Ich bin nach München gefahren!

I forgot to mention in my last blog that last Monday night we had this delicious lentil, sausage and onion soup mixture. Last night we had this delicious veal and mushroom soup mixture. I'm afraid to call things soup now, because I called last night's dinner soup, and Fanou kind of got on my case, but I can't remember the word she used. Anyway, both of these liquidy messes (whatever they're called) were really good!

So my friend Nikki and I left from IES around 5:45pm on Thursday night to go to Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). We went to Denfert-Rochereau, which is right by IES and is a metro/train (RER) station, to board the RER B to CDG. We had read and heard that the RER would cost 8.40 euros each way, but when we got to the station, we couldn't figure out how to buy any tickets. There were no signs and the office was closed. So we decided to give our Navigos (unlimited swipe cards that work in zones 1 and 2 of Paris) a shot. They worked! We were kind of freaking out that some transportation police would find out we hadn't paid and fine us a whole bunch of money, so we called our friend, Sarah, who had gone to CDG the weekend before. She said that since we had gotten through the gate, there shouldn't be any problem because there were no other check points to get through except the one at CDG leaving the RER. We figured if someone realized we hadn't paid and wanted to fine us, we would pretend we didn't speak French and try to pull off the whole stupid tourist thing. But it wasn't a problem! (note: I do know that the fine for being on the metro without a ticket is 40 euros, and my dad said it's like 500 euros for the RER)

We were so happy to be going to CDG instead of Beauvais. It was soooo much easier to get to, so much cleaner, so much more helpful, etc. Plus, we left early in the evening to be there for our 9:30 flight, so we could relax. It was weird, though, because our passports were never really looked at. In fact, we didn't get a stamp in either France or Germany. Maybe it's because they're both on the same continent, unlike Ireland which is an island. We made our way to the Lufthansa terminal and hung out until boarding time. Aaah CDG is really nice- they had moving floors everywhere (one that was bouncy haha!) and they had a charging station for electronics, so I could charge my phone before I left. We were both really excited about the Crunchy M&Ms (which seem to have disappeared from the US) we saw in a store in the terminal, so we both bought some. For some reason, they're not as good as I remember. Maybe that's why they're not really available anymore... or maybe it's just that European Crunchy M&Ms are not as good. Nikki came back from the store to our seats and told me I had to look at the magazine rack in there. I looked, and there was a pair of breasts staring back at me! They weren't fake, and the girl wasn't even in a sexy pose- she was just naked. Bizarre.

Lufthansa is a really nice airline. I wouldn't mind flying on Lufthansa for the rest of my life at this point! The seats were leather and there was a lot of leg space and storage space, and they served drinks- that's normal but we were excited for such luxuries after Ryanair last weekend. The abnormal thing was they served us all a little free sandwich that was actually really good. On that flight, I got the ham sandwich that was just some German bread and ham, and although I'm normally not a big fan of dry sandwiches, it was great. They also gave us Twix bars. Yum! When I asked what the drink options were, the flight attendant responded, "Whatever you like." Yes! Service!

I sat next to a man named Rolf, who works for Cadence, so he travels between Munich and Paris a fair amount. He gave me the rundown on Münchener things to do: eat Brezeln (pretzels), but only before noon; eat Weißwurst (white sausage, the ß is pronounced "ss") and eat it with the traditional sweet mustard, Weisswurstsenf, say fertig (or something like that) when saying goodbye. I learned in German class last semester to say Gruß Gott! (god's greetings) when saying hello, and Rolf said that Fertig! means something along the same lines. Since Bavaria is the most conservative and religious (Catholic) region in Germany, it's the only region where these kinds of phrases are acceptable to use. When I asked him what were some German things he loves but can't find in other places, he said the bread. I was surprised because I feel like I'm living in the land of good bread, but Bavarian bread is dark and a little bitter or something, and really soft.

We got to the Munich airport a little on the late side, since our plane had had some technical difficulties before we left. Nikki's friend, John, was there to meet us and take us back to his place, where we stayed on the floor. He's studying German at the Goethe Institute in Munich for two months and then going to some little German town until August (for the whole German semester). It was really nice to have him around since he acted as our interpreter the whole time, and he had already bought our three day metro pass and our rail tickets to Schloss Neuschwanstein. He also had bought a lot of German snacks for us to try when we got to his place- Haribo gummy bears, Riesen-covered marshmellows, Haselnuss-Schnitte (chocolate and hazelnut wafers), stuff like that.

The next morning we went and got breakfast at a little Munich bakery he knew about. The bakery/restaurant was decorated for Rosenmontag (lit: Running Monday, meaning Collop Monday before Ash Wednesday) and Fasching (Mardi Gras). The waitresses were dressed up- one as a clown and one as a police woman. Thinking about it now, though, the place might just look that way all the time, since our dining room was clown themed...

The bakery/restaurant in Munich (see the clown?)

I had the famous Weißwurst and a pretzel and a Weißbier (wheat beer), so I satisfied that touristy thing I had to do right away. The beer for breakfast was strange, but it all came as the Münchener Frühstücke (typical Munich breakfast plate), so I had it. I have to say it all went together well. The pretzel, as are apparently all traditional Bavarian pretzel, as pretty hard, but really good.

Then we spent the morning wandering around in Munich while it snowed, much to my feet's dismay. I was wearing leather boots that did nothing to keep the water out, so I was pretty cold. But I loved seeing the town. We walked to the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, where the Scholl siblings, who were founders of die Weiße Rose (White Rose) anti-Nazi group, were caught by a janitor throwing anti-Nazi propaganda off of a balcony. They were beheaded a few days later and are now huge German heros. It was eery to be where they were and to imagine what the whole scene was like. Apparently there's a movie about the event, called the White Rose (I think).

Scholl Sibling Place

White Rose Pamphlets in the stones outside of the University

Scholl sibling memorial inside the University

After the Ludwig Maximilians University, we went over to the Englischer Garten (English Gardens), so called apparently because they are in the informal style of 18th century English gardens. It's basically a huge public park- one of the biggest in the world.

The Monopteros in the Englischer Garten

Nikki and I at the Monopteros, infront of the skyline of Munich

After the Englischer Garten, we went over to the BMW Wert (BMW World) and the Olympic Center. It wasn't too exciting- no one at BMW paid us any attention since we were obviously not there to buy cars. Everything except for the pool at the Olympic Complex was closed, which was fine. We basically wandered around, saw the buildings and fields, and saw the Autobahn.

