Winter has officially hit. Today’s high is about 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily, it has been dry, so no ice or slush or snow, though I think I would be ok with a bit of the latter. Snow and I go way back and sometimes you just need a bit of a winter wonderland to make you reassess your surroundings.
In Paris, the cold rarely brings snow—but often brings STRIKES. Yes. Yet again Paris is at a standstill (well, at least the metros are…people tend to go on with their business without much notice or change of pace). I have been staying at Lyndsey’s since Tuesday (it’s Thursday now) and they predict the strikes will continue through the weekend—I think it may be time for me to start paying rent. I am crossing my fingers that the lines will be at least partially running by Saturday so that I can drag my heavy suitcase back to Sévres and get the rest of the books that I left at home to work on my 3 papers. (The work is never-ending!!) After last week though: 1 paper and 1 presentation down!! If I can stay focused for 4 more weeks I can enjoy a work-free Christmas break and return in January to write 1 more paper and study for finals in February—at the rate of speed that the last month went by, I will be home free before I know it! AND today marks exactly 1 month before my mom arrives for a holiday extravaganza!

We did get some rain on Sunday and for once I truly appreciated its timing even though it ended with me returning home to hang my shirt up to dry. With the imminent strike, I knew I only had one chance to do laundry and lugged my bags the 15 minutes to the nearest laverie. Parisian men are persistent—they have to be…the girls here are too beautiful and the men are too short... J I know this, I knew this, and I have a million stories to be assured of it…but the most persistent of them all earns the “blog-worthy” status. The laundramat was pretty busy for a Sunday and I was lucky to get there in time to claim the last 2 washing machines. There was a 35ish-looking man using the dryers directly across from my machine and in the normal French courtesy, he said hello when I arrived. Upon switching my wet clothes to the dryer, he politely encouraged me to use the dryer he had just finished with at it was “le plus chaud” (warmest) and even gave me an empty basket to transfer my clothes in. Though, in the US, I would have thought nothing of his extra efforts except for courtesy (especially as he had a good 15 years on me), I have been trained to remain suspicious here no matter what. When he packed up his bags and left with a quick “bonne journée” I was pleasantly surprised. That is—until I emerged from the laundramat into the rain 1 minute later to see him pause 50 feet away, turn around, and follow me in the opposite direction down the main street. As it was raining, I had started walking at a pretty brisk pace from the beginning---of course, 20 seconds later I hear a “Miss” from behind me. Thinking that I may have forgotten something, I paused just long enough for him to catch up and upon verifying that his intentions were not to return something that I had dropped (his first question was “where are you from?”) I continued my quick pace down the street. He, however, continued…staying right at my pace though about 10 feet behind…and asked one question after another to which my repeated short response was “No” (Do you live here? Do you speak French? Are you studying in Paris?...) This continued for about 3 minutes through the rain until…finally out of breath he commented that I walk very fast. This was my chance to escape, “Yes, I am late, I have to go, goodbye.” I picked up my pace even more…but wasn’t far enough to hear his last plea: “I phone you?” It turned out that the last 5 minutes of non-response, no eye contact and sprinting through the rain had done nothing more then encourage him that I was indeed interested in him.

November 11th is a national holiday in Paris as well and is celebrated every year with a laying of a wreath by the President at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomph (yes I finally went there!). Carly is in a “Memoirs of French Monuments and Celebrations” course and her class received an invitation from Sarkozy to attend the festivities and sit front and center (needless to say, I was a bit jealous). I tagged along and made plans to meet L and Elise while C went through the rows of security to the front. We found a good place right along the Champs d’Elysees right behind two secret service officers on motorcycles (very James Bond…). Representatives of the different branches of the military (some on horseback), bands, and a motorcade of ambassadors from around the world all filed past toward the arc until just 5 minutes to 11am when Monsieur President himself drove past, window down, arm waving. The whole even lasted about a half an hour with poems, speeches, the laying of wreaths and an inspection of the armed forces. President Sarkozy walked to a place about 20 feet from us to greet a few veterans, then got back in his motorcade and drove off. I was pretty surprised at how short he really is in person but was more surprised at the security. My bag was checked and I was wanded over before entering the street lining the route but C (who was within 5 feet of Sarkozy) never was checked once. Though I agree that Sarkozy does not have a third of the amount of enemies as Bush, I was pretty shocked that nothing more was done—I guess a bunch of white college students from a political science university with invitations aren’t much of a threat.

Despite the freezing temperatures, Paris has been absolutely GORGEOUS the last week. Bright blue skies (Since I haven’t left the city, I can’t see the smog!) and people all bundled up. Last night L and I walked home from our study session at Starbucks (which turned into a cultural experience of its own as the union workers staged their protest parade right along the Rue de l’Opera where I was already stationed cozy in my chair with my hot cup of Christmas Blend) taking a route that passed the Gallery Lafayette. Just like that---I fell in love with Paris all over again. They put up temporary scaffolding surrounding the entire building and covered it with lights that change to look like stain-glass windows. Each of the window displays was above and beyond anything that I have ever seen and included everything from mannequins with hair forming never-ending strings of garland to flying penguins and talking moose. It was truly magical—all it needed was a bit of snow. Now in the spirit, L and I rushed home (well—to her home) to turn on “The Rat Pack’s Christmas Hits” and decided a caroling expedition may be necessary in a few weeks—unknowingly to L, I have no intention to follow through on that proposal…ha!

Spectacle in Sevres?!

It turns out Sevres DOES have more then a few inhabitants and right now they are all lined up outside my backyard watching the 20+ fire trucks lining my street. Coming home from class today, I was greeted with a road full of lights and men in black and yellow. My house backs to the street and is perched on a hill above it, so I decided I would go home to see what was happening instead of join the dozens of Sevrians craning their necks. Sure enough, when I opened my back window I saw the line of black smoke coming out of the apartment complex directly across the street. I decided to follow suit and watch the event unfold from my window. I even broke out some popcorn. Nobody was wheeled away in a stretcher but they did put the ladders up to the windows a few times. About an hour later, the trucks are still there but the smoke is just barely visible.

Climbing the ladder!

They went on like this for 3 blocks!

This week seems to be full of tragedy. On Sunday night, I returned home from a run along the Seine with my friend Evan (Canadian) pretty shaken up. Often (and by 'often' I mean once every 2-3 weeks) I have arrived at the metro station to find a crowd of people waiting on the platform for a delayed train. The announcement on the loud speaker is usually something to the tune of "Il y a une grave accident avec une voyageur..."- "There is a serious accident with a voyager..." I had always assumed that it meant that someone was sick or fainted until Lyndsey told me that it was widely understood to mean that some one had committed suicide. After that, everytime it happened I would get chills. You could see it in the faces of the others on the platform too...to be late for work because someone decided to jump in front of a train. On Sunday night--I was on that train. We had just taken off to the next stop when there was a thump and a yell from the driver--as I was in the front car...we could hear it pretty well and everyone froze. They only stopped the car for about 20 seconds and then continued to the next station. For a few minutes I was unsure if anything had actually happened. Sure enough, when we got to the next stop, the driver jumped out (with the whitest face I have ever seen), used the emergency phone, and told everyone to unload onto the platform. Another man came running, said some things really fast to the driver and jumped in to take the empty train away. The driver grabbed all of his stuff and booked it out of there, he was really shaken up. So there I was...standing on a platform with 70 other people just waiting--thinking-- The way that they reacted was like clockwork. It was so bizarre to me to get on to another train 15 minutes later and be on my way home...

On a lighter note-- It turns out that Sarkozy (the French President) and Bush are now BFF's. I'm not sure what to think about this but it makes an entertaining read. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110602756.html?hpid=artslot

Thanks to all for the words of encouragement this week…it was definitely appreciated.

My train arrived back in Paris just a few hours ago. The last week was more then a blur but the last 2 days couldn’t have been more perfect. On Thursday morning, Steph and I boarded our train to Champagne for a few days of serious R & R. After spending the first day trekking around the town of Epernay, touring the Moet & Chandon Champagne house and hunting down the only open grocery store (it was All Saint’s Day—a state recognized holiday in France), we checked into our hotel room at 4pm only to fall immediately asleep and crawl out of bed 15 hours later. Obviously it was more then needed.

On Friday, we had our chance to really experience the region and went on a tour of a local grower’s vineyards and production facilities. It was amazing to see the amount of work put toward production and to understand what it truly means to be an artisan completely devoted to your life’s work. Nathalie and Max own 6 hectares of vineyards in Champagne and work year round along with Max’s parents to produce their own family name Champagne. They inherited the land from family and intend to keep it forever—a smart decision as each hectare of Champagne’s limited 35,000 hectares of vineyards is worth upwards of a million Euro. They work year round pruning, maintaining, picking, juicing, fermenting, bottling, labeling, and selling their product and I think they can’t be making much more then an average farmer. The amount of physical labor is unbelievable but you can tell that they truly love their business. Nathalie picked up 5 of us from the tourist office in Epernay and drove us in her 9 person van through the countryside to their home/ B&B to pick up 2 Italian guests (Georgio and Georgia—a very cute couple of newlyweds) before taking us up to her vineyards in the rolling hills above their village. Even though harvest was about a month ago and the leaves have become brown and are falling from the vines, the hills were still gorgeous. Nathalie did not skip a beat and if you ever have any interest I will be happy to share my new expertise in Champagne making with you! (Even when I am on vacation I can’t get away from learning!!) After touring their fermentation/bottling area and caves, we got to taste a few of their wines and left with a bottle of Rosé for Steph’s birthday later this month. This was easily my favorite part of the trip---well, maybe second to the sleep and REAL shower.

