Je Te Manque

I got my first piece of mail yesterday! THANKS SO MUCH FAMILY =) That card totally made my morning! It was awesome to see how many people had signed it! For those of you not in my family, a bunch of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and other family all signed a card and sent it to me. It was a nice first piece of mail! Some people have been asking for my address again, so here it is:
IES Paris Center
c/o Riley Steinmetz
77, rue Daguerre
Paris 75014
France

Megan and I didn't end up making it to Montmartre yesterday. We went to Forum des Halles to get books for class and ended up being distracted by the shopping! Forum des Halles is a three-story mall on top of the world's biggest underground subway station. The store that we had to buy our books at, FNAC, is like Best Buy plus Borders. They have three floors, one of which is devoted all to books, one which is all for DVDs and computer stuff, and one for music and other technology-related stuff. It's very, very crowded. All of Forum des Halles is crowded, though. Actually, most of Paris is crowded. But, then we went and did homework at Monop' (a mini-version of the grocery store Monoprix that has a little cafe area where you can sit) on Rue de Rennes, then I had to go for my last dinner with my host family.

I told my host family this morning that I missed the noise and energy of having kids around, so I was moving to a different place. They took it a lot better than I thought they would. Or maybe they didn't understand since my French isn't the best. Either way, I'm moving today most likely! How exciting! After moving, I'm going to try to actually make it to Montmartre!

Thanks to everyone for the phone calls to my French phone. It's been really awesome getting to talk to people from home. I miss you.

Riley =)

McDo

Quick update as I eat my petit dejeuner (breakfast) at McDo! I must say, even though I am not a fan of McDonald's in the US, the French version is awesome. The restaurants are all really nice, there's free wireless in them, and they have a totally different menu (but it's still cheap). For example, I am having a caramel macchiato and a croissant for breakfast. It was 4 euro, which is a steal for this city! I've been eating at boulangeries (bakeries) most mornings here because my host family gives me bread and water for breakfast, and that isn't too tasty. And don't knock me for eating at an American restaurant...everywhere else is so expensive! Especially along the Champs-Elysees, where I live, because they cater to tourists who don't know any better (keep that in mind when you visit Paris someday...everything is cheaper the further you go from the Champs-Elysees, for the most part).



After I leave here, I'm taking the Metro to the Eiffel Tower because my IES group is eating lunch at one of the restaurants inside of it! I'm excited...hopefully I will be able to go all the way to the top this time. Last time I was in Paris, we ran out of time and only got halfway up.

Allo?

I finally got a hold of my host family today! I tried to call them yesterday, but they weren't home. So, this afternoon, I tried again...and my host mom, Madame de Pommary, answered. Now, this phone call was positively terrifying because she was speaking in really fast French and I was trying to translate everything in my head, which wasn't moving quite as fast. She seems nice. She was definitely patient with me on the phone, since it seemed like the majority of what I said was "Je ne comprends pas" (I don't understand) or "Oui" (Yes).

So, from the conversation with her, I gathered that my host family does not have Internet (sad day for me), has five kids (ranging in age from 3 to 27!), and she will be at home when I arrive Monday morning (or lundi matin, as she repeated many a time in the conversation!). I felt silly because I only used the present and future tenses while talking to her because I couldn't think to conjugate and translate simultaneously...but I don't think the family speaks much English, so I should be speaking French like a champion by the time I get home!

Tonight, I've been packing my travel backpack, rolling all of my clothes to save space and reduce wrinkles. I'm trying to pack as lightly as possible, but that's proving to be an interesting challenge! I'm not good at packing lightly!

I can't believe I'm leaving in 5 days...wow...

Riley =)