What the Olympic Complex looks like in the summer

What we saw in the middle of winter

Das Autobahn

Then John took us to his favorite Turkish Doner Kabob place in the center of Munich. They actually left to go get cheese for us, which was good because the cheese (a little like feta) really made the kabob. He had to go to class then, so Nikki and I spent awhile wandering around the center of town. There were a lot of decorations up for Fasching, such as pinata-type things on lamp posts. We saw some of the most ornate churches I've ever seen. We gasped when we turned the corner and saw the Neues Rathaus (the new city hall), which was incredible, and which has the Rathaus-Glockenspiel, that displays life-size figures that reenact stories a few times a day.

A big clown hanging from the gates to old Munich for FaschingA church in the center of Munich

Das Neues Rathaus in Marienplatz. The green area in the front of the tower is the Rathaus-Glockenspiel.

That night we went to a typical Munchener restaurant and had more sausage. I thought one helping of Weisswurst was enough, so I got some darker, grilled sausages and sauerkraut- aaah I am making myself hungry! Then we met up with John's friends at Hoffbräuhaus- the famous beer hall that has a German band and lots of German food (at good prices), German beer, and tourists. However, it wasn't particularly touristy. That's how all of Munich seemed to me- it retained its German-ness really well, and there weren't that many tourists when we were there (probably because of the freezing temperatures).

"Thirst is worse than homesickness"

My Hoffbräuhaus Kaiserscharrn- something to do with a Kaiser- so yummy!

The German band at Hoffbräuhaus

The next day we got up early to take a train two hours south to Schloss Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired the Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland. It was beautiful, and I feel like it was worth the trip. We got out of the city, got to see the Alps, and got to see a really cool castle. The Alps in Germany are strange because they shoot up out of nowhere. The lands is really flat and then all of a sudden- WHOOSH- there are the Alps. We ate lunch at a little hotel/restaurant in Füssen, where the trainstation is, and apparently where Steve McQueen did a lot of his motorcycle stunts for the Great Escape and where there was a Dachau Concentration Subcamp.

No one was really in there except a group of German men dressed in black coat tails and top hats with big red sashes that had buttons all over them. We didn't really know what that was about, so we just sat down. Our food came out on slices of tree trunk- pretty cool! It wasn't any better than the food in Munich, though. A little while after our lunch came out, we heard a marching band outside. Nikki and I got up to look outside to see what was going on. All the men in top hats had gone out and there was a marching band of 20 or so men in uniforms and gold helmets marching right up to our restaurant. We snapped a picture and went back in to eat, not thinking anything of it. Five minutes later, the band started a new song and entered the little restaurant! The marched around while playing some German songs, sat down, exchanged some group yells with the men in top hats, drank a beer with the men in top hats, stood up and played another song while they marched out. They all looked like characters- some came over and chatted with us. There was also a really pretty girl dressed in a red dress with her hair done up with sparkles. This whole thing was for Fasching, and she was the Fasching Princess. How cool is that?

The Fasching gathering at the little restaurant we ate at in Füssen

Neuschwanstein is at the base of the Alps, but we did have to take a shuttle from the trainstation in Füssen to the closest town to it, Schwangau. Then we were supposed to be able to take a shuttle from Schwangau further up the mountain, but since the roads were too dangerous for buses, we took a horsedrawn carriage for 9 euros round trip. Believe me, it was worth it. The mountain was steep and wet and it would have taken us around an hour and a half total.

Our horse-drawn carriage that sat 12 (including the driver) at the top of the mountain

We had about an eight minute climb after that the rest of the way up, which we prolonged by taking lots of pictures of the mountains around the castle, which were breath-taking. We had bought our tickets for the English tour of the castle down in Schwangau, so we just waited around for awhile, and looked at the bridge that is across a little valley from which one can apparently see the best view of Neuschwanstein. We kind of considered going over there, until we realized that the big gate that said something along the lines of "Don't enter- dangerous, falling rocks and snow" was blocking the entrance to the path to the bridge. We saw a lot of people go around the gate though. The phonecalls home about being crushed by rocks and snow or slipping off the side of a cliff didn't seem worth it.

The bridge with the spectacular view of Neuschwanstein to which I would like to hike in the summer, without the avalanches

Schloss Neuschwantstein

The tour was cool, if on the shorter side of what I expected. That's because King Ludwig II, the king who had Neuschwanstein built as his vacation castle in the late 1800s, died before it was finished. It took seventeen years to get as far as they did, and he died with only a third of the rooms finished. We saw the chapel, his bedroom (with his incredible bed that took 17 woodworkers something like 4 years to make, with replicas of all the gothic cathedrals in Bavaria all over the top of it), the living room, the dining hall, and some others. It was really really ornate, with swans as the dominant motif. I can only imagine what he had planned for the rest of it. Although it was short, I'd say the whole effort was worth it. I would definitely do it again.

When we got back, we went to an Augustiner brewhouse (there are at least two), where I ate one of my few non-sausage meals. I had traditional roast pork with a gravy and a gelatinous mashed potato ball. The dish was so good- the meat just melted in your mouth and was so flavorful. We were there right after a huge rugby match that Munich lost. We saw lots of red and white (the Munich colors, I'm assuming) and heard some singing, and I even saw a guy with a Munich team tattoo on his forehead (hoping it was fake).

The giant "Das Boot" (actually der Stiefel) for 500 euros that I saw on the way out of the restaurant

A little later that night, we went to this club called 8 Seasons, which had some popular techno guys playing. It was fun, but it wasn't as interesting as the rest of my time in Munich. I mean, a club is a club anywhere to me. But I had a good time.

Ich bin Googler (saw it on the way to the club)

The next morning, we got up and went to the Hauptbonhof (the main train station) to catch our train to the airport. You wouldn't believe the selection of good food even at the train station! I got some, you guessed it, sausage as well as an Apfelstreudel (apple streudel) and some other donut-like thing for the journey home.

We got to the airport and went through security really easily. We sat around for awhile watching the bicathlon (cross-country skiing and shooting) that was all over every tv there. The Germans are so outdoorsy! Then we heard the announcement that our plane was delayed for some reason, and that they'd give us an update in 10-15 minutes. Five minutes later, we had an update saying that the plane wasn't going to be used anymore, and they'd let us know the new departure time in another 10-15 minutes. Five minutes later we were told when it was, and soon after that we were boarding the plane. After we passed through the ticket gate, we were loaded onto buses that took us out to where the new plane was, where we got on. It turned out to be a really small plane, so Nikki and my bags didn't fit. We decided to check them, a little dismayed because of the extra time it would take in Paris. We didn't have to worry at all, since they had them right outside of the plane for us when we landed. I was extremely impressed with the effictiveness of Lufthansa- they always made announcements before they said they would and they avoided a domino effect of late planes by busing us to the location of the new plane. It wasn't exciting or anything, I was just very impressed.

