already around 5:30, so neither was open. However, it was a beautiful night in Paris, so we walked along the Seine, falling back in love with our oh-so-frustrating at times city. It was beautiful, so we walked around for quite a while, eventually meeting up with our friend Olivia and continuing up the Champs-Elysées. Then Ryan and I went off to find some dinner, and Kristin headed back to her place for hers. We went to the Latin Quarter and found a pretty cheap place with Panninis, yum. I even got a free cookie from the waiter . Then it was off to do more random wandering, which eventually took us to Shakespeare and Co, the famous English bookstore frequented by James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, etc. I ended up getting a book by David Sedaris that I had been meaning to read for forever (“Me talk pretty one day”); I mainly bought it because he is actually coming to Paris on Thursday, which is super exciting! His books are just really clever and funny, I really hope to see him and maybe get a copy of his new book. Anyways, Ryan and I also explored a bit of Ile St. Louis, at the end stopping in a little café to split some Berthillon ice cream, which is supposed to be like the best ice cream ever….it was pretty damn good. By that time we were ready to head back to Kristin’s place, as Ryan needed to submit an application before midnight (he likes to procrastinate). After talking and hanging out a bit we took Ryan over to Bar Cristal, where we had a couple drinks and had a good time laughing at our adorable bar tender. We stayed there until it closed at 2, before heading back to Kristin’s house for some more Colbert Report and then sleep. Sunday, we got up earlier, and Ryan and I headed to check out Les Invalides, a short walk from Kristin’s place. It was very cool, another site I hadn’t seen yet in Paris, where Napoleon’s tomb is located. There was also a really interesting museum, a large part of which focused on WWI and WWII, very interesting. We then headed over to the Pantheon, so Ryan could see it, he was very excited to see Rousseau and Voltaire in particular. After that, we called up Kristin, who met us for lunch in Montmartre. We had some delicious Indian food, and then headed up the steps to the Sacre-Coeur, again one of my favorite places in Paris. After sitting and listening to a rather unfortunate rendition of “Wish You Were Here”, we went into the Church for a bit, and then walked out to look at the little shopping area where lots of painters display there work. Then it was time to start heading back a bit, so we walked down and through the Pigalle, so he could see the Moulin Rouge, before hopping on the metro and heading back to Kristin’s house to get our stuff. Then it was goodbye, as Ryan had to catch his train home, so I rode the metro most of the way before sending him on his way back to London. Like I said, it was really great to see him, and share this city and these people that I have come to love. Hopefully I will get to visit him in London next semester, and he can do the same. So yes, good weekend, although now I have to get back to thinking about all the work I have to get done in the next week, ick. Wish me luck!
Much love,
Brit
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