Isn't it PRETTY?!

This weekend couldn’t have come at a better time. This last week left me needing to truly reassess what I am doing here and set a few priorities. Sciences Po’s workload has proved to be much more then I originally gauged and I have struggled to accept that much of the remainder of this semester is going to have to be spent with my head in books. I came to Paris as a student—and in particular, to Sciences Po as a student with an intention to work hard in my courses. I also came to Paris as a 20-year old girl with an endless curiosity and a need for adventure. The real trouble comes in balancing the two of these things. This past week it just became too much and after a few discussions with my parents and advisors I decided to try to drop a course. Unfortunately, the “system” isn’t as flexible as I had hoped and it looks like I am stuck unless I want to risk a severe drop in my GPA by accepting an “F”. Solution: Next semester I am only taking 4 classes (as opposed to the 7 now) and am saving my travels and explorations for a time when I can truly enjoy them. For now, I am going to do my best to study IN Paris…in cafés and museums (I have started to become a regular at the Louvre—using my 15Euro/year Carte de Jeunes to gain entry and organize myself in a corner next to a 1500-yr old statue with my book).

Carly, Steph and I have finally come to accept the fact that the American café culture does not exist in Paris. Indeed, Paris’s café culture is much more developed then that of the US—with waiters who know much of their clientele by name—but it is not the student friendly culture that we are in constant need of. When I walk through the streets now, I am constantly staring into the windows of the nearest cafés to see if there is anyone reading or writing—so far no luck. Our sad alternative (as recommended by Steph’s language teacher) is that old time love-hate relation: Starbucks. I’ve been there 3 times in the last week, each time spending at least 4 hours successfully uninterrupted along side C and S.

I made it a necessity to spend some time this break satisfying my long-deprived need for exploration. Last week Monday I spent 4 hours at the Museo d’Orangerie in the Jardin de Tuileries. As my well-researched father told me after learning of my plan: the building was built for Monet for the purpose of displaying his GIGANTIC “Water Lilies” in the most advantageous light. They decided to add another floor in 1999 to display a collection of Picasso and of Cezanne but spent 5 years from ’99 to ’06 taking it down because it blocked the skylights intended for the Water Lilies. They moved the other artists to the basement but were delayed when construction uncovered on the earliest walls surrounding Paris. Stories like this are the things that remind me where I am—and make me realize what history really means. The Orangerie had been an adventure intended for the first day of my arrival in Paris in September—it was supposed to fit somewhere in the 4 hours between getting off the train and check in to the Cite U—so finally getting here two months later, it was highly anticipated. Even with this long wait, I still stood in awe. Monet’s “Water Lilies” have to be experienced in the oval rooms that he intended. I had to do a few double takes in the basement as I walked from Matisse to Cezanne to Picasso…recognizing pieces that I had seen in textbooks. I’ve never studied art besides the basics that were included in history books in high school but can absolutely appreciate why these men were so highly regarded.

It took C and I until Wednesday morning---October 31st, and the LAST day that they were open before winter—for us to make our way to the Versailles gardens. We spent about four hours there and couldn’t have seen more then 15% of them. They are absolutely incredible. C is in my French Revolution and Napoleon Class and we decided to team up for our exposé in 2 weeks on Marie Antoinette. As we are both in the middle of biographies about her, we made it our objective to visit her Domain and the Petite Trianon. Honestly, if you ever make it to Versailles—make this a mandatory part of your visit. After Louis XVI gave M.A. the Petit Trianon (a small-though still very decadent building on the grounds of Versailles) for her own amusement, she decided to develop a model farm and village on the surrounding property complete with a windmill, pumpkin patches (which made me pretty excited as it was the closest I got to Halloween!), vineyards, little cottages, a milking room made of marble and goat shaped faucets on the sinks, fields for her sheep and cows, and a huge pond full of swans. I seriously felt like I was back at Euro Disney. By the time we left, the huge fountain just behind main house had been completely drained for the season…I’ll have to come back in the spring to see the other 85%.

My camera died after this shot:

Steph had the most exciting week of all of us so far and now has a great story to tell when she returns. She went to talk at a museum in the Jardin de Tuileries (just next to the Orangerie) last week. The presentation got out at 9pm—when the Jardin de Tuileries is closed for the night and decided to exit through the gate near the metro and not the open gate near the museum (you can see where this is going). When she reached the gate, it was locked and after wandering around the garden for a few minutes realized that she had been locked inside the Jardin de Tuileries IN THE DARK! At this point I would have panicked, but Steph -being the cool-minded girl that she is- merely wandered over to the side closest to the Louvre where the fence was the lowest. She flung her bag over the top and climbed up—and launched herself over. Of course, the fence was lined with spikes all around and in concentrating on the climb, Steph forgot about the loooong wool coat she was wearing. In short: she made it to the other side only to be hung by 2 pikes going through the bottom of her new wool coat. A man walking by the Louvre heard her fall and had to come over to actually lift her off of the fence. Remaining the high-spirited girl that I know--she said she laughed the whole time and has decided to proudly continue to sport her now punctured coat if only to glorify in her defeat. I only wish I had been there with my camera.

The now infamous coat:

Sorry for the novel….again... if you made it this far, I am highly impressed!

Oh, and one last thing: I got my ImagineR! Only 9 weeks after arrival—but now at least I now to NEVER lose it!

Lesson # 243: The French could care less about US sports-- especially about baseball.

At 2:24 am Paris time, the Rockies launched their first attack on the Red Sox in their quest for the World Series title. I’m not enough of a baseball fan to sacrifice a few hours of necessary sleep but did make the effort to find out what time I would have had to wake up in order to get the feeds live online. After my 8am class this morning, I rushed to the nearest newspaper stand to grab the daily free “Matin Plus”—and flipped to the front page only to find—tennis. Tennis?! Really? Andy Roddick made the paper before the World Series? This is France.

As the internet was not working yet this morning, I am going to have to wait until 2 this afternoon (a full 12 hours after the game) to learn the fate of my team. I must acknowledge, however, that the California fires have made the cover for the past two days. It looks horrible and must be a sad situation for all of the people involved.

Winter has officially arrived. No snow, no rain, not even wind really…just that deep chill in your bones when you step outside-- the kind that makes gloves necessary. Parisians are out in their full uniform—overcoats, boots, huge blanket-like scarves, and even—though I thought it was a myth—berets! (I don’t understand berets: they don’t cover your ears, but I guess frozen ears are a side effect of fashion…right?!) The Versailles gardens close next Wednesday, so Carly and I are making our last supreme effort on Saturday to go and visit. (I can come back in the Spring—but Carly leaves for Montreal in February). We’ll just have to bundle up!

Curious how the strike ended? Well, it hadn’t as of Friday night when C and I needed to go home from class. We caught a tram and a bus for part of the way—but it still took us about 2 hours to drag our tired feet in our front door. The minute we arrived I received a call from some friends in Paris who were going out downtown near the only metro line that was running. Stranded and sore…we decided to rent a movie and saddle up with some Nutella. This is when we discovered how “dead” Sévres is. It is residential area…and though we found one little grocery store and were able to get the movie from a machine on the sidewalk—it was just another reminder that we were not in Paris. I love our running park and waking up on Sunday morning to a window looking out over gardens and families on their weekend walks but have decided to move back into Paris once C leaves. I couldn’t imagine a 2 hour walk by myself—though I’m sure I’d be fine. Saturday morning most lines were back to normal as the unions are now in negotiation. They are threatening another for mid-November—I’ll be at Lyndsey’s again!

The other news of the past week was “le rupture” and divorce of President Sarkozy and his wife, Cecilia. It was entertaining to see how it was presented in the media. Indeed, I had to scroll to the bottom of the webpage in the bottom right hand corner to see the headline in 10 pt. font and the only people that I actually discussed it with were Americans. This is not to say that it will go completely unnoticed (The cover of Elle magazine had a very distressed photo of Cecilia.) The French—especially Parisians—have a very different ideal of what is right or wrong in marriage. Many of them are still confused about the blowup over Monica Lewinsky. “What was the big deal?” Sarkozy was elected AFTER presiding over Cecilia’s marriage to her first husband, having an affair with her, marrying her, and then having a few other affairs while married. It is really funny to think of the way this event would have been portrayed in the US—I can just imagine Hilary (not that she will be elected) having an affair this next term---the SNL skits would be endless!