Yesterday I took my first dance class in Paris at the Centre de Danse du Marais. It was a two hour-long Funk Jazz Hip Hop class that was really challenging for two reasons: 1) I'm out of dancing shape and 2) it was at a pretty advanced level. I was definitely not the worst in the class, though, so that's encouraging. The teacher was this young black woman with bright red braids sticking out every which way and she was an awesome dancer. She would show a combination like it was nothing and then two of the best male dancers in the class would immediately join in and do the combination perfectly. She spoke for the most part in French, but her American accent was perfect, so I wonder if she was brought up bilingual. There was some sort of assistant guy there who kept an eye on me and two other new girls, and gave us hints and words of encouragement. I'm going to be trying out more classes over the next few weeks so I'll let you know how they go. I never realized how cool Marais is- I saw a funky tea place and a cuban restaurant on the way home, as well as a gay bar and lots of little jewelry and purse shops. I can't wait to go there with my friends!

Today in Paris was absolutely beautiful- upper 40s and sunny. I took the metro from school to the Anvers exit in Montmartre to go look at a hostel there. The hostel turned out to be a bust, but rather than head home Tonight for dinner, we had this pasta with carrots and onions in it that was pretty good. We had the usual cheese and salad, but we also had an apple compote with lemons and vanilla in it that I thought was worth relaying to you all.

Well, that's all for now! I'm happy to be in Paris for awhile now- I'm a little travelled out and I am looking forward to getting to know Paris better. And I really really can't wait to see my family in a week and a half and Taylor a week after that!

"Bye and see you soon" in the subway station

Fertig,
Ellie

The City of Light to the Emerald Isle

So last Monday was the first day of real classes at IES- and so began my "regular" life in Paris. That's why I haven't written in awhile- I feel like I've been going full steam ahead for a week. I like all my classes, but I don't quite have them all yet. Because of the strike at public Parisian universities, I can't take my cultural geography class at the Sorbonne like I wanted to. We were told to look for courses at the Institut Catholique de Paris (ICP), so I found an Introduction to Judaism that not only seemed interesting but was also going to fulfill my religion credit at TCU. I was really excited about it, until I found out the bad news: the one mistake that had been made in the ICP catalog that we had was that the Intro to Judaism class was not actually being offered this semester! It's difficulties like that which make me homesick.

Anywa, that was on Wednesday, and there was a meeting about exterior courses at IES (my school) on Thursday, so I just decided to put off thinking about the whole situation until then. Wednesday after class I ate at a really cute creperie on Rue Daguerre near IES with my friend Sarah. Right after that was when I found out about the class not being offered, so I was kind of in a bad mood. But Sarah has these walking tour of Paris cards that her mom gave her, so we decided to go on the "Tracadero Walk." It just so happened to be a beautiful day and we really enjoyed walking from one of Paris' nicest neighborhoods to the Eiffel Tower. This walk totally made me relax and realize, yet again, that I'm in Paris, and that this whole issue would resolve itself eventually.

That evening we were supposed to have a conversation club meeting with French students (one hour in French, one hour in English), but only two French students showed up because there was something else going on. It wasn't really worth staying. So I went home early and did some homework and stuff before dinner. Dinner was endives et jambon au bechamel (ham-wrapped endives in a butter-flour-milk sauce). I know I've heard of endives, but I don't think I have ever eaten them before and they weren't familiar looking. Fanou insisted one of their previous study abroad students knew what they were, so we must have them somewhere in the United States. They are bitter white and green vegetables that are apparently big in the wintertime. It was really good. And we had one of my favorite French desserts- un gâteaux aux poires (cake with pears). Yum!

I spent most of Thursday afternoon waiting in line to buy des cheques de voyage (travelers' checks) with my friend, Erik, who is a full-year student from Orange County, New York. He is fun to be around because he loves traveling and doesn't mind doing so on his own, so he has lots of fun stories about various lands (mostly Scandinavian). That evening was the meeting about the strike at IES, where I learned that French students are just having to put college on hold for the semester. Apparently they can still get credit for their classes (that they will not have attended this semester) by taking the final exam. I would hate to do that, but I feel like a lot of American students get so stressed out about graduating on time that they would just go for it. Americans are so different that the French (yet again). I also learned that, even though IES Paris requires students here to complete 15 hours of credit, if a student doesn't need all 15 hours to graduate on time, he or she can take less with the approval of an adviser from the home university. I definitely don't need all 15 hours to graduate on time, but since I (aka my family) have already paid for 15 credit hours, I decided to get my money's worth. Since absolutely no other classes at ICP appeal to me, I asked my IES advisers if IES would pay for me to take dance classes in Paris. To my surprise they said yes! They told me to take classes at the Centre du Danse du Marais, so to the website I went.

This dance center is in the Marais district of Paris, which is known both for being a gay area and for having a strong Jewish presence. In Paris, one is not allowed to identify particular areas with a predominant ethnicity as "quarters" like we do in the States. There is, of course, the Latin Quarter, but that was named a long time ago for housing the Sorbonne, where everyone spoke Latin, so that's an exception. You can't call the gay area the "gay quarter" or the Jewish area the "Jewish quarter." Anyway, this dance center has all kinds of dance classes and more: yoga, nia, singing, piano, qi cong, African Brazilian, etc., as well as lots of ballet classes and tons more. I have found some that fit pretty well into my schedule, and I need to pick two. I'll probably be picking from "funk jazz hip hop," jazz, modern contemporary, Tzigane (gypsy), salsa, and samba. The last two are pretty unlikely since I don't like the idea of learning partner dancing without my favorite partner (Taylor), but I might try them. I also want my classes to be early evening, and these two classes are later. We'll see. All of these classes are on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so they wouldn't interfere with traveling at all. I'm really excited about dancing and I'm particularly excited about meeting people outside IES. IES gave me five tickets to try five different classes, and a permanent card to use once I've selected my two classes. Yay!

Thursday night I went to a cafe with my friends down by their apartments on Boulevard Brune. I ordered saucissons de Frankfurt et frites, so I thought I might be getting some kind of German sausage. But no, they were basically hot dogs (with no buns) and fries. I felt really American but I don't feel guilty about ordering American food since I was kind of tricked.

