le 30 juin et le 1 juillet

Ok, so I forgot to tell you why the French don't shower. Ha ha, it is my hypothosis because the showers are horrible. I feel like I've written about this before but the shower head is not mounted on the wall. It is just on the end of a cord. They call it le telephone de la douche or telephone of the shower. Whenever you want water on you, you have to hold the thing and pour it over yourself. And the water is like either scorching hot or freezing. I am getting used to the knobs so I can manipulate it better but my first shower was like uh, no wonder lol.


So on Tuesday we had academic meetings. It was basically like the first day of class for photography. We got like the schedule and talked about how the class would work. We went to a nearby grocery store for lunch. With Christy, Amanda, Allison, and Brittany, we got some cheese and a baguette and I bought a pear to go with which was so juicy and delicious. It was great. We picnic'ed in the ISA office which is not allowed lol but we didn't know so it was our first and last time.


Then we had a little meeting about French class and how to behave in homestays.
After the meetings, me and Brittany went home to a yummy dinner of salmon and lentils and the standard salad, bread and cheese. Madame likes to talk to us at dinner time which is good to practice our french. Lol my mom would gag at this though, her two cats like to get up on the table. It is kind of gross but she makes them get off pretty quick although she doesn't really care if they sit by the bread... I had a cat hair on my slice on time. Her cat Moustique is named for mosquitos, that is the french word for it (I don't know if I spelled it right). When Moustique was little, she didn't retract her claws so she was always poking people with them like a mosquito bite lol.


Tuesday night we didn't go out or anything. Brittany and I reviewed some french for the exam the next morning and decided to go to bed early so we could get up early and go to a creperie in the morning for breakfast. Unfortunately, the creperie was closed in the morning so we couldn't have breakfast there :( but we went to a boulangerie and had pain au chocolat instead yum!


The placement exam was very hard. Everyone thought so. The orale part was the worst. We had to talk to a professeur for a few minutes but it was like all in this crowded room so it was loud and the french talk softly so I couldn't hear my professeur very well lol and so I didn't do as well as I could have. I got into Elementaire 3 and I was hoping to be in Intermediate 1 which is the next level. They are nice about switching us though, so I think if I do the homework we got today and it is really easy I will ask to be switched.


After the exam, we had a break for lunch. The country is big about lunch. The break is like from 12 - 2 and some shops close down for that time. We went to the same place where I got the quiche but this time I ordered a sandwich and it was very good. All of their sandwhiches are on artisan breads with hard crusts and they have funny ways of cutting vegetables and there are big thick slices of cheese. They are good though. I liked the sandwhich a lot better than the quiche.


For our first Photo class, we took pictures at the Luxembourg gardens. I didn't take very many and the ones I did take came out all blue becasue I accidentally had the white balance weird. I just felt like a creeper taking pictures of people w/o asking but when you ask they act different. I just need to get over it lol but I have some pictures I like. There were two old women sitting in the park that were really cute and I asked to take their picture and we had a small conversation. They were very sweet. Most of the French are sweet and helpful if you try to speak french. They just don't smile much when they walk around the city which is why I think people must think they are rude.


After class we had another meeting at the office where we learned a few things about what to do in Paris and how to travel to other countries. I had my first crepe on the way home. They have this nifty tool that gets the batter all spread out perfectly and I totally want one. It was yummy but I didn't have my camera to document it :(

For dinner we had fish sticks which were actually pretty good with some yummy potatoes (and like always, assume we had bread, salade, cheese, and a slice of sausage). We decided we wanted to walk around the Champs Elysees but my friends are kind of directionally challenged. I do well if I have north, south, east, west but Paris is like in a circle so that didn't do me any good. We ended up not being able to find it which is funny cause it's huge lol. So we just walked around and then went home after a while. But we did see the Paris Opera House which is kind of cool. It is a roman like building and has a sculpture of like Mary Magdelene and the 12 apostles on the top triangle thing. It is really beautiful but dirty. There are dirty parts that are like all black. It is going under restoration now though, so it is starting to get cleaned.

I am transfering pictures from my cards right now so as soon as those get loaded I'll put some up.