After a long week of exposés (I had another this week but it wasn’t as demanding), this last weekend was an attempt to reorganize everything. Determined to succeed— I hustled to the Montparnasse train station 2 separate times to finally emerge with tickets to Epernay---in the Champagne REGION! We also managed to book our hotel and Steph and I are VERY ready for a weekend in the vineyards-- only 8 days away! We are going to be spoiled—the hotel has a pool and a SHOWER!! I couldn’t be more ready for it. It will be over the weekend of our week-long reading break and I have (I counted yesterday) 7 required novels (not including the daily 30 pages of reading) to do before the end of the semester…time to get started.

My other major accomplishment: Supposedly (I refuse to believe it until it is in my hands) my metro pass (Carte ImagineR) is in the mail and will arrive within 7 days! After 4 e-mails, a poorly translated/very frustrated phone call, and a landlady intervention (she was unbelievable and must have spent about 20 minutes on the phone with them)—they acknowledged their mistake—they said it was delivered on September 28th!!—and are sending me my pass and said I can write a letter to be reimbursed for the month of October. Yes! I will finally not look like a tourist using paper stubs to get on the metro. Hold on…it’s not here yet…

I’m typing this from my little park near school (yes, the carousel is still running--) and my fingers have finally decided to stop bending—so on to some coffee and French lessons! Topic of the day: “Le Rupture de Sarkozy”!

**I just had a chance to check the news before posting this…poor Rockies! I have faith—it was just a bad day!!**

Yes, I AM sitting in a Starbucks right now…*Gasp*…I know, pathetic. J But with the events of the last 48 hours, I am not ashamed one bit. Plus, it is nice to order a “tall” and receive a coffee larger then my thumb AND they have an outlet where I can charge my laptop.

All week long we have been warned of the metro strike that was to take place on “Black Thursday,” yesterday. Classes resumed, work continued and people found their way into Paris one way or another. Transportation unions from all over the country marched in the streets near the Bastille claiming that retirement at 55 and full pension benefits weren’t quite enough. I spent the night at Lyndsey’s house in the 9th District. (It was still a 45 minute walk to class, but it was better then the 2-hours I would have had to walk from Sevres.) Lyndsey is in the same 8am class as me so we had an early start. Even though we had to walk the entire way in the dark (The sun doesn’t rise on Paris until just before 8), the overall atmosphere was almost festive. We joined hundreds of other Parisians on their way to class and work, crossing the Seine together with the first break of dawn. My French professor wasn’t able to make it in for my 12:45 class because she lived in the suburbs (near me) but my 5pm presentation on Queen Elizabeth I went on without interruption.

Other then a few hundred extra people and bicycles in the streets, the day went on pretty normally. It wasn’t until after I emerged at 7pm from my Great British History course that I realized what living in the suburbs REALLY means. When the strike didn’t end at 4pm as originally indicated and when the man at the window of the metro station told me that there was no telling when the strike would end now, it finally started to make me a bit annoyed. I had two options: 1) to lug my laptop, backpack (with 2 textbooks), and bag of clothes from the night before, 2 hours across Paris and into the suburbs in the dark OR 2) to call Lyndsey and wander the 45 minutes back up to Montmartre. Seeing as I still had no idea when the strike would end and I had class the next day, I imposed myself on Lyndsey’s seemingly unending hospitality yet again. On Wednesday night, we planned it all out and had whipped up the closest thing to a homemade American pizza we could come up with and watched an Audrey Hepburn film-- but last night we settled for cereal and Gilmore Girls reruns. As I hadn’t expected to spend two nights in Paris, I hadn’t brought the text I needed to prepare for my class today at 2:45 so I was perfectly content to spend a night relaxing and chatting about American sports (Lyndsey is from Florida—and is justified in her UF-pride). I’m hoping that my professor will understand and NOT give a pop quiz today. As of now, only a few metros are running (and on very limited schedules...none of which, however, in the direction of Sevres). Poor Carly was trapped in Sevres all day yesterday (luckily her class WAS cancelled) and will have to make the 2 hour walk this morning to our class this afternoon. I’m counting on the lines opening up again after class but if not, we can wander home together tonight.

This week has been full of obstacles—but most of them my own making. So instead of complaining, I just get to laugh. Right now the laughs are the frustrated kind, the ones you feel in the pit of your stomach, but in a few months or weeks even, I’m sure I’ll think they really are funny. I signed up to present in two classes this last week. This explains my absence. From Sunday morning until Monday at 5pm (when I had to leave for Climbing), Carly and I were hermits in Sevres, working and researching, running and sleeping. For my presentation on Queen Elizabeth I, my teacher had recommended a novel to be one of the 20 sources I was to reference. After searching for the book in 2 English bookstores and the Sciences Po library, and coming up fruitless, I was thrilled to find the 250 page book on an online library and spent much of the weekend staring at my computer screen. On Tuesday afternoon, I finished and decided to find the citation for my bibliography. You can only imagine my frustration when I found that the book I had been reading had been mislabeled and that I had spent a beautiful weekend INSIDE reading the WRONG book! I spent 4 hours that afternoon scrambling from bookstore to library to bookstore all over Paris completely unsuccessful, and returned home at 10pm to write a long letter to my professor and then to complete my other presentation to be given the next morning at 8am.

24 hours later, I was sitting on Lyndsey’s bed watching Audrey Hepburn finally able to relax. My presentation that morning went well, my professor had e-mailed back completely supportive of the research I had done and told me to go ahead and present on what I had already read, and I had spent 6 hours in the library typing up the dreaded mess of thing. Funny enough, I am now more then ever, interested in Queen Elizabeth and even ordered the correct book online to read later this semester. So that was obstacle number 1.

Obstacle number 2 is perhaps the biggest head-banger—most likely because it has yet to be solved. The week of October 31st, we have a “reading break” from school and Steph (who has the same break) and I thought we would use a bit of it to see another part of France and take a break from the city. We decided on a trip to the Champagne region because it is close and tickets are pretty cheap. Yesterday afternoon I went to book the train tickets online. I unknowingly typed the destination as “Champagne” in reference to the region, booked the tickets, paid for them, and checked the confirmation e-mail only to find that I had indeed booked tickets to Champagne, Champagne the city---in Normandy (it is an itsy bitsy town near the west coast, no where near the vineyards and rolling hills just outside of Paris)!! The website says that I should be able to exchange or cancel them for reimbursement but is not working properly—so, this afternoon, I get to WALK—no metro—to the nearest train station…all because I don’t know my geography.

This week hasn’t been ALL stress though: On Saturday, C, L, and I went to the annual wine harvest festival in Montmartre. The streets were lined with wine vendors, cheese vendors, escargot vendors, roasted chestnut vendors, musicians, costumed actors, etc…all surrounding Sacre Coeur. The festival lasted the entire weekend and I think that at one point or another every Parisian probably wandered over. Normally I would say that crowds and full glasses of red wine don’t mix, but as always, Parisians have a natural grace and we left a few hours later, completely stainless. If you are ever in Paris during the 3rd week of October, you can’t miss this. It was Paris in all of its glory.

To add to this already patriotic day, we rushed over to the Champs de Mars (the park under the Eiffel Tower) at 6pm—still 3 hours before the kick off of the France-England semi-finals rugby match—only to squish onto a blanket with a few friends who had set up an hour earlier. The field was packed, another complement to the Parisians—they can always fit 1 more in to a metro, building, field…no matter how squished you may think it is. Thousands and thousands of rugby fans decked out in blue and red (though some of the red were British), carrying, berets and cardboard swords, and armed with baguettes, cheese, wine--and more McDonald carry-out bags then I want to recognize—all SAT down to watch the game. I have never seen this anywhere else. If you stood up, you were immediately berated by dozens of angry fans—if you know better, you stay put—no bathroom breaks, no stretching…this is serious stuff. Even though France lost, it was still one of my favorite experiences so far. When we left, we had to walk in zigzags all the way to the metro as the ground was absolutely covered in trash, bottles, empty McDonald bags, etc…Somebody else would clean it up before the morning---they love their parks too much.

Ready for the big match hours ahead of time...seriously thousands of people.
Lyndsey and Carly REALLY got into...I'm proud to say I didn't quite look like that. Ha!

I also got a chance to show some Colorado spirit this week when I received an e-mail from my family---ROCKIES WON!! WE ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!! When I finally made it to school on Tuesday morning and had a chance to share my excitement, I was met by blank stares and “what’s the World Series?!”—Okay, I guess this is something I have to save for the Americans. So, this is a shout out to back home for our wild card of a team. Go Rockies!

Carly and I with at our wine-tastings!

The park next to the Metro Sévres-Babylone is not the prettiest one that I have visited, but it the closest to my class and so it has become the perfect place to come to relax on my crazy Thursdays. I have 4 classes today and each runs 2 hours so I am trying to soak in as much of Paris as possible between lectures. Fall has officially arrived here and the ground is covered with crunchy brown leaves—in contrast, the leaves on the trees are still green, I think they must die and fall off overnight because I do not see much “fall color”.

This park is next to the Bon Marché—the “designer” shopping center that I wandered into my first week amidst glares at my blue jeans—so the clientele of the park are very fashionable and mainly use it as a shortcut from one street to the next. There is a carrousel, as there are in most parks here, but on a gray weekday afternoon there are no children to keep it going. It is still staffed though and I wonder what one would be paid to sit in an empty park all day waiting for someone to slide into on to the back of Minnie or Mickey Mouse. It wouldn’t be a very exciting job, but I don’t think I would mind it.