So here comes the highlight of the week (after this initail rant). Friday morning, bright and early (ahem 5:30!) I woke up to go to Porte Maillot on the metro to catch the shuttle bus to the airport in Beauvaus, a little town an hour outside of Paris. Let me tell you, to me now Beauvais is not exactly "beau vais" (beautiful going). I actually find Beauvais to be rather "mauvais" (bad). Sorry for the bad play on words, but I really hope I never find myself flying out of Beauvais again. It wasn't really so much the town or the airport but the fact that I had to pay 13 euros to get out there and that I was flying on Ryanair. Ugh, Ryanair- don't get me started! They slipped in an extra 10 euro "handling fee" when I was paying online that they didn't tell me about until after I had already paid. We were charged 10 euros each time we check in because, since we're not European, we had to check in at the airport. They were really strict about carry-on luggage limits (10 kg), and if you had to check a bag it was going to be another 10 euros. The plane is painted bright yellow- not exactly relaxing- and the flight attendants wear these awful bright blue polyester outfits straight out of the '60s, except not as flattering. The airplain was cold both ways (I was a little chilly even with a sweater, a coat, and my gloves on), and they made announcements every 20 minutes advertising Ryanair. Awful I tell you.

But Dublin was worth it. As soon as we stepped off the plane we noticed a difference. The airport was clean and the people were so friendly. Also, everything was written first in Gaelic and then in English. The air outside smelled so fresh and clean- not like the city air in Paris- and it was a little warmer (mid-40s). We bought three day bus passes for 13.30 euros, and the buses were pretty good (double decker, like London). We stayed just off of O'Connell Street, which is a main thoroughfare. The first thing we did, even before finding out hostel, was to buy these doughnuts for .60 euros that were sooo good. They were freshly fried dough dipped in sugar. Totally worth it. Then we walked to our hostel, Mt. Eccles, on St. George's Street off of Parnell Street.

The hostel was alright. I mean, we were paying 15 euros a night so we couldn't expect much. We stayed in a six-person co-ed room with a guy from New South Walkes, Australia, a guy from Bretagne, France, and a girl from New Zealand. They were all nice, but we didn't get to talk to them at all until the second night we were there (aka read on). Since we got in around 12:30 pm, we got to have a nice leisurely time wandering around. Dublin is pretty small, so it's really pedestrian. Everything is in relation to the river, which runs right through the middle of town. We walked towards the river and onto the Quays (the streets along the river). We were kind of peeping into this pub called the Batchelor on Ormond Quay when an Irish guy saw us and told us not to go in there since it was a "hard-man's drinking pub." He recommended we go a few doors down to a place where more young people went. We took his advice and went to the Knightsbrigdge Pub connected to the Arlington Hotel. There, we got some lunch (potato soup) and cider (with alcohol). We got cider because that's what the bartender recommended we try if we wanted something really Irish. I had tried cider once when I was in Paris with my family at a creperie (apparently cider and crepes go well together?), but it was new for my friend Nikki, and she loved it. It really does taste like apple cider. Pretty dang good! We were told to come back that evening for Irish music and Irish dancing.

Next we walked over to the Temple Bar area, which is named for a guy named Temple, not after a bar named Temple, even though there is a bar named Temple Bar. Confusing, I know. Temple Bar is the cultural district that has lots of pubs and restaurants of all kinds (lots of Italian) and shops. It's all cobble-stoned and really Irish looking. Lots of different people there.

Then we walked to St. Stephen's Green, which is kind of like Boston Commons but with more trees. I haven't spent much time in either, but that's just what it seemed like. Dublin reminded both me and Nikki (who lives in New Hampshire) of Boston, which makes sense since Boston is pretty Irish. Anyway, St. Stephen's Green is absolutely beautiful and I would have loved to have spent a lot more time there, but unfortunately we got there right before it closed for the evening and we had to leave.

We wandered around Grafton Street, also known for pubs and shopping, and saw some really cool street performers. There is so much street music in Dublin. It was nice to hear quality music (guitar, fiddle, drums, bass) on the street rather than annoying accordians on the metro like in Paris. This was my first encounter with the word slainte, pronounced "SLAN-cheh," and means "health." It's commonly used as a toast before drinking, but I also saw it at the end of the tourist brochure, so maybe it's used more often than just toasting. Anyway, the best street band we saw was named Slainte.

On the way back to our hostel for the evening we picked up some Irish cheese from a Cheese Monder (what a great title!). We bought white cheddar cheese called Mt. Callan that we chose after we tasted two or three. It was dry and really strong- just how I like my cheese. Near our hostel, we bought a baguette (too small, overpriced, and not as good as French baguettes, but if sufficed :) and a can of cider each. It was a pretty good snack. When we got to our hostel, we had to walk around a whole film crew that was using an apartment across our street to film a BBC film called "Small Island" about World War II. It was going on the entire time we were there, so that was really cool. There were lots of old cars and fog machines that filled up the entire street with fog. Our hostel had sandbags on the windows to block the light. We hung out in our room some, watching all of this, and left for the evening.
We first went at 9:30pm to the Knightsbridge Pub to see the Irish dancing, but we were told it was all full. There was just a DJ there and we didn't think it was worth it to stay there and waste an evening listening to American music. So we set out for Temple Bar. On Fleet Street (a side street between Grafton Street and Temple Bar), we walked past a yellow-painted bar that looked interesting. We asked the bouncer if we could go in and he asked how old we were because it was 21 and up. I replied that I found that to be very American, and I asked him why they would have that rule. He said it was because it was the "late-night," but he let us in anyway, and we didn't even have to ask. Well, this was fortunate because we had found The Oliver St. John Grogarty, the only pub in town that has free traditional Irish music 364 days of the year. Gogarty's also has a hotel, and I must say I feel sorry for the people staying there because they probably have to hear music until 2am. I'm not sure though. The music was so much fun! There were two bands that played (apparently about 40 musicians rotate throughout the year)- one with fiddle, guitar and accordian (played in an Irish way, not an annoying Parisian metro way), and the other with guitar, banjo, hand drum (that looked like a tambourine without bells), and a bagpipe that is played by having a tourniquet-type thing strapped to the arm that allows you to fill up the bag rather than blowing into a mouthpiece.

Both bands were really good. We watched two old couples get up and dance/jig together, and everyone was really into the music. It was at Gogarty's where I tried a Kilkenny, a red Irish cream beer that was really good. Look for it at Whole Foods/Central Market I guess, but I read that it's not sold in the US. We went back to the hostel at about 12:30 that night, exhausted from such a long day.

