This Is Paris (In Jeopardy! announcer voice)

La Sacre Coeur at night



The greenhouses and flowers
La Fontaine de Medici at the Luxembourg Gardens

Bonjour mes amis! It's Saturday night right now and I wanted to write to wrap up the last couple days, which were pretty great, especially today. It's about midnight and I came back from being out with friends, but I'm just so exhausted so I wanted to make it an early night. But let me rewind a little:

Friday:

We had our first Paris-France-Paris class, which will be every Friday from 9 am-noon. It's the earliest I've had to wake up in a while, so it was pretty hard. I think I'm going to really enjoy the class because it has to do with the city of Paris itself--how it interacts with the suburbs and with the country as a whole, as well as its history and culture and even a bit about Parisians. We also will get to go on a few excursions throughout the semester! 3 hours is a long time to sit in class but I hope I will really like it. The only thing that bothered me was that Thierry, our professor and a seemingly nice guy--also a historian so he really knows his stuff-knew class ended at 12 and that we had to get our next class after, but he still kept us until 12:20. I was a little annoyed because we were worried we wouldn't have time to get lunch before taking the metro, which in and of itself takes a half hour. I just hope class doesn't go past 12 in the future.

My other classes were great--I had a test in my phonetics class but it was really easy and took about 30 seconds total. I have a good feeling about it, but all we had to do was repeat the phrases my prof said, and we'd had all class period to practice. And in my next class, we had a substitute. He was a man who also normally teaches at the Sorbonne, and he was so animated and SO SWEET and I could tell he really enjoyed teaching us. I wish he were our regular professor because I'm starting to realize I'm not too fond of my real one. She's nice enough, I guess. I just don't feel the love. If you get an answer wrong she just says "no" and moves on. It's a little bit harsh, but I don't know if that means I've been babied in the US? Nah, I think it just comes down to being nice. Anyway, I came back to the foyer after class, had dinner a la cantine with my friends, and got a lot of homework done. I was planning on staying in all night to get work done but luckily, I got a lot of reading done and prepared my presentation for class on Monday. So Emily and I walked to this little cafe in the 20th, not too far from our foyer, where there was a jazz group playing music. Unfortunately we just caught the tail end of it, but the music was incredible. One man played the clarinet and it sounded just like a saxophone, it was beautiful. It was a little crowded down in the small room but everyone was moving to the music and enjoying it. I would love to find more events like this on the weekends! And the rest of the Goucher group was there too :) I love being able to hang out with them outside of class, because we all do get along so well. After, Emily, Natalia, Kat, and some new friends Laurent and Zi Peng all went out to a cafe! I was really craving hot chocolate. We went to one close to our foyer, not too far from La Bastille. Dessert is only served until midnight but we were still able to get some, though it was about 12:30. The eating schedules are so different here. Most people sit down to eat dinner at AT LEAST 10 pm. Even around 1 am, tons of people were in cafes, drinking (mostly), but also eating dinner. I would have to be on my second or third dinner by that hour! But all the same, I was thankful the cafe was open late so I could get some hot chocolate and a dessert. All in all, it was a great night :)

Saturday:

Today was the first day of the Journee de Patrimoine, which is today and tomorrow. It is one weekend once a year where many events/monuments/expositions in Paris are free to the public. It's sort of for a celebration of history and culture--and just pride in France! There was too much to see and it wa a little overwhelming, so we just picked a couple things to see today. I met Michelle and Kat at the Luxembourg Garden because the greenhouses, many with orchids, were free and open to the public. It's the only time of the year when they are open. I LOVE being surrounded by flowers and plants, as in a botanical garden. Everything was so rich in color and beautiful, so I took lots of photos. Michelle and I posed with the flowers as if they were celebrities, haha. The three of us had what I called a "terribly Parisian picnic" of pasta in a box (yes! again!) in the garden before heading off to Bercy to meet John, Natalia, Emily, and Zi Peng. There was a techno parade happening which we could hear approaching, but weren't able to see.

The next thing we attended was a guided tour of Bercy village, which is an area in the 12th, not too far from our foyer. I suppose one could walk, as John did, but I prefer to take the metro. It was very hard to hear the woman speaking because she was softspoken and we were in an area with a lot of noise, so after a while some of us chose to leave the tour. We had been in a beautiful park, so we walked around and took a bunch of photos by some pretty fountains and other things. It was nice also just to lay out on the grass and enjoy the beautiful day. We really did get lucky with the weather. :) There were lots of people out with their children and so many dogs. I saw two doxies! Neither of which really looked like doxies...and a corgi, too :) Tonight's activities included a trip to Montmartre (re: Sacre Coeur) with Em, Michelle, Kat, and a new guy in the foyer named Matt. He seems to be impressed with our knowledge of the city, which makes me feel kind of cool! I am learning my way around and the general area/direction of things. I better be a metro pro by the end of this. I can already name the 11 stops between Nation and Denfert-Roucherou, in order. That probably doesn't mean anything to 99% of you reading this, haha. Though there were a lot of people, it was great to sit on the grass and just take in the sights. We got a bottle of wine to share and I got a nutella crepe which I managed to spill on my new boots AND pants. Oh, well. It really is the best way to see the city, and the view is unbeatable. The Eiffel Tower was lit up and it is just magical. You can see how small of a city Paris really is, looking at it from the Sacre Coeur.

All in all, last night and today/tonight were full of things that I really felt like I wanted my semester to be like: exploring the city, cultural outings, intimate musical gatherings, relaxing in a park or at a grand, symbolic French monument. It's sort of whimsical and fantastic and I feel quite sophisticated. There are just certain times when I think, This Is Paris.