Today is my long day my 2nd week of classes. Yes—this blog is going to describe my courses (since that is how I spending the majority of my time) so if it doesn’t interest you, you want to skip this one. J I am taking seven—all in English except for the French Language course. I absolutely love them all. I’m one of only a few international students taking all of my courses in English and have received criticism from some of the other students for this: my justification—I need these courses for graduation and am certain that any class I would take in French would not present me with a passing final grade. I am hoping that next semester I will feel more confident and be able to take one or two. The great thing about taking them in English though is that half of my class is comprised of French students and they are much more open to talk international students who speak the language. Also, the courses in English are widely considered to be much better/more interesting. Seeing as I am happy with them all, I agree!

I had my first exposé yesterday morning and presented with a French girl. When I arrived to meet with her on Monday morning, the first thing she said was “Ah, you brought your computer! Everyone told me that Americans always work on computers!” It turns out that I was the sole exception though as I had brought my computer for another class and had prepared on paper. It turns out that our methods of preparation (mine with a more historical and analytical perspective and hers with a more detailed, structured and rhetoric oriented one) combined perfectly and I think went really well. We’ll have to wait to find out. It was pretty cool to see what the differences in our educational backgrounds brought out. Even though I was the native English speaker, her vocabulary was much better then mine!

Each of my classes meets once a week for two hours and since I am taking 7 courses plus a sport, I have 16 hours of class time a week. This isn’t any more then back home but I’ve found that I have much less free time—the difference being that we are required to do much more background research on our own. We have obligatory readings for each course and then at least one presentation and essay during the semester. The real focus, however, is on the final which can range anywhere from an in-class dissertation to a 10 page research paper and usually accounts for at least 50% of your final grade in the course. In 2 of my courses, it accounts for 70%! To prepare for these, you are given a long list of recommended books and assumed to read a few of them, taking notes and developing theories. I think it is a good way to learn because in the end you are being tested on what you really understand, but it is also very time consuming—and for a girl who is in Europe for only one year, it is hard to say “no” to the Museé d’Orsay and instead go home to read about French Foreign Policy from 1870-Present.

BUT it must be done and so my adventures will have to wait for the weekends and 2-hour breaks between class….

The carousel just started for the first time in the hour that I have been here and I’m starting to really consider the profession of “carousel operator”—I think I would trade “the rise of Cardinal Richelieu” for Mickey Mouse—but just for one day.

These are pictures from the park I run in:

The French are serious about their gardens: this means no dogs, no bikes, no picnics, no... :)

I’m sitting in the Jardin de Tuileries right now typing away. There is no wireless but I can post this later. Dozens of men keep walking by me carrying clipboards and blackberries. If their overcoats don’t give them away, then their velvet shoes do… They are headed straight for the tents behind me, as did the super thin perfectly dressed girl model who sat next to me on the metro and got off at the same stop.

This week is Paris Fashion week and I decided to get out to get some fresh Paris air (which includes being strangled by the smoke of the cigarette of the man who just sat down on my bench) and see if I could spot any celebrities. Supposedly Kirsten Dunst is here. Right now is the Christian LaCroix show and I saw about 6 horses prancing around backstage with models on them… Saturday is the real day however and I plan to return at 3:30 to stake out my spot for the Chloe show...if only to steal one of the bags.

I’ll be here for Saturday night for sure. It is “Nuit Blanche” in Paris. A holiday that I am not sure I quite understand yet but tried to explain to the Australian tourists asking me about all of the temporary steel lanterns in various sculpted shapes lining the whole park. From what I’ve heard, on October 6th Paris does not go to sleep…meaning that a bunch of museums, concerts, pubs restaurants, parks, etc will be open to the public all night long. It is a new holiday started by the government only a few years ago after seeing the success of a similar event in Toronto. Here’s the wikipedia explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuit_Blanche

Pics From my Nuit Blanche Adventure:

Lanterns in the shape of a giant ball in the Jardin de Tuileries.

The fountain outside Versailles.

Nuit Blanche focuses on "artsy" elements: Still not sure whether white tank tops with lights inside qualify as art--but it was pretty!

Pictures and Disney story to come. For now...I've posted the link to a video Carly and I made of our new appartment to the right.

I’m writing this while sitting in MY place for the next year. After a weekend inevitably filled with surprises and the usual red tape, I now have my own little window (actually 4) in France.

I finally decided it was a good time finish the looong September 9th post so that you can see the story behind the whole thing. For those of you who are interested I have changed the color of the new paragraphs to blue so that you can go back and find it. If you don’t really feel like reading an epic tale right now, you can just keep reading from here.

So Friday was moving day. In Paris, this means one of two things—Either you call a cab, load it up, and pay a month’s worth of groceries to shuttle you directly to your new place (an option that I am considering very much now for the next move) OR you call of all of your friends, each grab one or two bags and hop on the metro. In our case, option number 2 was the winner and included 4 girls, 2 BIG suitcases, a very heavy duffel, a backpacking backpack, 4 shopping bags and taking the tram to a bus to the metro to another bus. Or so we thought--- but of course France ALWAYS throws in surprises and last bus trip turned into a 20 minute trek across the Seine, uphill, and up 60 stairs IN THE RAIN. We arrived at our front gate, with wet hair and feet, to the sound of my duffel (that had decided it had finally had enough) separating from its wheeled frame and flopping onto the drenched ground.

It is so good to finally be here though. My pictures are up, everything is unpacked and I no longer have to shuttle across the hall to use the bathroom. Finally…home?!

Our internet is still not set up but hopefully tonight?! For now, I will write and post when I get to school... just wait until you hear about EURODISNEY...yes---I'm leaving you to hang in anticipation.

Today Paris was the way I always pictured it: Cloudy, rainy and cold. I love it.

I am amazed everyday when I get off the metro only to climb the stairs and emerge next to a 6th century church or a sidewalk brasserie filled with rugby fans. Paris is truly beautiful. Today though, I think it was at its best. It wasn't the kind of beautiful that makes you want to whip out your camera; it was the kind that lets you finally understand the mechanics of a place as if looking at the inside of a clock. You just have to stand in awe and watch. In 40 degree temperatures, with rain drizzling down all day and no blue sky in sight, Paris was as alive as it ever was; though this time with umbrellas, boots and trench coats. Since I arrived there have been a few days with scattered showers but this was the first that lasted all day. I finally had an excuse to buy an umbrella. I stopped at the first store off of the metro stop. In my excitement, I forgot to open it up and got a bit of a shock when I discovered that my 12 Euro had bought me an umbrella with a 12 inch pole. The exchange/return policy in France is--well, non-existent-- so I'm keeping it whether I like it or not. Maybe it will help me build some arm muscle?!

Today was our registration for sports. We get 2 credits for taking a sport and even though I have more then enough credits, there are so many things that I wanted to sign up for so I thought I would at least do one. After a skype call back home (and a less then enthusiastic response from my ever-concerned [and loving] mother), my climbing shoes and chalk bag are now in the mail and I have my first class next Monday night the biggest rock gym in Paris (though I'm not sure that is saying much!). I started "escalade" or climbing in Boulder this last spring and am more then excited to continue in Paris. As with every physical activity (road races, etc...) in France, you have to provide a medical certificate in order to participate. [Table tennis even requires this!] The medical program in France is pretty great. It is one thing I can definitely appreciate after this past month. I wandered into the nearest office to campus, filled out my name and address on a piece of paper, waited 10 minutes, had my blood pressure and heart rate checked, and left 10 minutes later with the certificate in hand. The doctor was very nice and even pointed out that "le systeme est plus simple ici? oui?" Normally the appointment would have been free of charge but we don't receive our social security until October 1st so I ended up having to pay the 22 Euro fee (which is pretty great compared to what I would have paid back in the states). I liked the health care system even more when I walked into to the pharmacy yesterday to get my bottle of daily "vee ta mins" and the woman at the counter talked me through all of the options and ended handing me a bottle that she said was "parfait" for me.

I feel like my last few posts have all been about how poor the French "system" is-- and though frustrating and ... well...yes...poorly managed....I am still loving a lot of things about living here and thought I would make sure I talked about that too.

I knew coming to Paris that Sciences Po was a really great school in France but I didn't realize how "great" until I got here. Luckily for me, the University of Colorado has a exchange program set up with Sciences Po---on which, I am the guinea pig..the first one to go on this exchange---so I had to write a few essays and fill out a few forms but I didn't have to do anything too rigorous to get in. The French students, on the other hand, have been working essentially their whole lives to get into this school. You do need to understand a bit about the French school system to really comprehend it, so here is a link that I think can explain it better if you are curious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_school_system

The Institut d'Etudes Politiques, or more affectionately named "Sciences Po" is one of France's Grand Ecoles. It is comparable to an Ivy League school back in the states and my workload this semester is definitely reflects this. Maybe my "luck" getting into this program wasn't such a good thing?! When I would tell people in the states where I was studying abroad this year the reaction was the same as mine would have been a year ago: blank eyes and a nice smile. When I arrived here, all of that changed. When I originally posted to find my apartment on Craig's List ( a story that I just realized I haven't posted yet!), I put of a profile that said "Student seeking 1 bedroom studio in districts 1-10." An hour and no responses later, I decided to go against my dislike of "name-dropping" and added 4 letters: ScPo student seeking... One hour later-- 7 responses (one that turned into my new home). I'll admit that I have used this tactic a few more times since I've been here...but only in association with getting my bank account, mobile phone, etc...

