Four Days

I only have 4 days left in Paris! I've made a list of the things I've been putting off that I need to go in the next couple of days...they include going to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, visiting La Defense, visiting Jim Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise cemetary, and going to Les Invalides and Jardin du Luxembourg. I think me and some people are planning on La Defense and Arc de Triomphe tomorrow since they're both on the same Metro line.

This weekend was pretty low-key, like my usual Paris weekends. Friday was the 4th of July...but it was weird because here it's just like any other day. I just went shopping along rue de Passy, which is not far from my apartment. Katrina eventually met up with me and we had lunch at a Chinese place (I've fallen in love with these sauteed noodle things they have here). We went to Gallerie Gaite over by IES for quite awhile. On the way there, I sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" because I was sad that no one was acknowledging the USA on our birthday. Since the French act like no one else exists in the world when they're walking down the streets, I didn't get any weird looks or anything, which was funny to me. At the Gallerie, Katrina bought a bunch of stuff at Mim and I made some incredible (and excellently priced) purchases at Tati. After shopping, we went to a bar and restaurant called The Indiana Club to celebrate the 4th with a taste of home. It was funny because this place didn't seem to have ANY idea what Indiana is like...there were Native Americans all over the walls, then all of the "Indiana Specialties" were Mexican dishes, like enchiladas and chimichangas. I got a good old cheeseburger and fries...after all, what else says "American" quite like a burger and fries? It was happy hour, too, so we got some (somewhat) affordable drinks...I had a Screaming Orgasm (which is just fun to say...but it was also delicious) and a strawberry margarita (which actually tasted like a margarita, which is weird cause the other margarita I had in France was essentially lemon juice with a hint of tequila in it). After dinner, we just hung out at my apartment. It was weird not seeing any fireworks!

I had quite a late night/early morning talking online, so I slept in quite a bit on Saturday. After finally getting out of bed, I went to Carrefour and had the incident on the Metro that I shared the other day. I again had Chinese noodles for dinner, and that was about all that went on that day.

Sunday was my final Eiffel Tower picnic. As usual, we brought bread and cheese, then some other random foods. Me, Ashley, Emily, Heather, and Katrina all just sat around talking for several hours. Our favorite topic of conversation seems to be the lack of attractive men in France. Ashley has coined the term "French googles" for when one of us says we see a cute French guy...because if you want to find a cute French boy, you have to lower your standards of what is cute. American guys definitely trump the French, for sure, for many reasons that we discussed. One of those is that French guys will never make the first movie (not that I have any experience with this, but some of the others do). And, of course, there's the fact that attractive French guys are pretty much extinct. A funny Polish artist came over and drew a portrait for Katrina and commiserated with us on our complaints about the French. It was fun. My chocolate and pistachio ice cream cone was amazing, too!

Now, I have one more day of regular class, followed by two days of finals...then, at 1:30pm on Friday, my plane will be leaving! It's been an interesting, once-in-a-lifetime experience here...it's crazy that it's already almost over! And I know I've said that like 10 times now, but it's true!

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.

At School

Bonjour! I am sitting at IES, my school, right now, enjoying the wireless Internet. I just got done talking with the IES Housing Coordinator and it looks like I may be getting moved to a new homestay on Monday. I talked to her for awhile and she asked me to describe my perfect host family...and after describing it, she said she thought she had a better match for me and wanted me to reflect until Monday, but on Monday she can do something if I still want to move. This makes me very excited because 1.) I will actually be able to sleep at night because I won't be having allergy issues and 2.) I will have Internet!

Besides talking about homestay issues, I had my first day of real classes. I am in French 301, which I think will be pretty nice. The professor seems cool and he speaks at like the perfect speed. I was afraid I'd end up with someone who spoke way too fast to understand! I am also excited that I tested into 301 because I was afraid I might not test into it, even though that's the level I should be at. I also had French Lit today, but I'm going to switch out that class for History of Paris (most likely) because the French Lit professor expects us to already know some stuff about French Lit...and I know absolutely nothing about French literature.

I know I've said it a couple of times already...but Skype is awesome. I have been videochatting and it works great! Granted, most of you probably aren't going to be up at the hours I have been videochatting (9am my time...3am in Indiana), but maybe if my new homestay has Internet, I'll be able to chat at better hours of the day!

I only have classes Monday through Thursday...so it's the weekend now! I'm eating lunch at the Eiffel Tower tomorrow!

Bon week-end!
Riley =)

Bienvenue

Well, I’m in Paris!

Paris itself is pretty amazing from the little bit of traveling around I’ve done so far. Today was orientation at IES, so I took the Metro from my closest station, George V, to Champs-Elysees Clemeneau, then switched lines and got off at Gaite for IES! It’s a short, simple journey, which is good since I’ll be making it every day! Two other girls from school live by me, too, so we may commute together. I’m currently typing this entry out on my laptop at about 11pm on Tuesday night, but it won’t be posted til tomorrow morning.