The next morning we got up and ate the hostel's breakfast- two pieces of bread that you could toast, an American single (ew), and some jam. Needless to say, not filling. But we wanted to get a start on our day so we ate it and got ready. I took a shower in the disgusting showers (the only real downside of our hostel). They had no water pressure and they were a little grimy and they were button-activated (meaning you had to keep pressing a button every minute or so). But hey, I got clean, so whatever.

Then we set off on the bus for Malahide Castle in Malahide, which is about 15 minutes away on the bus and was covered by our three-day bus pass. To get from the bus stop to the castle we had to walk through this foresty-park that was beautiful and smelled incredible.

Then we turned the corner and voila! a big, old, in-tact castle. We decided to pay to go in (6-ish euros for students but we had a two-for-one coupon so it was about 3.20 or something)- definitely worth it. They had a really good tour that was played on speakers while you walked from room to room. The castle is pretty old but the family still lived in it until 1973. It's supposed to have beautiful lawns and gardens behind it, but they aren't open in January so we didn't get to see them. They had a pretty good cafe downstairs where I bought a maple scone that came with jam and clotted cream (I've wanted some more of that stuff ever since London).

Then we walked to the actual town of Malahide to go to see the sea. It was basically just a harbor, but it was really pretty.

We headed back into town to grab some fish and chips and go to the Guinness Storehouse. The Guinness Storehouse was really cool. It is something like nine stories and it is built in the shape of a big pint (you can see the shape from the inside). We didn't see any actual brewing, but we saw how the whole process works and they had a lot of hands-on stuff. You could dig your hands into a huge pit of barley (like Amelie), you could break open roasted hops to smell them (smells like burnt chocolate... like Guinness), and they had a bar mid-way through that was giving out samples that you could taste while watching an instructional video about how to taste beer and how Guinness tasters do their job. THere was a lot of stuff about Guinness advertising campaigns and how Guinness got its start and how the barrels were made- all really cool to learn about and see. Then at the top (you work your way up the levels), there was the Gravity Bar with a 360 view of Dublin where you could cash in your voucher for a pint of Guinness that came with the ticket. I drank it, but that was the only time I had any Guinness the whole time. Guinness supposedly tastes better in Ireland- like milk. I've tried Guinness in the states and I've never really liked it that much (see earlier comment), and I couldn't tell that much of a difference. Maybe you have to have drank more Guinness than I have to be able to tell the difference. Maybe I'll brave a little more when I get back to see if I can now taste the difference.

Needless to say, I was pretty tired after running around all day and drinking a pint of Guinness. Since it was Valentine's Day, though, we decided we had to treat outselves to dessert after dinner (more soup), so we could wallow in our loneliness together. We found a little coffee shop and I had too much chocolate mousse cake. Nina, the girl that basically planned the whole trip, wanted to get a drink before we headed back, so we walked a ways down High Street and found a little hole in the wall that only had Irish people in it. She got herself some cider and we all chatted while she drank it. Although we were surrounded by Irish, I thnk we were all too tired to make the effort to strike up conversations with any of them.We ended up heading back to the hostel around 11:30pm. Sorry to disappoint those who wanted to hear stories of my crazy Dublin adventures haha!

The next morning we had to check out by 10am, so we put our luggage in the luggage room at the hostel and set out to enjoy our last few hours in Dublin. Nikki and I had gone to massa t Notre Dame, which I really liked, so we decided to go to mass at Christ Church. I am so glad we did! Christ Church is an Anglican church that is beautiful. There was a really wonderful organ and a choir that sang all the prayers and lots of other songs with beautiful harmony that filled up the whole place. It was probably one of the most beautiful services I've ever been to in my travels so far, aside from the Christmas Eve Carol Service at St. Paul's in London, but it was nearly that good. The sermon was pretty good, if a little political (about how we should be thankful that we have enough to be taxed and how we should support the government in providing services to everone and how the Body Worlds exhibit, which is there right now, showed the beauty of science but was not able to show the spirit that God gives us). The Psalm (103:1-13, 22) was sung by the choir.

On our way out, I was practically accosted by an older Irish woman who told us we had to come down to the basement for coffee and tea; "It's free girls! You can't smoke, and you can't cuddle, but it's free I'm telling you! You have to come have some!" It was so cute and welcoming that we couldn't resist. We went outside and got Nina (who had gone to a coffee shop) and went back in. Ouside there were a lot of tourists waiting to get in after the mass. Apparently it was 11 euros to get in, but everyone had seen us leave to get our friend so they welcomed us back in infront of everyone without making us pay at all. I had told the lady that we were getting our friend, so she was kind of on the lookout for us. It was so nice!

In the basement there was an exhibit with artifacts that had been in the church, including a mummified cat and mouse that were found in the petrified act of chasing each other and who were written about in one of James Joyce's books (Irish hero, by the way). There were also some monuments to various important dead people, and there was a portion of the floor that had been dug up that revealed an original foundation from something like the 10th century. Crazy. Everyone was so nice to us and wanted to make sure we had all the coffee, tea and biscuits (cookies) we wanted. I loved it.

After, we headed over to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church on Grafton Street to see the casket of St. Valentine. We figured it was appropriate since we were there on Valentine's Day weekend. Nothing too special, but kind of cool to say I saw it.

We stopped at a pub on the way back where we watched the beginning of the Ireland vs. Italy rugby match- pretty exciting and violent. Ireland ended up winning handily after starting out behind by 9. We headed to the airport and did the whole Ryanair thing again, arriving to find Paris cold and dark, but familliar. We came back to the land of .90 euro baguettes.

That was my week. I'm leaving for Munich on Thursday evening with Nikki. I'm really excited! We're going to Schloss Neuschwanstein, the castle that was the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. If anyone has any good suggestions for other things we should do, let me know!

Bonsoir,
Ellie

L'étrange histoire d'Ellie Nash (the foreign story of Ellie Nash)

Thursday evening, right after I wrote that last blog, I went to another orchestral/choral concert with Nicté waaay down in South Paris, outside of the Periphérique at Cité Université. Nicté wants to join the chorus (in which a coordinator from IES sings), so she was invited to the concert and managed to get me a ticket as well. This orchestra and chorus was also made up of amateurs, who were all very good, but I thought the musical selection did not allow their talents to be displayed at their best. It was all really modern stuff and it was full of soloists who took away from the chorus and orchestra we had come to see. The Schumann piece in the second half was a lot better than the first half, but by that time I had gotten really ansy.