Yesterday, however, was the first time I really understood just HOW much clout ScPo has. Because I am here for the whole year, I have to apply for the "carte de sejour" or long-term visa within France. The process requires a TON of paperwork and translations of my birth certificate, etc...but I knew about it all before I left so I had mostly everything ready when I arrived. One thing that Sciences Po DOES do to ease the administration process is handle all of the "carte de sejour" items...or so I thought. I went in to the office last Friday loaded down with all of my paperwork and left with it all still in my hands. It turns out that because my new apartment is not actually in Paris (in fact it is about 100 yards from the Paris border) that all of my forms had to be filed through the Prefecture of Boulogne---this is a BIG problem for most people. The prefectures don't schedule appointments ahead of time so if you want to get in, you need to line up at the door (mine happened to be about 40 minutes away by metro) at 6am to be first so that when they open the doors at 9 you can walk in and get a ticket with a number and then wait some more until you are called to a window. This is where my "grande ecole" connection came to play. The woman at the administration office at Sciences Po made a phone call on Friday and got me a pre-scheduled 9am appointment for Tuesday (yesterday). When I arrived at the prefecture, 10 minutes early,I hung out toward the back of the line because I didn't want to make anyone mad but when they opened the doors I could feel the 50 pairs of eyes burning the back of my head as I walked by straight up to the window and into my appointment. I left 20 minutes later... again through a waiting room of glares but with a bag much lighter and a HUGE weight lifted off my stomach.

In typical French fashion, I will still have to wait 1 month (meaning 3) and get yet another medical examination before I actually receive the card...

On that same note...Paris Fashion Week begins on Saturday. You can bet I will be making my rounds to see if I can "traque" (stalk) the celebrities between classes.

Today marks exactly 1 month since I left the US. I can't believe it. I still feel like I have seen less of this city then most tourists (I've decidedly spent too much time in banks, mobile phone stores and administrative offices). I move in to my "home" on Friday morning and get to make a day trip to EuroDisney on Sunday. After that you can guarantee I will be spending any free time wandering the street, visiting museums and monuments and finally getting to know this rainy lady.

I know it is Saturday now. However, as with all weeks, this one began with a Monday...and it was a Monday as there ever was...

I registered for classes at 10am Monday morning (when the server was opened to all International students at the same time!) and, believe it or not, got in to most of what I wanted. I was short 2 classes at 10:40 when I finally decided to give up...Every class said it was full. The thing is, one of the classes I was short was the French LANGUAGE class I am required to take!

After being tossed around like a ping pong ball all afternoon on campus (ok.."go to this office", get to the office, closed for lunch, wait an hour, come back, wait in line, oh--"lets just take you out of that lecture course so that you can get into the only french class with openings"---(no way I need the credits for that class for my degree), "kay then go see my collegue down the hall to the left", down the hall to the left= stairwell!!, wander into numerous offices without knowing where to go when I am rescued by a nice professor who points me indeed to the left up the stairwell across a classroom into another hall up more stairs and to the right only to be faced with 6 offices (this is what "to the left means in French") After trying to communicate yet again what had happened I was directed to the only closed door. "Mdme Fau is the only one who can add you to a full class and she is not in today, e-mail her and come back tomorrow." Why is the only person who can add someone to a full class NOT IN on the day of REGISTRATION!! This is France.... So still no response from her that night. However, after an early wake up on Tuesday morning and a few more ping pong-like directions, I walked out of Sciences Po with THE class I had originally wanted. As for the other class that I couldn't get into, I had to take the only elective available and am now actually excited to learn "The History of Great Britain" in a country that has been its rival for centuries...

Bank card code has still not arrived: After a visit to the bank and a 7Euro charge to my account later, they are resending it to my appartment this week. I paid for my Louvre "Carte de Jeunes" pass with a check yesterday and the woman made me redo it twice-- it's not as simple as back home. A note to all who plan/should plan to visit me: the "Carte de Jeunes" is 15 Euro year long pass for students to the Louvre and comes with some pretty great discounts for my guests as well.

Imagine R (the metro pass) finally sent me something...a good sign...but it turns out that my bank account didn't work..meaning that they probably tried it before I transferred the money...I filled out some more forms and sent it back..metro pass by next week??

Believe it or not, my biggest disappointment of the day was when I made a trip to the Post to send a small package with some French sweets to my brothers...turns out..it is forbidden to send any type of food to the states. There has to be a way around this system...

Also, went to 3 different grocery stores (including the Grand Epicerie---the equivalent of Whole Foods times 7) in search of Lemon Pepper to stirfry up my beans in. Turns out Poivre Citron does not exist in Paris, not even in the biggest spice store I've ever seen. So I bought: 1 lemon, 1 shallot, and some pepper and thought I'd try my own version. :) Nothing is easy here...

I actually DID find time to wander over to the Sciences Po American Center this afternoon only to be met with the news that the woman who helped me get into Sciences Po (and my only English-speaking advisor) has just given leave and her replacement, Mathew, was being trained as I was there. Within 2 minutes of explaining everything, I broke down in tears. It was really wierd for me because I never cry in front of people other then family. It was just what happened after the stress of the day. They sat me down and gave me some water and I immediately was better and able to explain my frustrations of the day and also about not having enough French to get by without some form of help. They said that they know it is a problem and that they were suprised we weren't getting more help with registration and getting bank accounts. It seems that they really have no say in how things are run "over there"--the Am. Center is 10 blocks away. Even though they were really nice and felt so bad, I really don't think this is a problem that is going to be solved quickly. The people working at Sciences Po, students and admin alike really dont like to speak english even when speaking with international students. They said that there are others at a similar language level as me but I have yet to meet them and am constantly surrounded by students only speaking French to eachother and to admin. It is as if it doesn't occur to them that someone may not understand it! I know that I am in France to learn the language and appreciate the immersion most of the time but when it comes to bank accounts, registration, etc... I would prefer to KNOW what I am doing then practice my language skills.

And that was Monday...

I think that is the way things like this always work--just come in one big overwhelming day and then slowly work themselves out. Tuesday was better and the only real problem I had came when trying to fix my WIFI (or "wee fee" here) at school.

I went to the help desk and found out that the help desk is actually in a separate building about 20 minutes away (how are they supposed to help with WIFI??!) When I finally got there (through the rain..yes it has started!) it was only the entrance to an appartment complex with a button to ring the person you want...go figure...there was no way I was pushing a button..I had no idea where to start. I wandered back through the rain and decided I was going to sit down and figure this out by myself...20 minutes of dictionary translations and restarting and restarting later...I now have functionable wifi at Po!!!

On Wednesday, though, this last month decided to finally hit me and I spent 22 hours in bed between frequent trips across the hall (I never knew how annoying it was not to have your own toilet until I was running back and forth every half hour). I'd been really tired all day and I still had a stomach ache the day after so I know it wasn't food poisoning. Carly said this happens to her when she travels sometimes too..that she doesn't cry...just gets sick...go figure...I do both.

The rest of the week as been much better and I am now gearing up for one heck of a week ahead of me. This week's agenda includes moving, writing 2 big papers, applying for my "carte de sejour"--a whole nother story--, and prepping for classes 1 week from Monday!

I've just added a few more paragraphs to the September 9th post. I've changed their text color to pink so that you know what is new. Only a few more things to update on that post and then I can focus on what's going on now.

I finally got to be a legitimate tourist this week and the blisters on my feet are living proof. Parisians must either be born with pre-callused feet or must have really great pedicures once a week.

On Wednesday night, ScPo's Bureau des Eleves (Student Association) rented out a club in St. Michel for all of the international students. We weren't allowed in until 11pm and so you can guess how many people ended up going to class the next day. Lucky for me, my class was at 2pm so I had plenty of time to sleep. As I am not yet 21, I can't compare the club scene to the US but can guess that there are some definite differences. The most prominent being the images of nudity. I knew coming to France that there was a much different idea of the meaning of nudity here but I didn't know the extent. There was a television above the dance floor and for 4 hours I refused to look raise my gaze above eye level. There was a legitimate "Girls Gone Wild" porn-esque display the whole night. I think that by the end of the night I had become completely numb to it. The next morning on my way to class, I was completely unfazed as I passed an advertisement on the side of a semi featuring a stark naked man with a price tag in just right spot: "Plus bas et vous aviez des suprises!" (Lower and you have surprises!)

