Au revoir Paris!

The group, all the students, Dr. Hagan, and Dr. Hagan's sister Kathryn!

A new ad in the Metro that I am particularily fond of

Escargot..I ate this?!

Cafe with friends after our last day of class!

• Well, we are pretty much packed up, after two long but full last days in this beautiful city. We had our last day of class Wednesday morning and I really enjoyed it. Most of our time this day was spent discussing, which forced me to work on both my pronunciation and oral comprehension skills, two of which I've noticed have the most room for improvement! To celebrate the end of class, Corey, Andrew, Jenna, Jayna, and myself went to lunch at our favorite cafe on Montparnasse Avenue, right next to Galleries Layfatte and Tour Montparnasse. I had a croque poulet for lunch, which is basically a grilled chicken and cheese with cheese melted on the top. That afternoon we visited my most favorite museum so far, Musee D'Orsay, which hosts a large collection of Impressionist paintings. My eyes were wide all afternoon! VanGough, Cezanne, Monet, were some of the big names there..just to name a few! It was very impressive! That night, our group met at a restaurant near the site of the Bastille to have a group dinner together. The food was delicious! Though I unknowingly ate some foie gras, which is the liver of a goose or duck that has been force-fed to make it fatter. Mmm. I also tried escargot, which in case you didn't know is snails! I thought they tasted like seaweed! (coming from a true camp counselor!) A few of us ended the night off with a trip to see the twinkling Eiffel Tower one more time.
• This morning, the group met at the Tuilries Garden, which is parallel to The Seine and leads to The Louvre, for our final presentations. It was a gorgeous morning in the park! Then we had the afternoon free to ourselves to finish up any last minute Paris things we wanted to fit in. I went on a shopping/sightseeing adventure all afternoon and rode the Metro more times today than I can count! On our way venturing to find a certain shop, we stumbled across a wonderful photo display which was very exciting! The weather was also very pleasant today. Though, my feet finally decided to let me know how they were feeling today, but I am thankful that at least it was the last day! After I had enough shopping down the Champs-Elysees, I came home to start packing and have one more meal with Karen and our host family. I am now mostly packed up, crossing my fingers that I won't go over the weight limit with all the new books I bought here! I am heading to bed now, we fly out before lunch tomorrow, plus we have to be to the airport 3 hours prior to our departure, so it will make for an early morning. I am not ready to leave Paris yet but am looking forward to being back in the Midwest! What a great adventerous month I've spent here in Paris! Look for another update in the coming days and I will hopefully find a way to share my pictures with you! Thank you for reading about my trip!

Our last Tuesday!

Paris brings camp friends together once again :) Paige and myself

Classic Paris.

Two of our classmates and Michelle working hard in class

Hmm..Eiffel Tower anyone?

• Our last Tuesday here means our last day of 6 hours of class! I know we are learning a lot, but 6 hours of French education is a lot to take in in one day! And of course, once again, the sun was shining while we were working on pronuncation, verb tenses, and dictation! In class this afternoon, we had to write stories about a wedding and how things went wrong on this particular couples' day. The story that my partner, Mario, and I wrote told of how a groom didn't show up for their beautiful wedding at Notre Dame, and when he finally did, his suit was all wet! It was much more funny in class, since we wrote these in French! Our prof read them aloud in class and we all let some giggles out at our classmate's creativity.
• After finally finishing class at 5pm (or 17h00 if you prefer), Andrew, Jayna, and I hung out on the Champs de Mars (the grassy area by the Eiffel Tower) in the shade. There were lots of people there; playing cards, chatting, playing with their dogs, reading, some even sleeping! It is a wonderful place to hang out! It is a very good place to people watch I realized. As we were leaving the Eiffel Tower area, we had a chance to see the Parisian police at work, attempting to chase away the street vendors from underneath the tower (since these vendors are not authorized to be selling items there). Sad, but entertaining nonetheless.
• I ate supper with my host family back at home in our apartment. After receiving a message via Facebook, I left on the Metro once again to go meet up with my camp friend who ran into me on Friday night at the Louvre. I luckily found her hotel again and we both chatted while writing in our journals. It was great to see her again! To end off the night, we walked down the block to get a delicious crepe - Mmmm!
• And that puts me back here! Its so sad that my days are numbered..I don't want to leave Paris! Tomorrow is a visit to Musee D'Orsay..One I have been looking forward to this entire trip!!!