Friday was even prettier than Thursday! It was around 50 degrees and sunny- amazing! So I went with my friends Cathy and Nikki towards the Eiffel Tower. We found a boulangerie (bakery) and a grocery store right next to each other a few blocks away that weren't overpriced. I bought a Pinky Lady pomme (apple), some fromage camambert (camambert cheese), a baguette, and jus du pamplemousse (grapefruit juice) all for around 4.50 euros. We walked over to the Tower and ate at a bench nearby, taking in the day.

Our view of the Eiffel Tower from our lunch spot.

Then we walked around a little more until we came to a monument to peace near the École Militaire (Military School) on the opposite end of the Champs du Mars from the Eiffel Tower.

Peace Monument on the Champs du Mars

It was still a little chilly, but it was wonderful to be outside! Then we got on the metro and went to the Place de l'Opéra (where the Paris Opera House is! as well as the National School of Music) and tried to take advantage of the final days of the massive soldes de Janvier (January sales). I found a black and pink shirt/tunic/dress thing for around 6 euros, so I'm content. I just need to figure out exactly how to wear it...

Nikki and I went back to her place to hang out for awhile before we all got together that evening. We bought some more baguette and cheese (édam, for those who are interested, which is a mild smoky cheese that you can find at any cheap grocery store) and some wine. Also, look at the fun things I found at the little grocery store:

French cereal selection- I particularly like the idea of Nestlé Crunch Cereal...

Dr. Pepper!

We hung out at her place for awhile and then headed over to Sarah and Devin's apartment, which is a ten minute walk away, expecting to leave soon to go to the Nocturne (free night for students) at the Louvre. No one was really ready to go and people were kind of on the fence about going. Devin had seven (seven!) of her Penn State sorority sisters visiting her from Florence, and getting that whole group to get up and go was a little hard. Sarah had just gotten in from Dijon, where she had spent the day with a friend and bought me some peach and chili mustard (interesting combo, I haven't tried it yet), so she was pretty tired. Nikki and I finally just decided to go ahead and go to the Louvre since it was already 8:30ish, and meet the other girls after.

Nikki and I got to the Louvre right at 9 and went over to the entrance at the Pyramide du Louvre. The guard there told us that no one was allowed to enter after 9pm. We thought that was stupid because the website said the Louvre was open to students under 26 from 6-10pm on Friday nights, and we told him to inform his manager of that, which he shrugged off. Disappointed, we instead took lots of pictures of the plaza at the Louvre, and then were pleased to see the flash bulbs go off on the Eiffel Tower at 10.

La Pyramide at the Louvre

We decided that we were content for the moment to just have gone to the Louvre and made the best of our time there. However, when we got to the closest metro, we were informed that the metro line we wanted to take closed at 10pm but only at that station. Frustrating!!! We just seemed to be running about five minutes too late for everything that night! We ended up taking another metro on a roundabout route, and arrived to the bar, Frog and Princess in Saint-Germain-Des-Prés, safe and sound. We had been hoping this bar would maybe have some more locals, but it was mostly Americans and other foreign students. It was fun, and we did eventually meet some French people, but it wasn't exactly what I had hoped for.

We all left around 12:30am and headed to the metro. Mind you, this was a group of about 12 American girls. Needless to say, we stuck out. When we got to the metro, each of the seven Penn State sorority girls bought a vending machine snack. I almost never see anyone buying stuff from the vending machines, so it was just amusing to watch all seven girls buy things- kit kats, lays potato chips, etc. etc. Then they spoke loud English the whole ride back. No one was hurt or mugged or pickpocketed, but I feel like these girls were very obvious targets.

Nikki and I got back to her apartment and hung out for awhile, eating a bar of milk chocolate I had bought earlier in the day (not from the vending machine!). Right after we got into our beds (she has a trundle bed, which is so convenient!), we started hearing a scratching noise coming from about three feet away from our feet. I waited a moment before asking Nikki if it was her or not. She said it wasn't and she asked if it was me. Nooo it wasn't me. We immediately turned on the lights and jumped up on our beds. I ended up crawling onto her bureau and desk to peek behind her bureau, where I swear I saw a piece of crumpled up paper moving. I used a wire hanger to pick up the paper, which was chewed up. We also saw a decent sized hole in the wall where the pipes came in. We tried making some excuses for why the noise and paper and hole could have happened, but we did finally plug up the hole and set out an old-fashioned mouse trap she found in her bathroom (which, might I say, are pretty tricky little things- they snap as soon as you set them down!). Nikki named the mouse Desperogal (like Despereaux, a French mouse explorer movie), and we tried to get some sleep with our new company.

Saturday at noon we had an IES Welcome Lunch at Guy Martin Atelier, an upscale restaurant owned by Guy Martin (some famous chef?) where we made our own lunch (so Top Chef!)! It was fun and all in French- always good- but fenouil (fennel) was the main ingredient! Anyone who knows my dad and me knows that fennel (from the same plant as cilantro) is NOT the way to my heart! Fennel, in France, is a really popular winter vegetable, which super sucks in my opinion. My host family asked me at the beginning of my stay here what I didn't like to eat, and the only thing I told them I refused to eat was cilantro, which they didn't get until I said anise and fenouil. I think they're totally fine with that seeing as I eat everything else (including dried bananas every morning in my cereal! I've come so far!).

Nikki and Cathy in the middle of plating our meal

Anyway, fennel was a prime ingredient in a lentil salad we made, along with tomatoes, these orange-lemon citrus things, string beans, and onions. I decided not to put up a big fight, although Anthony, our chef, probably would have gone out of his way to make sure I didn't have any fennel in my dish. I even ate a piece of fennel as it was being sautéed- bad idea because it coated my mouth with an black licorice taste. I took a few bites of the lentil salad stuff, but decided it wasn't worth it. The partially sautéed, partially baked chicken with part of its skin still on it was delicious though!

Our Top Chef-style meal at Guy Martin Atelier

So was the individual chocolate soufflé I ate for dessert! We didn't get to make the soufflé, but I learned that you should coat the inside of the ramakin with melted sugar and then butter so the soufflé doesn't stick (so it rises better). One of our IES people walked around with the dish full of pre-baked soufflé (aka chocolate mousse). Absolutely divine!!

Souflé au chocolat-yum (it didn't come partially eaten- I did that :) !

While we were inside Guy Martin Atelier, it started snowing outside. I felt like I was in Texas- 50 degrees one day, snowing less than a day later... Walking home in the slush with my overnight bag from Nikki's wasn't too fun, but at least I had a parapluie (umbrella) with me this time! I came back to the Schumachers' apartment and relaxed before dinner.