This weekend marked the "Fete de Patrimonie" in Paris. For 2 days, all of the government buildings that are usually closed off to the public were opened free of charge. This also meant LONG lines. I met Steph at the Jardin de Tuileries at 9am and we spent the day truly "walking" the city. We stopped for breakfast and coffee at St. Michel and were entertained by a man climbing and dancing in the famous fountain. Sitting at a cafe in Paris and staring is completely shameless. In fact, all of the chairs are purposely lined up facing the street and to sit facing the building is unheard of. We wandered our way through the Latin Quarter (filled with shops and tons of tourists) to Notre Dame (we just walked through quickly) to the Ile-St. Louis where we hunted down the renown ice cream shop, Berthillon. We decided to pass on the ice cream until later this month/year..but stood in awe staring at the choices from fig to wild strawberry to dark chocolate...all freshly made that morning.

We then followed music to the Place de Bastille (where the prison that held Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV once stood) and were confronted with hundreds of high school/college age kids dressed to the epitome of "cool". (We had a conversation questioning how they KNOW how to dress like this. They have this unbelievable presence and style that you'd think they were all born with!) We soon learned we had stumbled on the Techno Parade that would last all day looping around Paris. I WISH I could put the pictures up now...I promise they will come. The people were climbing on top of statues and bus stops and following the floats in mobs all while dancing. If I were French. This is how I would be. They were just "that" cool.

I wish this was a motion shot...they are all dancing.
Standing on top of a bus stop. Yes--his shirt DOES say "Life is Techno!"

We decided to escape the mobs and spent a few hours in the Marais. This is now my FAVORITE part of Paris so far. The buildings are gorgeous-- we walked unknowingly into the courtyard of a famous old home that was open for the Fete du Patrimonie and were invited inside to see an exhibit of a famous photographer of haute-couture during the 40's- 60's. Being the girly girls that we are, we decided immediately that our wedding dresses will be nothing short of the dresses we saw and that it is necessary they be purchased in Paris. The Marais is lined with shops but not the touristy ones of the Latin Quarter. Most of the shops are specialty-- paper, shoes, bags, spices, chocolate, etc... but they are also not the chic, outrageously expensive shops of the Champs d'Elysees or St. Germain de Pres. (Though I'm not sure they are perfect for a college budget either...). We did find a few 2nd hand shops though and had fun searching through the 12 Euro crocodile purses fur hats trying to decide if they were real or not. I also found my new favorite store though I can't remember the name, and I'm sure if I will be able to find my way back or not. They carry the Bensimon shoes that are so popular here (much like the slip-on keds but only in pastels) and a bunch of book bags that I will be returning to peruse once my bank card decides to work.

We ended at the Seine, cuddled up on a bench nursing our feet. We had been walking for 7 hours non-stop. A low key night definitely was in demand and we spent it at a jazz club on the Ile St. Louis where I couldn't help dozing off. Steph stayed over at the Cite U with me as her host family's house was a bit out on the metro and we squished in the bed and slept straight through.

By far, the best part of the weekend though was this morning. We went to Notre Dame for mass at 12:45. It was hard for me to imagine the day before what the mass would be like with the hoards of tourists constantly circulating the parameters of the inside of the cathedral (believe it or not they do not stop visiting hours during mass). There were a few flashes of cameras but people were really respectful and it was easy to forget about them once the mass began. Notre Dame is HUGE. No picture could truly describe the immensity of the ceilings and walls. I was in absolute awe the entire time. I think its a pretty great place to go if you have grown up Catholic. Even if you haven't (there were plenty of people attending the mass who didn't rise for communion) it is still amazing. I think for me though, it was just this grand summary of the tradition that I have grown up with all wrapped up in this one place.

Tomorrow morning is registration for classes. I'm working on it, but having trouble deciding what to take. I'm a business major at a political science school but have always loved politics and history so I'm excited to finally take some courses that are different from my major.

As hoped, things ARE finally starting to wind down. (Though unfortunately not as quickly as I would like.) After finally getting my laptop in working condition last week I have been working to keep up with e-mails and school and the bureaucracy of France.

In short, I am loving it here. It is still like a dream to me though. Every morning I have woken up only to be shocked to find out where I am. I have to walk across the room to turn off my alarm clock (the only way I can be sure I will get up!) and then I go straight for the window and open it wide open. There is no such thing as a screen here. Supposedly there are bugs but I haven't seen any yet. My room overlooks the park at the Cite U and there are always a hand full of runners. Unfortunately, they haven't inspired me to join them very often yet. Its been hard enough to find time to eat and do laundry, so running has been put on the back burner. I'll be joining them tomorrow as it is the first morning yet that I don't have some French agency mandating my attention. I have my very last day of language class at 2pm. This also means that tomorrow officially marks the end of my 2nd week in Paris. In truth, I feel like I've been here for much longer, though my poor French skills would tell otherwise.

Before arriving in Paris I had taken 4 semesters of college French courses. I knew that I wasn't fluent but I think I was a bit overconfident. For our 2 weeks of intensive French courses, I was put into level 2. There are about 20 different groups of all levels 1-5 and they are each named after a different metro stop. My group is Menilmontant. After my first day of class, all of my confidence was blown away. Most of the other students were speaking at the same speed as the instructor and I soon learned that they each had 6-9 years of French under their belt. My immediate thought was to switch into level 1. Day 2 was much better however and even though I am easily the worst in the class, I decided the challenge was worth it. 2 weeks later, I can't say that my speech is anything similar to theirs but I can now understand most of what they are saying. A few of my close friends here are also really great at French and they keep telling me that I just have to get to the point where I think in French (and stop trying to translate from English every time). Right now, I am hoping that that moment comes very soon. :)

I am lucky to have made some really amazing friends here already. Kath is from Perth, Australia and Carly is from Adelaide, Australia. We do almost everything together and its been so great to have them when dealing with the ins and outs of moving to Paris. We cook dinner together as often as we can and spent most of last week/weekend going together to look at apartments and buy groceries, etc...so that we wouldn't get caught in some dodgy area by ourselves. This last Sunday we decided to finally get some sightseeing in and be real tourists. We went to the Eiffel Tower and dressed up in scarfs and berets (and even brought a baguette) to take pictures. I swear the other tourists thought we were really French. I have SO many pictures that I want to put up. BUT, (as has been the case with EVERYTHING so far) my camera is not letting me connect to my computer right now. I'll post them all as soon as I can.

I got a surprise phone call last night. Stephanie, my best friend while I grew up in Minnesota is studying (by coincidence I swear) in Paris for the year as well. I knew that she was arriving soon but I think that the craziness of this past week made me lose track of time. She is going to a different school (that is not far from the Cite U) and is living with a family in the 16Th arrondissement (a very nice residential quarter). We met up and I got to play tour guide for the first time showing her SciPo and the nearest Post. We are going to make a day of it on Saturday and go to Notre Dame and St. Chapelle on the two islands in the Seine that mark the heart of Paris. It is so nice to have someone here from home. Since I arrived I have asked myself a thousand times why the HECK I made this choice and put myself in such a different world when the one back home was so perfect. Not a day goes by though that I haven't learned/seen something that I would never have experienced in Colorado and I realize all over again why this is a good thing. Steph's arrival yesterday made all of this much better and I'm glad that I will now have someone who I can watch cheesy American chick flicks and make pumpkin pie with in November.

Wow, this post has turned into a novel but hopefully its not too boring. Keep your eye on my previous post, I am still adding things to it...

SO much has happened in the last week that I really don't know where to start. I think I am going to try to post a few different blogs this week about different things that I have noticed since I arrived to try to give a real sense of what this is like. This one, however, will be more of a summary---calendar of events.

When I reread the blog below before posting it tonight, I realize how unsuspecting I was of things to come. I expected to change and grow this year but maybe not so quickly. In one week I have gone from a girl who could barely sew a button on a shirt to someone --only a little bit terrified-- of walking into a mobile phone store only to spend 1 hour communicating in broken English (the salesperson), less then poor french (me), and a broad range of hand motions (both of us) just to set up and UNDERSTAND my new cell service. [ I had originally set up the plan the day before, only to realize that by using my new cell and international phone card in combination that night, I had managed to use up an entire month of phone credit in 2 hours!!]

This week has been less then smooth but definitely the most empowering of my life. There is so much that I want to tell about everything so I am going to write out the course of my week and fill in all of the details when I can find time this week. This week has been so full that I am amazed of the thought of time to write. I won't do this the rest of the year (as I doubt my life will ever be this busy for a while...something that gives me enormous relief), but I feel like many that happened will help to give you all a picture of...well...Paris.

SEPT 1, Saturday
*Arrival, discovery of 'ma petite chambre' (my little room). Like Germany, everything in Paris is small. The buildings, the cars, the streets, the people...so I was stunned to find my room at the Cite U for the month a little bit bigger then small. I have a window that opens up wide to the park below, a bed, a desk, a sink, and 2 closets. The toilets and showers are down the hall and are co-ed as is everything here. There is a kitchen on each floor full of the all the appliances and utensils open to use by everyone and we all have our own dry food locker and drawer in the fridge. The kitchens are surrounded by a balcony that looks out over the park. Though the Cite U is not in the heart of Paris, the student life here is so great that people are on a 1 year waiting list to get a room. A great place to be now but it is sad to think that we will all have to leave here in a month.

