unesemaine.

so despite my best intentions to post everyday with a new picture, that has been nearly impossible. last week i had class everyday. they weren't real classes though, just a program the university does for foreign students to prepare them for the real university classes. so i learned about the resources at the school, some history about the town, how to take notes, some idiomatic expressions, and some other random things. i also had quite a bit of work for our separate program with lewis and clark. oh yeah, i also went to paris for 4 days. paris was a lot of fun. our hotel was in the latin quarter which is where sorbonne university is as well as many student friendly streets filled with bars, cafes, and book stores. it is also just across the river from notre dame. it's right in the heart of the rive gauche (left bank side of paris) made famous by authors and artists alike. i spent the first afternoon wandering the banks of the seine when i happened upon a festival of food from the southwest part of the country---basically lots of apples, cheese, fois gras, and wine. it was lovely. we got really lucky with the weather because it was beautiful all weekend. after lunch i wandered over to notre dame. then we had a group dinner at an indian restaurant and saw eugène ionesco’s la leçon in a really tiny theater where it has been preformed every night for 50 years. then sunday was spent in the musée d'orsay where i had to do a presentation on one of degas's dancers, in french of course. then we had this amazing four course lunch in the museum's restaurant. afterwards i went to the louvre which is so big that after about an hour i was so overwhelmed by human existence and creation that i headed for the exit. afterwards, i wandered through the tiny streets of the latin quarter. that night i bought a sandwich from these guys in a greek restaurant and they asked where i was from and then i asked where they were from and told them my dad was from armenia like them becasue armenian and german sound incredibly similar in french. luckily i redeemed myself by saying my super sexy boyfriend is armenian. then after discovering every bar was full of people watching france destroy nambia in the rugby world cup {that's an extremely un PC statement considering france's history of colonialism in africa but they beat them 87 to 10} we then wandered the streets to find a metro line to get to the eiffel tower. it's gorgeous at night although, due to the rugby world cup being hosted by france, the bottom half was glowing green. but it was still nice, and an old homeless man told me i had a nice ass after i refused the flower i tried to give him. the next day we toured the palais garnier--the newer (1874) opera house. it's gorgeous and extravagant in the style of napoleon III. then i wandered up to monmatre, which is a hill that consists of the red light district, many fabric shops, and an enormous church on top called sacre coeur. if you've seen amelie or moulin rouge, you know monmatre, kind of. then that night we had a group dinner at this tiny southwestern style french restaurant. it was very rustic and run by this very jolly older gentleman who, when i knocked over my glass of wine, just clapped and cheerily said bravo and that it's usually our professor who does that, which ron quickly denied. then yesterday morning i walked around the campus of école des beaux arts and went to shakespeare and co. which is this bookstore that many authors and artists have frequented/lived in/wrote their names on the walls. then i had a coffee in a cafe with max. the cafe had the front door open like many do, and during our visit several pigeons decided to come on in. a scared pigeon in a tight space is a bad thing and i was startled several times by one flapping frantically right above my head. but luckily i survived. paris is a wonderful city with lots of character but i feel like it's lost some of it's charm. it is so touristy now, at least more than when i was there 6 years ago. it's very frustrating when i go into a store and the clerk here's my american accent when i try to speak in french so they immediately switch to english. i also have never hated americans more than while i was in paris. they are so impolite and make very little effort to amalgamate into the culture. they can maybe say bonjour and merci but that's about it. and then when i am trying to speak french and get a feel for the real paris, i am immediately discounted by the parisians because they assume i am an arrogant american like every other person they deal with. it makes me really glad to be studying in a place like nancy where there a very few americans and i am forced to speak french and adapt into the culture. thank god there is no starbucks here {i saw at least a dozen in paris, as well as several subways. what has the world come to?} yesterday evening we took the train back to nancy and now i am avoided the 8 pages of french papers i'm supposed to be writing.
here's some pictures from paris...more to come at some point.