Class, Centre Pompidou, et Montmarte

Paris at night - as viewed from Montmarte/Sacre-Coeur

At the Centre Pompidou - "London Bridge" by Matisse (fauvism)

The group riding the glass covered escalators of the Pompidou Center!

Centre Pompidou - Museum of Modern Art - making a little modern art myself!

• Our three hours of class this morning began by talking and writing with a partner about our weekends (after our professor switched up the seating arrangment of course). After we went over these things together as a group, we got our tests back from Friday. We worked once again with our partners to help correct our mistakes - and boy were there a lot of them! We spent a lot of time conversing today and also did some more dictation. I can still see my language skills improving every day! Though I have found my professor very difficult to understand. See, they talk quite quickly here, but our prof even more so! And its even harder when she is speaking to me directly for some reason..maybe its the "put on the spot" feeling..I'm not sure! I'm still learning!
• After class was finished, Jayna, Corey, Andrew, and myself spent awhile in the school's cafeteria working on homework while eating lunch. I had a ham and cheese panini..mmm yummy! Eventually we peeled ourselves away from our worksheets and caught a Metro to a different part of the city. After meandering some Parisian streets for awhile we finally stumbled upon Centre Pompidou - Museum for Modern Art. Built in the 70's, basically "inside out," Centre Pompidou brought lots of controversy. Now, people love it. There are always people gathered in the large square in front of the building, street performers, students, day dreamers, you name it! It is a really fun place, even before you get into the museum!
• We met our guide for the day and headed on into this spectacular building! After taking glass covered escalators to the top floor to see the spectacular view, we walked around the fifth floor seeing some of the world's greatest modern works of art. This was such a fun visit for me; it was one of those visits that made my Art History class that I took last semester so much more worth it! We saw works by Matisse, Delauny, Picasso, Braque, and many more! I was amazed to see such awesome works of art that I had previously only seen in my textbooks! Ask anyone, I had a giant smile on my face the entire time! (I think I had enough excitement for our whole group combined!) Sadly though, it cost more to go see the special Kandinsky exhibit on the top floor!
• After our awesome museum visit, a few of us headed to Notre Dame, taking a bit of a detour on foot on the way (which is always an adventure in this city!) On our way, we got ice cream and crepes...Mmmm! We then toured Notre Dame and then planned to go to The Crypt, but alas, the doors close at 5:30, we go there at 6pm! So then a few of us made our way back to Centre Pompidou, seeing as I was still in search of a photography book or two. The store in that place is amazing! I ended up buying two different books for about 30 Euro. One is photos of Paris and the other is a worldwide photography book that I plan to take hints from in my journalism photo work!
• Back at home, we shared a meal with our host family, which was once again amazingly delicious and the conversation was full of laughs! My host dad doesn't speak much English, which is forcing me (in a good way of course!) to work even harder on my French! After supper, I sat down with him to show him a lot of my photos..which I currently have over 2000 total from this month! He likes to tease me about my sunglasses pictures, but I can tell that he likes them!
• Then after supper, I met up with Andrew and Corey and we went to Montmarte to see the Paris sky at night - it was incredible! Now that it is almost 1 am, I'm going to head to bed to anticipate our last day of 6 hours of class!

Weekend Wonders!

My supper tonight..Yummy!