The entrance to the Cite Universitaire... notice the bushes.

*Stumbled blindly through the metro en route to see Sciences-Po.
*An evening on the Seine. (wine, baguettes, cheese and my first view of the Tour Eiffel). This is probably a proper time to introduce the people that I have been spending time with over here. There are a lot of international students in the orientation program that we have until September 30Th. Amazingly, a good number of them are Australian. In effect, a good number of the people that I hang out with are Australian. We decided we need to make rules to not speak English until 7pm so that we force each other to speak French. (However, this rule has not yet been enforced.) I've learned 3 languages in the past month: French, German (well, just a few words), and Australian (brecky=breakfast, sunnies=sunglasses, torch=flashlight, jumper=sweatshirt). On Saturday night. Kath and James (Perth), Ryan (Florida) and I wandered our way up the Champs d'Elysees (Paris's infamous shopping street where the Tour de France finishes every year) and stopped off to grab some wine and things for a dinner before sitting down feet dangling over the Seine (the main river that winds through Paris) to watch the buildings light up one by one. There were many tour boats winding through and flooding the banks with their huge lights. I couldn't have come up with a better way to start my adventures in Paris.

SEPT 2, Sunday
*My first run in Paris.
*Louvre attempt number 1. After a morning of sleeping in and organizing our stuff, we managed to take the metro into Paris around 5pm. The first Sunday of the month the museums are open to the public for free so we thought we would drop into the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa before heading to get dinner. (Hey...we are here for a year, we have plenty of time to see the other works of art). We decided to "play tourist" for the day (though I think I have been playing tourist since I arrived) and took pictures and stared in awe for awhile before entering the museum at 5:45, 15 minutes to close. Perfect! When you enter the Louvre you are surrounded by several branching hallways: 3 lead to the wings of the Louvre and the others to shopping areas. We took one wrong turn and turned around 30 seconds later only to find that security had sealed off the entrance to the wings. A failed attempt...but I WAS inside the Louvre if only for 2 minutes.

Right before our attempt to enter...

*Luxembourg Gardens and dinner out. If you ever visit Paris, it is essential to visit the Luxembourg Gardens. The Palais du Luxembourg is the home to the senate but was originally the "play" palace of one of the Medici queens of one of the King Louis'. (Their were several of each and I can never keep them straight!) Supposedly it is a replica of her home palace in Florence and was built for her to visit when she was homesick. Now if only I had my own Louis to build me a few flatirons! The garden is beautiful. There are ponds and statues surrounded be the ever-present manicured lawns, bushes, and trees. People are always out on the chairs surrounding the pond reading, sunbathing and.. um.. showing a bit too much affection?? :). There are a few rules to remember though. There are designated areas for running, walking, sitting, and pique-niquing-- grass in Paris is regarded as an art form and there are plenty of signs (in French) to remind you of the boundaries. After visiting the gardens, we decided to splurge and go out to dinner. We found a great brasserie and of all things decided to order pizza. (It was the most student budget-friendly item.) It turned out to be a very French experience anyway as our plates were filled with crepe-like dough, salmon, goat cheese, walnuts, and pesto... yum??
SEPT 3, Monday
*First day of class.
*Pique-nique on the Seine with 100 other ScPo international students. The school has set up several planned-activities for us to participate in throughout the month. We were supposed to meet at ScPo to walk together to the Seine but grocery shopping is never easy with 6 other people and we ended up deciding to to have our own pique-nique since we missed the rendez vous time. 100 students carrying baguettes, wine, and cheese are pretty hard to miss however...even among Paris's dozens of bridges and we were lucky enough to find ourselves surrounded by them all as we crossed the street toward the nearest pedestrian bridge. We left a walking path to the west side of the bridge but truly covered a good half of it. My favorite part of the whole night however was a confrontation by an American couple. They came right up and demanded to know just WHAT was going on. After we explained that we were all from the same school and on a pique-nique they simply ignored our answer and started again: "Why are you drinking ALCOHOL in public??!!" They were obviously referring to the dozens and dozens of bottles and glasses of wine lining the hands of every other student. It is easy to see why they would be confused of this image so directly in contrast to American laws. I was more suprised, however, at their unusually blunt attempt to inform us of our violation.

SEPT 4, Tuesday
*Cell phone attempt 1. I woke up extra early with a long list of to-do's only to discover one major difference between the States and France. No matter how much you have to do, France is going to get a good night of sleep. After arriving at the Club Bouygtel at 9am, I immediately returned to the metro to go home. Many stores in France open around 9 but it is not uncommon for them to open at 10 during the week....(and EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays)... so much for getting a head start!
*The story of the hair dryer... a story that to me seems to summarize much of the rat race that consumed my first week here. In preparing to come to Europe I made the decision to part with my hair dryer and Velcro hair rollers in exchange for suitcase space (for shoes of course!). I still think it was a good decision but I had no idea at the time what it entailed. Someone had mentioned to me before leaving: a store specializing in hair products in Paris called "Babyliss". On my list of 1st day things to do: visit Babyliss and stock up! Using the handy Google maps, I learned that there indeed was a Babliss location no further then 15 blocks from the Cite U. It wasn't on a metro line (meaning I would have to walk) and was across the Boulevard Peripherique that marks city limits but I was desperate to get rid of the wavy frizz that had covered my head upon arrival. After walking 45 minutes through streets filled with more then a few shady characters and passing through empty pedestrian tunnels, I upon a building, or rather a skyscraper, that boldly stated I had reached my destination. My destination, as it turned out, was the corporate headquarters of Babyliss and contained nothing that resembled the ever-growing solution to my mangled locks. I returned back to Cite U, once again traversing sketchy alley ways and passing SDFs (Sans Domiciles Fixes---ie: the homeless) with empty hands. That night I decided to suck it up and buy a hair dryer at the grocery store. I arrived only to find the aisle FULL of Babyliss BRAND hair dryers. There never was a store...only a product. Still without Velcro rollers (which have proved impossible to find) I was content to finally have my Babyliss blow-dried hair!
*Cell phone attempt 2. One last attempt to get something done before class at 2pm. I wandered back into the Club Bouygtel only to discover yet another lesson in living in another country: How to communicate through hand signals, broken English, and very little French. Some how or another I emerged from the store 30 minutes later with a phone, a charger (that works in France!...I'd also had trouble with my adapters this week...but that is another story), and supposedly a plan that I understood??

SEPT 5, Wednesday
*Bank Account: in short, I signed a 30 page document that I didn't read/understand. I know this is bad and that my Business Law professor back home will probably want to have a long talk with me when I return but I was desperate for some solidarity in my new life and for some reason I felt like this would do it. (In my defense: the bank [Societe Generale] was heavily recommended by ScPo to all students) Now, almost 2 weeks later...the solidarity has not yet come. I have an account. I have a number. I even have a bank card and money in my account (wired last week...). However, I can not access any of this. Not without my "SEH-crut code-UH" that I was informed (upon my 3rd visit to the bank in a week) is in the mail en route to my address at the Cite U and has been en route for the past 2 weeks. I have a feeling I will be making yet another visit tomorrow.
*Imagine R: The Imagine R (which I am beginning to think stands for "Imaginary") is the metro pass for students in Paris. It is a year long pass and is a really good deal. The catch? (of course) is that you have to send it in via mail (with bank account number...) and will not receive it for 2 weeks...at least. In the mean time I have been dropping the equivalent of 20 USD a week. It is due to arrive this Tuesday...which translated in French means...next week Monday.
*Les Halles: My mom and I spent the whole summer in search of the perfect coat (warm and rain proof...and of course chic) for a fall/winter in Paris. After finding "IT" the last week before I left I was pretty excited to break it out upon arrival. Sadly, I'm going to have to wait. The weather here has been suprisingly warm and dry (it sprinkled for 10 minutes one day) but the nights get fairly chilly. My new coat is too heavy to wear yet and I didn't think to bring anything lighter...Paris is supposed to be COLD! So Wednesday afternoon I dragged Carly and Charlotte(from my french class) with me to hunt for a jacket at Les Halles. It is a forum of shops I think 5 or 6 levels above the metro but below street level. The whole thing is covered in glass domes and windows to the garden above. The stores in Les Halles are pretty reasonably priced for Paris and this fact is obvious in the type of people who shop here. Many come from the poorer districts. The garden above Les Halles is also famous for drug traffic and so I was pretty glad to have Carly and Charlotte with me. I'm probably making it sound a bit worse then it really is. You would be fine there by yourself during the day but for me the shopping wasn't quite as friendly as back home. No luck with my jacket but an experience none-the-less.
*The phone card. The final moment of my seemingly-unending Wednesday came with disruptive beep that broke my first phone call home. I had purchased an international phone card earlier that day and planned to use it to call home that night. Here is the point where I finally have to admit that I AM that NAIVE GIRL who doesn't understand the mechanics behind many things. My life has been easy up until now with an accountant of a father who manages my finances and sets up my mobile services, etc... I guess it is common sense that you are not supposed to use a phone card with a cell phone but when the calling card expressly stated "land line and mobile phone usage" I figured it was safe. In short: I managed to use up a 7.5 Euro phone card and an entire month's worth of service (25 Euro) in one phone call. I know I will laugh about this later...but 1 week, 25 more Euro, and 1 more broken english/poor french/hand signal communication session at the Club Bouygtel later...not so funny.