Many of you probably know what I’m talking about when I mention my “don’t eff with me” face. Well, I’ve decided that all Parisians always have their “don’t eff with me” faces on. On the Metro, people go out of their way to make sure they don’t look you in the eye. People will stare at their shoes, pretend to be really interested in advertisements, or just stare into space just to avoid eye contact. No one smiles on the street except for foreign tourists. In fact, one of easiest ways to spot an American tourist (that I’ve noticed so far) is that they are walking around, looking at everyone and smiling at them. A Parisian will just walk briskly with no expression on their face, ignoring other people around them. Also, Parisians seem to wear lots of black, don’t do flip flops, and love the whole leggings trend. A couple of the girls I’ve met at IES today and I walked around the Champs-Elysees after class because we wanted to look for places to update our wardrobe and be more Parisian. I don’t think I’m going to give in to the whole no flip flops thing (unless it keeps raining like it has been) because I love them far too much, but I’ve got the other two pretty well covered without buying more stuff…which is excellent because the exchange rate definitely is not in my favor here! Also, people wear scarves all the time, even though it’s almost June. And I brought my red-and-black checkered scarf and, while wearing it today, got mistaken for a French person by an actual French person at the Metro station (she asked me if I had a lighter…French people still smoke a lot, too).

As you may have gathered from the last paragraph, orientation is going well. Today was day one and tomorrow is the last day. I met a lot of very cool people today. There are only two guys in my group, and they went shopping for a bit with us, but wandered off when the girls all started getting excited by all the stores. So, me and 5 or 6 other girls ended up forming something of a group…we went to Laduree, the patisserie that I have wanted to go to for a very long time! We bought macarons, which were amazing! I bought 4 and ate them over the course of the afternoon…caramel et fleur de sel (caramel and sea salt), citron (lemon), chocolat (chocolate), and chocolat amer (dark chocolate). If you’ve never had a macaron…you should! And I’m not talking about the coconut macaroon things that you all know from the US. Macarons are meringue sandwich cookies filled with either ganache, fruit preserves, buttercream, or caramel. Here’s a picture I took of my citron and chocolat amer ones…

Really, the only thing that isn’t going so well is the host family thing. My family is very, very nice, but it’s very lonely living in their apartment. They have five grown children (not young children like I thought before) with kids of their own spread all over Paris, so they aren’t really home often. When they are home, they like to keep to themselves and pretty much stay in their room after dinner. It’s kind of annoying because I was hoping to be able to talk more in the house so I could learn more French. We speak French at dinner when I eat with them (which is only 3 nights per week), but when they have dinner guests (as they did tonight), they start speaking very rapid French and I just kind of sit there confused. It’s also annoying because it kind of just leaves me sitting alone all evening with very little to do. They do not have Internet (not even dial-up) or TV. They have a handful French DVDs, but I can’t use them on my laptop because they’re a different region (and they’re located in one of the rooms that is generally closed off to me). So, I’ve kind of just been sitting in my room after dinner listening to music or watching Heroes on my iPod. However, I’m very quickly running out of Heroes episodes to watch. They told me I could get free wireless at McDonald’s (which they call “McDo,” pronounced “Mac-Doe,” here), so I walked 15 minutes or so to the nearest one (on the Champs-Elysees…it’s a very creepy McDonald’s in the basement of a shopping center) only to find out that they do not actually have working wireless. My iPod managed to pick up a weak signal from somewhere along the Champs-Elysees so I checked my email…but then it stopped working again. So, yes, I am going slightly stir crazy. I’m in Paris, a huge, amazing city, yet I am sitting in my room bored for hours at night. I thought maybe other people in my group were in the same situation…but it turns out I’m the only one who doesn’t have wireless Internet in their homestay and most of the other families are young and very open and conversational. So, I’m going to talk to the IES people tomorrow about this and see if maybe I can get switched. M. and Mme. De Pommery are very, very nice, but I like to talk and get to know people beyond just casual dinner conversation! And I want to learn French and I can’t do that if I’m only speaking it over dinner!

So, that’s my very lengthy update for now! I have to give a HUGE thank you to Mom, Drew, and Jordan, because their texts have caught me just at the moments when I really needed to hear from someone at home. And American humor trumps French humor any day, and goodness knows many of those texts have made me laugh and stop feeling sorry for myself. My cell phone bill may be ridiculous, Mom and Dad, so I apologize for that…but I will write you a check because I think my sanity’s worth it =)

Love you all, and I’d love to hear from you.

Riley =)

A Fresh Start

So, a few of you have been reading this blog for awhile now and may notice a few changes. First of all, the layout has changed. Second of all, all of my old posts are gone. There's a few reasons for these things.

I started this blog with the intention of documenting my travel experiences and it didn't really serve that purpose before. Now, I have been accepted to a study abroad program in Paris, France, for this summer and I want to use this blog for its original purposes, but I wanted to get rid of all of the other, irrelevant stuff that may have detracted from that.

What exactly will this blog be documenting? On May 25, I will be leaving Indianapolis for 54 days and studying in Paris, France, through a program with IES Abroad! I will be studying until July 11, then staying in France (doing God knows what...I'll figure that out when I get there!) until July 18. I'll be staying with a French family, hopefully improving my French speaking skills, and taking classes in French culture and language. It's going to be an exciting experience!

So, I hope you all enjoy reading about my adventures and misadventures abroad! Please leave comments...I'd love to hear from you!

Riley =)