Mont Saint-Michel

American WWII cemetrey in Normandy

American cemetery in Normandy

Bomb and explosion craters from D-Day on Omaha

Outside the Louvre as the sun was setting

• This weekend brought us many wonders, one reason why I haven't been able to blog in a few days - we've been busy! Friday morning was my first French test and then the second half of the class time we filled out a worksheet while walking around the Luxembourg Gardens (only a few blocks away from our school!) After class was finished, I walked down the street, several blocks, to the Foundation Cartier - Center for Contemporary Art, where there was a photo display by William Eggleson. It was awesome! The other artist's who's work was also on display was fantastic also, but unfortunately I didn't stay long because I was meeting other members of our group for lunch at a cafe. And what a wonderful lunch we had! After finishing a meal of various omlettes and baguettes, the four of us took the Metro to a different part of the city, much closer to the center to the European House of Photography and saw 5 different photographer's galleries. They were incredible!
• After we were finished there, it was time for The Louvre. We met our group and guide by the upside down pyramid in Napoleon's Hall, which is underground and created to handle museum goers. We were led through this huge museum by our guide Edith, seeing the Venus de Milo, The Winged Victory, The Mona Lisa, and many other great and historical works of art. Near the end of our guided tour, I was surprised by a friend! My friend Paige also from Minnesota who I worked with at camp this past summer walked right past me! In the Louvre! What a surprise! A great way to end my Friday night at the Louvre!
• Saturday morning brought our group an early morning train ride to northwestern France. We met another guide at our coach bus outside the train station and then proceeded to go on a day of visiting WWII sites. The first stop was a German cemetery, then we stopped at a part the Omaha area to see remainders of craters left from bombs and explosions on D-Day. We then headed to Omaha Beach itself to see it and eat our lunch here. After that we visited the American cemetery, where over 9,000 American soldiers are buried. All those white crosses so perfectly lined up right next to the Atlantic Ocean - what a sight. We also stopped to see some German bunkers that are still standing and contain their large guns that were capable of shooting some 12 miles. Our last stop of the WWII sites was seeing the remainder of the harbor that was built in order to receive supplies to the area after the D-Day attack. We ended the night by arriving at our very quaint hotel in Bayeux and had a delicious supper at a bed and breakfast just down the road.
• This morning we started off the day by eating breakfast again at the previously mentioned bed and breakfast and then hopping on a coach bus to go towards the very edge of Normandy, to Mont Saint-Michel. Mont Saint-Michel is an old monastery built on what becomes an island whenever there is high tide. There were many steps to be climbed today! After seeing the buildings which were very castle-like, we had a chance to grab some a quick bite to eat at one of the shops and restaurants that are at the base of Saint-Michel. Many of us tried a galette - a buckwheat type of crepe that is more salty and is unique to the Normandy area. I also had a sugared crepe for dessert . .Mmm delicious! After our lunch, we also got to see the end of a marathon that was finishing on the causeway to Saint-Michel. Then we got back on a coach bus and headed back to Paris!
• This evening, Jayna, Karen, and I had supper at a wonderful Italian restaurant on Wagram Ave (one of the roads leading out from the Arc de Triumph). I'm beginning to notice just how much I love the rich, flavorful food here! Its hard to explain, its just really good! Afterwards, Jayna and I once again went to see the twinkling Eiffel Tower..we just can't get enough of it!
• Please feel free to leave comments, I would love to hear from you!!! Tomorrow is another day of class...yippee!!!

Rain Rain Go Away!

Flat Audrey and I trying to figure out the French keyboards at the school during our lunch break.

• Our first week here was beautiful sunny days and now we've been stuck in a rainy rut for a long time! This photo is a view from mine and Karen's bedroom window from a few minutes ago. Sometimes the clouds will sputter a little while other times the heavens completely open up! (Such as yesterday while leaving the Grand Palais) Which is unfortunate, because we have barely over a week left here, and there is still so much of the city I want to explore! A few of us were going to go to Montmarte/Sacre-Couer tonight to view the city lights from up on a hill, but the current rain has definitely dampened those plans! Oh I am so cunning :) Maybe tomorrow night?
• I guess other than the rain, there isn't a whole lot else to talk about considering we spent 6 hours today in class, and 8 hours total at the school. During our morning class, we focused on listening to and writing our own dialogues of conversations that could take place in shops. This includes vocab of clothing, sizes, numbers, comparisons, greetings, and so on.. We've been working really hard on pronunciation in our morning class; today we practiced a lot of different kinds of liaisons (basically slurring the ending of one word with the beginning of the next). In our afternoon class, we worked more on writing and giving directions in French and then watched a few short films ("un court-metrage" in French). Titled "Paris: Je t'aime," (Paris, I love you), these shorts films presented all sorts of different situations somewhere in the city which we watched and then discussed and filled out worksheets about them. They were quite humourous!
• Tomorrow brings us a day of morning class, then a free afternoon, then an evening tour of The Louvre! During our free time, I hope to visit two different photo exhibits that I read about in a magazine that are currently on display and also grab some lunch. One of the exhibits is war photography from three different recent wars, which caught my eye after visiting Les Invalides the other day. The other exhibit is a photographer's work of capturing the city of Paris, minus any idea of tourists. This description really appealed to me because not long after we got here I realized that when I am taking photos of any of the monuments or places we go, I've challenged myself at times to get as few tourists in them as possible. I'm doing pretty good so far, but some things such as the mosh pit in The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles are somewhat inevitable. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to these two photo shows!
• And looking forward some more, this weekend brings us a group excursion to Normandy!

