Paris has a little bit of Everything

Bon Dimanche!

Yet another week has passed in Paris and I have come to realize how quickly time is passing. This weekend my friends and I planned trips to outside of France, and we realized how little time we really have here! It's alreay making me sad. I'm trying not to think about leaving though and instead just enjoying the time I have here.

This week was an exciting one, and although I didn't think it possible I believe I fell even more in love with Paris. Last Saturday as I mentioned at the end of my last post, a few friends and I visited the St. Germain-des-Prés neighborhood of Paris, which is known for having hosted many artists, publishers, and writers at one time. It was such an adorable little section of Paris that was a lot of fun to walk around and enjoy lunch outside at a café. Later in the afternoon we saw "The King's Speech" (or as it's called here, Le Discours d'un Roi) which was amazing! Thankfully the movie was in English, just with French subtitles. It was funny to see how they translated some things, which makes me realize that movies really should be watched in their native language. Some things just don't translate very well.

Sunday afternoon I was invited over to my friend Melissa's host family's house for midday lunch. It was so nice of her host mother to have us over! We had such a great, long, French lunch, complete with galettes (savory crêpes), salads, lots and lots of cheese and bread, and wine. I will never, ever get tired of mealtimes in France! I have a feeling I'm going to be buying lots of cheese and bread to eat when I get home.

Monday was class again, but the most exciting part of the day was when my friends and I went to a Venezuelan restaurant for dinner. A few of my friends are from Venezuela and Guatemala, so they were really excited to go, as was I! The meal was absolutely incredible; my first experience with Venezuelan cuisine was a real success. First we had Arepas, which are small cakes made out of corn flour, served with beans, cheese, and guacamole. Next I had Venezuela's most popular dish, Pabellón, which is shredded beef, rice, black beans, and plantains. For dessert we had Arroz con Leche, or rice pudding. Everything was so delicious and I was so incredibly full I could barely walk back to the metro! I think we will be revisiting this restaurant sometime later in the semester. Yum!

Arepas, Pabellón, Arroz con Leche

Tuesday morning, still full from the night before, I finally had my first class at the Institut Catholique de Paris (ICP). It was a Philosophy class on Nietzsche, and the professor seems really really nice. I could understand all of her French because she spoke very clearly, loudly, and not too quickly. This was a great relief for me! The concepts are a little confusing, but it is a Philosophy class, so that's to be expected. I may do some outside reading in English by myself to make sure I really understand the course material. My next class won't be for another two weeks, however, because French universities have their winter break from February 11-27! This is because they only have about a week between when their finals for first semester end and their second semester classes begin. Very different from in the US!

Another very exciting experience for me this week was my trip to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, or the Paris museum of Art and Industry. It's basically a museum filled with thousands of engineering/industry-related objects that show the progression of technology through time. Being the nerd that I am, I had an amazing time here! There were sections on measurement instruments, energy, materials, construction, mechanical systems, and transportation. My favorite part was the last section of the museum, which is in a small church. It held old-style planes, hanging from the ceiling, as well as old cars, and even a replica of the Statue of Liberty (which if you've forgotten, was given as a gift to the United States from the people of France). Nonetheless I had a fabulous nerdy-engineering-filled afternoon, which was really great since I have had no engineering, science, or math related classes since December.

Plane! In a church!

Friday was an absolutely gorgeous day in Paris, with temperatures in the 50s and tons of sunshine. It was such a great break from the gray, cold, rainy days we have been getting! After having lunch my friends and I visited Angelina's, restaurant famous for their decadent desserts and hot chocolate. And let me tell you: you have not lived until you try Angelina's hot chocolate. I'm not really sure any other type of hot chocolate deserves that name. This hot chocolate is basically like you took a really really great chocolate bar, melted it, and poured it into a cup. No water, no fake brown powder, just thick, pure, fabulous, chocolate. Not at all for the feint of heart (or you, Mom, you would have one sip and say "it's way too rich!"). I made the mistake of also ordering a dessert, which I will admit was absolutely incredible, but with the hot chocolate too (and they give you a ton!) was WAY too much. Still, a fabulous experience that I am still drooling over.

chocolate and raspberry ganache tart with whipped-cream topped hot chocolate

Since we were now all on probably the biggest sugar-high of all time, we took advantage of the beautiful day and walked through the Tuileries Gardens again, walked up along the Seine to the Love Locks bridge in Paris, where lovers from all over come to the bridge, write their names on a padlock, and lock it on the bridge to symbolize locking in their love. Ah Paris, la ville de l'amour!

