Yesterday was basically just a day to ourselves to get settled and do whatever. Courtney and i slept in and were ready around eleven because mom was going to show us around town a little around then. We have breakfast in my room. the fridge is in the wine cellar in my room and we eat at the bar. mom drove us to the supermarket and the RER train station that is close. they are both about a seven minute walk away from the house. My metro pass covers the train. the commute to the institute(which is really close to Hotel de Ville) is about a 45 minutes. It's pretty simple. the commute just means i have to wake up pretty early. YUCK!
Courtney and i went into town to find the institute which is in this old castle like thing that has a court yard. that's also where church is going to be. I'm pretty excited for church, idk why. After that, courtney and i found a cebab place and ate up. it was super yummy and we stuffed ourselves. After that we wondered around Paris for about an hour. We wondered around on the island that is right next to the island that has Notre Dame on it (I really need to learn the names of the islands).
We headed back to Croissy sur Seine (where the house is) and went to the supermarket to buy shampoo, detergent, and dish soap. I also really wanted crackers but the ones i baught are really bland... i just tried one. the supermarket was just a mini albertsons though. We went though the self check out and i had issues with my american credit card but it ended up being ok.
We had dinner with the family again last night. Their oldest daughter, Lauren, was there and their cousin, Roman was there. This night they didn't talk to us much because they were busy talking with Roman and Lauren. At one point they asked me what the cost of ciggeretts are in America. I said that i didn't know but that i hear there are a lot of tax. Dad was supprised that neither my mom or dad smoke. Lauren said a lot of french youth smoke. I said that not a lot of americans smoke ciggeretts anymore, but a lot of youth smoke marijuana which made them laugh. They also asked something about jobs (I now realize that i misunderstood what exactly they were asking...) But i think they were asking how much people work in america. I said that it depends on the person like 14 year olds work on the weekends and they were amazed that 14 year olds would have a job.You should have heard their gasps! they asked how easy it was to find work in America and i said it was fairly easy and they informed me that it is pretty hard in France.
The mom said she liked it if we helped with the dishes so Courtney and i tried but we were mostly in the ay and getting things wrong so we just kind of stood awkwardly for a bit and then wondered downstairs. we were both stressing out because we weren't sure where we were supposed to be like if we should socialize with the family more or what... so we opted to stay downstairs. The kids then came downstairs and were watching a movie in the theater so i didn't really want to shower and them to see me all wet and such so i just hung out in my room and fell asleep. it's kind of awkward cause i never know where i'm supposed to go and i don't want to bother them too much. Oh well, hopefully i'll figure it out sometime.
Today we had to meet at the institute at ten for a lecture given by a past director of the paris program. Honestly his lecture was a little boring because I didn't really learn anything new. He also said some things i didn't exactly agree with. Oh well.
a little off subject but i have decided i am a tad sick of my european studies major. So far, all it has been are someone self-righteous men trying to convince the students of how Europe is better than the United States in all matters. I just want to learn about Europe, not argue who's the best. oh well, i'm going to stick with it.
anyways, after that we all made our way to a north african eatery for free lunch. it was pretty good. I socialized with some new kids. after that, most of us made our way to sacre coeur for one of our paris walks for the class. Sacre Coeur is a really neat little church, you just have to look out for all the people trying to get money out of you. the walk was really confusing and not that neat... we saw some useless broken fountains and the like. oh well. it took about two hours. we were all laughing and having fun, though. after that we got Crepes and then took Ariel home because she was alone and lives in the middle of Paris and then headed home! no dinner with the family tonight. Our french teacher tagged along. We also decided that we were going to try to knock all the paris walks out of the way early before school gets too intense and so we can know paris better. there are 21 walks and they all take at least two hours... oy.
sorry the last bit is a tad rushed. I'm super tired and want to sleep. :) it's pretty long anyways. Well, i Miss you all! <3
No comments:
Post a Comment