Afternoon Delight!

Reading up a little on the Andy Warhol exhibtion in the park with my sidekick Flat Audrey :)

Something makes me feel like we're not in Paris anymore!

Corey, myself, and Jayna with our usual mid-morning Coca-Cola! Only here it is a lot sweeter because it is made with real sugar!

• We had a picnic in the park this afternoon! After our 3 hours of class this morning I mailed my postcards (finally!) and got a crepe with egg..Mmmm! Then the group met at Bois de Boulogane, a huge park on the west of Paris. It almost didn't feel like we were in the city anymore! We had a picnic of baguettes, ham, many kinds of cheeses, apples, sausage, pate, and more! We read, journaled, and chatted while we sat there enjoying the afternoon together. Then a few of us rented bikes (with front baskets!) to go explore this huge park! There were trails all over the place, some paved, some a little more primative. We road around somewhat aimlessly for awhile, which was a super nice change from the directiveness of Metro stations! We saw a lake and some ponds, and even a swan!
• Last night as we were finishing supper my host dad handed me these two little pieces of metal that were intertwined...you know, one of those little puzzle things you have to pull apart? Well, it really made me laugh because this is totally something my own dad back home loves (right Dad?) and just because my host dad always makes me laugh no matter what. I couldn't get the first one apart; in fact I am still working on it. He gave me another one, this one looked a lot more complicated and I had it solved in about 2 minutes. I took it out to show it to him, then he ended up grabbing a whole box of these puzzles from the cupboard! Now I've got something other than my blogging, homework, and photos to distract me! (not to mention this gorgeous city!)
• After our picnic and bike ride through the park, I ventured off to the Grand Palais to see an Andy Warhol exhibition! Which was really exciting, it was awesome to see all those works in person. Sometimes the sheer size (or lack thereof) is the part that surprises me the most! The only disappointment came from no photos being allowed (which is definitely understandable, but still disappointing to me!). If you ever have a chance to see this marvelous collection of pop art, I recommend it! It was totally worth 8 Euros and then a run in the pouring rain to the Metro stop afterwards! I also bought a book about the gallery show the other day (written in French of course) and have been reading it to learn more about Andy Warhol and to work on my comprehension skills!
• 6 hours of class tomorrow...Oh I cannot wait!

Nothing like a Napoleon Monday!

• This rainy Monday morning we had three hours of class once again. We focused a lot on "real" conversation skills and our prof was working on teaching us the more "normal" ways of saying common phrases. The French language very much flows, things all sort of run together, so normal pronunciation is very important for our new skills to actually be usable! We do a lot of partner work and she always moves us around in class so that we are not with another person that knows English well, forcing us to work even harder on our French, but in a good way!
• During our mid-class break, my "Flat Audrey" (a paper version of my roommate who is back in Iowa who has been traveling all over Paris with me) caught the eye of the guy next to me in class who is from Taiwan. He was curious as to what this little paper doll was doing in my folder so I explained it to him! This turned into an interesting conversation because he was under the impression that all American students have their own rooms and was surprised to find out that back at home I actually live with 3 other students! He was also very interested in my major (Communication Design) because he works in the marketing department of Proctor and Gamble back in Taiwan. I was impressed by his great English skills!
• Speaking of speaking, conversations here are always entertaining. They often tend to be a mix of French, English, sometimes Spanish with lots of hand signals thrown in! Verbal communication is just so much more dynamic when there are all these different cultures and languages to confuse things! But its fun, I'm learning so much more about English too!
• Then this afternoon, our group visited Les Invalides, which was built by Napoleon as a military hospital, which it is still partially used as today (since that was the purpose). There were so many war artifacts! But reading the poorly translated English was a lot of fun. The cathedral was very impressive, you can tell that Napoleon had no problems with his ego.
• I found out today that the Grand Palais is currently showing Andy Warhol! I bought a book about his work today and plan on going soon to see this display! (plus it gives me more motivation to keep on learning French, seeing as it is written in French!) I'm very excited! Please feel free to leave comments on here so that I can hear what you all think about my adventures thus far!