Dinner last night was really good- some sort of orange soup, a vegetable lasagna, pâté, and a leftover slices of a tarte au fromage blanc (tart with white cheese) with mango sauce that Fanou had made for a dinner with her friends the night before. I think she already knew I would want it, but I definitely asked for the recipe for that dessert!

Today Nicté and I went to the 11:50am showing of L'Étrange histoire de Benjamin Button. It doesn't have the nice alliteration that "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" has, but at least it was in VO (version originale) with French sous-titres (subtitles). Maybe I'm just in a fragile state of mind because I'm studying abroad, or maybe it really is that good of a movie, but I was teary the whole time. I recommend that movie for sure. On the way home I bought a bag of Cacahuètes (peanuts, which apparently is the same word in Spanish) to replace the bag of American trail mix I have finished.

I'm excited for classes to really start tomorrow. I have my class on French comics and society as well as a Foreign and French politics class tomorrow. Bad news: we received an e-mail from IES saying that the staff of the Sorbonne is starting a strike tomorrow. I should have seen this coming! If it doesn't end immediately, it looks likely that we'll have to switch our exterieur courses to be either at IES or at the Institute Catholique. At this point, I say whatever. I'm just enjoying life here in Paris!

Bonjournée,
Ellie

P.S. I accidentally posted this blog entry on my other blog- EllieinPerugia. It was kind of funny.

A day of warmth yay!!!

So I'm pretty sure today is the first day over 40 degrees we've had the whole time I've been here. Today was one of the first times I didn't wear two layers on my legs and I could stand to not have my gloves on outside! Maybe I'm just a big baby, but below 40 is really freaking cold for me.

So the other night, after I wrote the last blog, I went downstairs for dinner, which consisted of some kind of soup, a zucchini casserole-type thing with lots of cheese, the usual salad and cheese, and theennnnnnn crêpes for dessert! It turns out that February 2nd is a holiday in France called Chandeleur (literally meaning Candlemas), which, according to Fanou, has something to do with the winter solstice or something, like Groundhog Day here. Anyway, the only way it is actually celebrated now is that everyone eats crepes after dinner! How exciting! Fanou also told us about how it's a tradition that if the chef can flip a crepe with one hand while holding a coin in the other, the family is guaranteed good luck for the year. She didn't tell us if she did it or was able to do it :) We each got four crepes, and we chose either sugar, orange marmalade, or nutella to put on them. I think I've found my favorite French holiday!

Tuesday my friends Nikki and Cathy and I met up in Montmartre to try to find a vintage clothing store we had heard about. We never found it, but we did find Pigalle, the area where the Moulin Rouge and about a million other sex-related stores and theatres are located.


The Moulin Rouge

I think this one speaks for itself!

There were phallic salt and pepper shakers and all sorts of other cool things haha! I met Nicté on the way home and we went to the patisserie (the pastry shop- the best of all shops!) where I bought a millefeuille au rhum, which literally means a thousand papers in rum, which definitely describes the flaky pastry with some sort of cream-type thing in it.

A Millefeuille

Yesterday, I went on a guided tour of the Musée Pompidou, the modern art museum. I've been there before, but it was cool to have someone talk about the art we saw. It made me appreciate it more than I would have otherwise.

Afterward, I hurried home to shovel down some pasta and then Nicté and I went to the Grand Amphithéâtre de la Sorbonne, where we saw the CROUS student orchestra play a piece by Wagner (it had something to do with a Tempest), a Tchaikowsky piece, and a Mendelssohn piece. It was really good! When Nicté and I got to the metro to go home, one of the trombonists was about to get on our same train. He only had played for the first half, and he sat right in front of us with his friends for the second part. Not knowing his nationality (I heard him speaking odd but rapid French with his friends), I took a chance and told him (in French) that the concert had been really good. We chatted for a moment about the concert before he asked, in French, if I was an Anglophone. I responded, in French, that yes, I'm American. And then he responded, in English, that he's from British Columbia! Yay for Anglophones! He told me and Nicté on the metro that most of the CROUS players were amateurs who just wanted to continue playing the instruments on the side while they studied other subjects in Paris. Most of the players are French, but many are also from all over the world. I'm pretty sure there's someone from IES (an American) playing the clarinet in CROUS, so I'll have to do some detective work. So that was cool- taking on someone who could have been a rude Parisian actually paid off!

This morning we had a test over the grammar we've been reviewing the past week and a half. I think it went well. We'll see on Monday! After class, I went to the Musée D'Orsay for another guided tour, which was really really good. If all tour guides are like ours today, I really recommend a guided tour. But (listen up parents!) you should reserve them early. I was told to go ahead and reserve one now for my family in March.

Tonight Nicté and I are going to another concert. This time, it's choral. She wants to join this chorus and they gave her a ticket to come watch them before she joins. She talked them into giving me a ticket, too- yay! Since that's way in South Paris, I'm just going to go straight to my friends' apartment which is really close to there and hang out tonight. We're going to go to a restaurant they've seen that serves chips and guacamole- I'll let you know how that goes! Should be just a nice, relaxing night after our first full week of class (even though they were only two hour classes!).

Real quick, here's a list of cars that I have really been surprised to see over here:
Ford Fiesta
Ford Escort
Range Rover
Jeep Grand Cherokee
Chrysler Sebring
Chrysler 300

And I did see a Mazaratti drive by! I actually heard it and then saw it, so that was exciting! All those other cars look incredible out of place here. They're all big (except the Fiesta) and just very American looking. Just thought I'd let you know about them.

A too-da-loo! (American version of tout-à-l'heure)
Ellie

Il Neige à Paris!

When I woke up at 7:15 this morning, it was snowing! It was so pretty and I was excited to see the city draped in a blanket of snow. It was so pretty, in fact, that I didn't consider the fact that the temperature would probably warm up and the falling snow would become rain and the snow on the ground would become dirty, watery mush. Smart Ellie. I realized on my way to the metro that I should have brought my umbrella, and that I should probably try to find some rain boots.

The view from my apartment this morning at 7:45am.

The courtyard behind our apartment this morning- practically untouched!

Snow in Paris is really rare- our teacher said it only happens every couple of years. It didn't slow the city down too much- there was a guy shoveling snow outside of our apartment building, the metro still ran, cars still drove like normal (which isn't very good in the first place), and women still wore their stilettos. That was the best- watching women pick their way through the snow in their stiletto heels. Haha!