SEPT 6, Thursday
*Adventures of a broken laptop. One advantage of having a dad who really really loves you is that when you have a broken laptop and he lives thousands of miles away, you can still count on him to find a way to fix it for you. After a week in Paris and no chance at making the laptop function on my own, I made a phone call to a guy named “Morgan” that my dad found on the web. The advertisement was something along the lines of: “Speak French and English, live in Paris, can fix your computer. Charge 25 Euro an hour. I have a no BS policy meaning that if I can’t fix it, you don’t have to pay. Call me at xx xx xx xx xx.” Not sketchy at all, right? I dragged Ryan along for this very reason. Of course Morgan’s first suggestion on a place to meet was at a Starbucks. Though I arrived a half hour early, I still couldn’t find it after 35 minutes and had to call him yet again to ask for directions. 10 minutes later he found us wandering the metro and directed us to the Starbucks all the way across the plaza. It turns out Morgan was indeed genuine and that Ryan wasn’t necessary (but it was nice to have him there anyway) and I emerged 1 hour later with a fully functioning laptop….fixed with love from Colorado.
*Making it official--ID and S.S. If you are an EU citizen: getting your student ID and French Social Security is as simple as standing in line for 30 minutes and filling out a form. If you are a foreign student NOT from the US: it is as simple as waiting in the same 30 minute line, filling out the same form and going to an office across town with your passport to get the official form that says you are covered for medical care. If you are from the US: getting your student ID and French SS means waiting in line, filling out the form, forking over 192 Euro, waiting until October 1st, going across town to the office to get the “temporary” medical coverage verification, getting your ‘carte de sejour’ (takes 3 months), and going back again to finally receive your official social security medical coverage verification. This, added to the comments about Bush that I get every time I tell my country of origin have made me think twice before announcing that I am an American.

SEPT 7, Friday
*Apartment search ends! I have been unbelievably lucky in my search for a new apartment. I am writing this post on October 1st, the day that we are officially kicked out of the Cite Universitaire and still have 2 friends who haven’t found a place to live. The Paris housing market is very expensive and for this reason: anything slightly affordable is usually snatched up within hours of its posting. I decided to start my apartment search on the Friday after I arrived so that I could give myself some time to do the other administrative things. Kath began her search about 3 days before me and had called about 20 people and seen 9 apartments already only to be told that they were “deja loué” (already rented). There is a paper that comes out on Thursday mornings called the ‘Particuliers’ that lists all of the new apartments up for rent in Paris. It hits the news stands at 5am and if you haven’t called by 7am, there is a good chance the place is gone already.

On Friday morning I woke up extra early to go to the American Church in Paris to look at their message board (a well-known place for lodging postings). Kath came with and told me about a great apartment that she had seen the night before near the Place de Madeleine (about 2 blocks from the Champs d’Elysees and right down town]. She said the place was perfect but that the proprietor would only rent it for a year and not for the 6 months that she was staying here. She passed the number along to me and after a quick look and a very early wake up call to my parents it looked like I had found my place on the first day. There was one problem though…though the location and price were perfect—the apartment was a shoe box…about 9 square meters that included bed, shower, toilet, desk, closet, and mini-kitchen (a pantry with a sink that doubled as my bathroom sink, a microwave and a burner). If I were to have any visitors, I wouldn’t have been able to walk on the 6 by 1 ft furniture-free floor space. Back to the drawing board.

On Sunday afternoon I posted a profile on Craig’s List in the “Housing Wanted” section. Within an hour I had 7 responses (though a few were pretty sketchy—“65 yr old man renting a room in 2 bedroom apartment, perfect for a student, prefer female…”). The very first response, however, was PERFECT. I went to see it that night with Carly (it is a two bedroom) and we returned on Monday with our down payment of the first month’s rent. We live in a HOUSE… or rather a guest house. A couple (both French though the woman lived in New York for 20 years) own the house and have a guest house attached (as are all buildings in France). We are living in the upper level of the guest house. We have our own entrance, gate, mail box, etc… There are two rooms. One is a bedroom with a single bed, dresser and desk but with plenty of space, the other is a gigantic room with a double bed, more the enough shelving, a desk and an area separated (by shelving) that has a table and a small kitchen fully equipped without an oven or dishwasher. We have a great bathroom (though we recently discovered that it does not accommodate shower…it is a tub with a hose—not uncommon here) and a separate room with the toilet. The couple have a beautiful garden and terrace which we are free to use and our view is absolutely amazing looking over a park across the street. Also, our rent is about half of what most students are paying.

The catch?

Of course there is a catch—but obviously it wasn’t enough to stop us. We are not IN Paris. We are about 200 yards from the Paris border in a suburb called Sévres. It is a really beautiful residential area to the southwest of Paris. The bad part—it is about an hour by metro to the center of Paris…to school. Since we are NOT allowed to be late to class under ANY circumstances, this means that Carly and I will be leaving 1 hour and a half before class. On Wednesdays and Thursdays when I have 8am courses, this will be a really lovely thing!! The good part—the area is really quiet and super close to two of Paris’s biggest parks—perfect for a runner!

*A night to celebrate--the Place de Bastille---VIP treatment. On Friday night, we went out to celebrate the end of our first week at Sciences Po. The school hosted a ‘Soirée at the Bastille’ (a night on the Bastille—a bar lined quarter that once held the prison where Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV were held) and about 70 students showed up. We split up into smaller groups and arrived at ‘Le Iguana’ with 20. Of course the bouncer wasn’t too excited, but after a few shameless name drops…er…Sciences Po…they led us through the pub and into the back room lined with white lounge couches and our own TV showing (what else?) the first rugby game of the world cup. One 11 Euro cocktail later and it was the perfect end to a hectic week..

SEPT 8, Saturday
* Finally a chance to sleep in!
* An afternoon at Oz: Oz is THE Australian bar of Paris. As a majority of the students on the exchange program are Aussies, it was inevitable that I would spend the afternoon surrounded by Toohey and chanting rugby fans. After a 91-3 victory over Japan, it goes without saying that everyone left the bar more then satisfied.

Keep an eye on this blog..I am going to fill in the holes throughout the week. Hopefully add pictures as well.

EVERYTHING IS FINALLY WORKING! I am going to post twice today. The one that follows was written on my arrival here right before my computer broke so that I wasn't able to post it until now:

September 1, 2007

I can say without hesitation that the last 12 hours have easily been the most demanding hours of my life. I don’t know what I was thinking in leaving a family in Munich that I truly fell in love with for an empty bunk in a space “just” big enough to hold me and WAY too much luggage. Trying to sleep in a space that moved and roared much more like the inside of a washing machine (sans water) then a valid bed, with a mind spinning much too rapidly, I think I managed about 3 hours of cat naps in total. My train was to arrive at 6:45 am at the Gare d’Est, once the clock reached 5:15, I felt that my fight for sleep had long been lost. I got ready and sat at the edge of my bunk staring out the window for the remainder of the ride. I don’t know what I expected, bit I didn’t see it. The tracks where lined with old factories and graffiti…nothing near the Paris I’ve held in my mind for so long.

I arrived to a silent platform truly loaded down. 4 bags total: a HUGE suitcase, a duffel balanced on top, a huge purse weighed down with laptop and books, and my favorite—a framed backpack filled entirely with shoes.

Right now I am sitting in the lobby of a “maison” at the Cité Universitaire that will be my home for the next month. It is only 9am and the arranged check in is at noon. It had been my intention to drop my luggage at a locker at the station before grabbing breakfast and wandering a few streets downtown first but after seeing the 40+ stairs leading up to the lockers, I turned to plan B. Gathering blisters on my palms and the top of my feet (don’t ask), I lugged and pulled everything through the Gare d’Est onto the metro to the Gare de Nord onto a regional metro to the CitéU where I solicited more then enough stares while unloading onto the platform. I found the administrative building first…closed—of course. I knew I am supposed to check in at the actual maison that I am staying at (1 of 40) so I decided to make my way here. Believe it or not, I was not the only one trundling suitcases across the cobblestone at the CitéU. Today is move in and move out day for many and at 8:30 on a cool Saturday morning, there was a silent bond between all travelers.

The lobby is slowly growing with more and more students all awaiting the moment when administrators arrive to check us in to our new homes. I know that I am in Paris—the City of Lights, with thousands of years of history…yet right now a stationary bed sounds like heaven.

I am in Paris and I am safe and sound. My laptop is NOT WORKING!! I am meeting with a person that speaks english and fixes computers here in paris at a coffee shop within the hour and hopefully he will help me get up and going so that I can get back on and keep in touch.

Thanks to all of you who have sent me little notes/ emails this week. They are great to receive when my mind is flustered over bank accounts, blow dryers, cell phones, school ids, metro passes, bath towels, and well...finding a place to live in 3 weeks. I promise some great stories to come!