We then journeyed over to the Champ de Mars to take some great pictures with the Tour Eiffel. Touristsy, I know, but lots of fun!

La Tour Eiffel et nous!

The rest of this weekend was spent planning trips for the semester. I am excited to say that next weekend I will be traveling to Brussels, Belgium! Expect a post next Sunday or Monday with those details. We also planned a trip to Madrid, Spain for March! I am unbelievably excited to travel to both cities and will be sure to take tons of pictures for you all to see!

Sorry this post was rather long, and now that I look back, mostly food related. You know what they say about la gastronomie française, after all!

Bisous!

The French Educational System

Bonjour à tous!

I apologize that this post is coming nearly two weeks after the last! I had hoped to post here weekly and will try to get back on that track now. Needless to say I have been very busy here! I'll attempt to summarize it all now.

Classes have officially begun and I'm enjoying them so far. At IES (my program), I am taking a French Language & Culture course, where we work on our grammar and writing as well as speaking by discussing current events and reading different articles or stories in French. I really like the conversation aspect of the course and it's great to be able to actually discuss things going on in the world instead of just reviewing verb tenses for an hour and a half (like many of my previous French classes have been). I am also taking a class entitled "Francophone Paris", which focuses on immigration in France. It's really interesting to see the differences in how the French view immigration, diversity, and culture in comparison to how we see it in the US. More on that in later posts. My last IES course is a class on French Cinema and Society, where we watch, analyze, and discuss French films. As I've never really seen any French films outside of Amélie, I'm really excited to see them! I just hope that I understand what's going on...

In addition to my IES courses I will also be taking two classes at the Institut Catholique de Paris (ICP). I wish that I could tell you how those courses were this week, except that I haven't actually attended one yet! Monday morning I went to the campus to attend my first course, which was supposed to be a Philosophy course on Linguistics. After much searching around and asking the secretary, I found out that the course was no longer being offered. The French educational system is quite different from that of the US; universities don't post all of their classes, syllbuses, and professors months before the semester. They post them a week or two before and change them up to the very first day (or after) of the semester. This also happened with the Theology course that I had planned to take. I was forced to find new classes to take that still fit within my schedule: stress nightmare!! If you know me you know that I stress very easily when it comes to classes, life-planning, etc. so this was really not my favorite day so far. Thankfully I was able to find two new classes to take.

So Tuesday I headed back to ICP with the hopes of attending my first class, History of the Church in the 20th century, where I wait for around 20 minutes only to find out that the professor is sick. They also don't really inform you of that here either. So in summary: I have yet to attend any of my ICP classes! Hopefully next week I will actually be able to write about how they went, but we'll see.

The highlight of last week for me was our visit of the Opéra Garnier, which houses hundreds of ballets, operas, and plays each year. The building is beyond incredible, with grand staircases and golden chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. I am really hoping to be able to find tickets that are not too expensive to see a ballet here later this year. I can't really explain the shear beauty of this building adequately enough but I recommend that you take a look at my pictures from it! You can find them on the link to the left at my webshots page.

Opéra Garnier

The weather the past two weeks has been pretty cold, with an average temperature around 0 degrees Celsius. Luckily it warmed up slightly yesterday so a few friends and I headed to Le Marais, which is home to many Jewish restaurants, synagogues, and Parisians. Here I had my first falafel! It was absolutely delicious! If I ever had to be a vegetarian, I am pretty sure I would eat falafel every day. If you're not familiar with this Jewish/Egyptian/Middle Eastern cuisine, falafel is a fried ball of chickpeas, usually placed in a pita pocket with vegetables and sauces. It's absolutely amazing and I really recommend that you try it if you never have! The restaurant we ordered it from, L'as du Falafel, is considered one of the best and most famous places to order it in Paris (consider it the "Pat's Steaks" of falafel in Paris). Glad I got to try it!

After walking around all day we settled into a café for some chocolat chaud and later had dinner at a great pizzeria. One of the things I love about Paris is that most non-French restaurants are very authentic; for example, the pizzeria we went to had Italians working there and all of the Jewish bakeries had Jewish people working there. Not only is Paris a great place to get a croissant, quiche lorraine, or boeuf bourguignon, but it's also home to many other cultures and styles of food. As someone who especially loves food, this makes me very happy. :)

Today I am heading over to visit the St. Germain-des-Près district of Paris, where in the 1920's many artists, writers, publishers, and the like settled. Later many famous French writers are known to have frequented the area, such as Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir. Pretty excited to check it out!

That's all for now, I'll try to post again in a week!
À bientôt!