So Saturday was a day of rest for me- I slept till 12:30 and finally went outside when I was going to my friends' apartment in South Paris for the night (like I did last week). This time, things were smoother. I knew exactly where to go and how to go about doing it. I also wore my moccasins rather than heels to wander around the Quartier Latin (the area around the Sorbonne University) with my friends later that night. We ate dinner at the apartment and then headed out. We met some American guys who were studying in Paris, but that made everything messy because rather than having an already large and obviously American group of 6 girls, we had a huge group of like 14 Americans. I skirted the issue by befriending the first foreigners I found at the bar we went to- Welsh karate fighters!

Two guys, 18 and 19, and one girl, 20, were in town for the European Karate Championships over the weekend with their trainers. They were just drinking cokes at the bar, so I kind of think they had gone out to find a place where they could watch the Championships on TV (why else would there have been karate matches on the TV at this bar?). The guys, Rhys and Jordan, were from Swansea (the second biggest city in Wales, apparently) and the girl, Alice, was from Cardiff. At first I thought they were Irish, and that offended them. But they actually said that they dislike the English the most, so I guess it's good that I called them Irish? They started teaching me Welsh phrases, like
-something that sounded like "Oy-teen charrrrret kom reich?" (roll the r) which means "Do you speak Welsh?" and is apparently actually spelled "Wyt ti yn siarad Cymraeg?" to which the response can be "Ydy" (yes I do, pronounced "ee-do"). I think you say "nag" for no.
-someone in a group might yell "All-a-best?!" and everyone else in the group responds "Pants and (bloody) vest!" This reminded me of the Cockney rhyming slang we read about before going to England.
-To say "what's up?" you would say "What's occurrrrrin'?" again, rolling the r and going up with your voice at the end.

That's about all I can recall right now, but I'm pretty happy with that. They thought it was funny that when I wanted an affirmation from them, I said "right?" at the end of my sentence. I was confused as to what else you'd say, but they said they would say "yeh?" at the end. It was also funny to hear them try to do my accent. I realized how stupid I must sound when I try to do their accent!

Anyways, Alice and I are friends on facebook now, and one of my friends from Paris and I might possibly try to go to Cardiff if there happen to be any cheap flights. If all the Welsh are like the people we met, it should be a lot of fun!

Around 1am, my friend Nikki, who goes to Villanova in Philadelphia, and I decided to go home and go to bed so we could get up for the 8:30am Mass at Notre Dame.

Notre Dame at 1:30 in the morning

We walked towards where we thought the metro station was, and voila! There's Notre Dame! She had never seen it before up close and was really in awe, as I always am. So we ended up walking over to Ile-de-la-Cité and taking pictures and walking around it. It was all lit up and absolutely magnificent. Then we took the metro to her homestay and slept till 7:30am, when we got up to go to mass.

Notre Dame at 8:30 in the morning

The girl in the black is me! Just think about how big that makes Notre Dame!

Mass at Notre Dame was really cool. Behind the altar there are beautiful stained-glass windows that were illuminated by the sun rising behind them. The whole thing was, of course, in French, but they had a bulletin with the Bible passages and chants and things in French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish, so I read the French versions while they were read, and the English (and the German and Italian) during communion. I was able to follow along pretty well. Afterward, Nikki and I got crêpes and dropped my overnight bag off at her place.

Then we went up to the Marché aux Puces de St. Ouen, the flea markets at St. Ouen, which had been recommended to me by our waiter at my family's favorite restaurant in Austin, Chez Nous. We met my friends Sarah and Devin up there, but they got there earlier than us and decided it wasn't what they were expecting and wanted to leave. They were disappointed by the fact that it all seemed to be knock-off bags and cheap clothing, and they didn't like being hassled by all the vendors. They left to go to the Musée D'Orsay (free because it was the first Sunday of the month), but I had read that the actual markets are beyond the knock-off stalls and the périphérique (the highway that defines Paris), so Nikki and I went off in search of the markets. We passed dozens of stalls selling all the cheap junk you can get on Canal Street in New York City, until we finally decided to turn off the main road and back into some alleys. We knew we were in the right place when we saw old, beautiful wooden tables and chairs, jewelry, paintings, mirrors, and other such things. These weren't temporary stalls either; they were in little storage buildings that were covered in plants, if I remember right. Nikki and I had a great time wandering around this market, which somehow was completely separate from the knock-off area. We were there for probably and hour and didn't get to see nearly all of it. I loved it! I saw tons of stuff I would love to have, but how would I ever get it home? Ha I guess I'll worry about that if I ever really decide to get that stuff. But I would definitely recommend going to the Marché aux Puces if you ever go to Paris.

Then Nikki and I got back on the metro yet again to go meet Sarah and Devin at the Musée D'Orsay, the impressionist/20th century art museum housed in an old incredibly train station. Not only was it free to enter, but it was also the last day of an exhibit on Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (the lunch on the grass) and Picasso's studies of Manet's work. The line was really long, but we got in quickly and it was totally worth it! Sarah knew a lot about both artists' work, so it was really cool to go through the exhibit with her. I'm going back to the Orsay on Thursday for a tour with IES, so I'll probably say more about it after that.

After the Orsay, Nikki and I grabbed some lunch at a little Greek place in the Latin Quarter, where a pigeon thought it was totally acceptable to wander all the way in to the restaurant and under peoples' feet. Disgusting. But I was exhausted by this time, so I was just happy to have some hardy lamb and fries. I got to the metro to go home and I thought my Navigo pass had expired, but I didn't have the whole 55,10 euros to recharge it for the month, so I ended up buying a single ticket and going home to an apartment full of grandchildren! One of the Schumachers' granddaughters, Chloé, has la varicelle (the chicken pox), and I had forgotten how many spots one gets when one has the chicken pox! Chloé and Axle, her cousin, wandered around the apartment yelling things that I'm pretty sure didn't even make sense in French. It was pretty cute.

Today I had the whole snow thing, and then after school went with Sarah, Nikki, and some other girls to the financial district of Paris at La Défense to go to what we had heard was a huge French Walmart type place called Auchun. The financial district looks like every other big city's financial district, except the architechture was really cool (see the picture of the building below- I think the floor in the middle part is all glass, and you can take an elevator up the scaffolding).

Auchun was in a huge mall that didn't have any American stores in it, so that was fun to walk through. I didn't really buy anything, but it was fun to go along. Now I'm at the apartment smelling something delicious wafting up the stairs. I'm sure it will be included in a future blog.

Adieu,
Ellie