Une autre semaine...

Well today we begin a new week of school... Get ready for some more intense French fun!!! But I should talk about my super cool ( say with French accent) weekend libre ( free weekend) with my buddy Melissa.

Saturday for the first time in a long time, we got to sleep in and got up a little after 10am. It was quite refreshing. After a quick breakfast and probably some more computer time ( we're addicted now that we have access back), we headed out to Le Centre Pompidou to meet up with Melissa's friend from high school. It was slightly after noon when we collected him, and then we were off. I'm not sure I remember the order of all the stops, because there were so many, but these are the places we visited: L'Opera, a big chuch, a cemetary that was unfortunately closed, Nicolas Flammel's house ( he's a character in Harry Potter but was also a real person), a French bookstore ( yes i bought two books in French!!) and of course Melissa's carefully researched fabric store ( she's making a quilt with fabric from everywhere she travels). We got home fairly early in the afternoon and had the house to ourselves, since our family was gone for the weekend, so we mainly just took turns on the computer and journalled. I cooked hamburgers and scrambled eggs for supper, so that was fairly exciting, but the rest of our night was pretty boring.

Sunday
We also slept in on Sunday, but it may have been a little later or earlier; I don't remember which. Our sequence of stops included mostly big Parisian icons like the Eiffel Tower, L'Arc de Triomphe and the Moulin Rouge. We got pictures of the Moulin Rouge and then headed off to the Arch. Once there I suggested to Melissa t hat we try to use our orange cards that Dr. Hagan made for us saying that we are art history students. We figured we would get in for a discounted rate, but when we showed them at the ticket counter, we got complementary tickets! We were so excited and couldn't stop talking about it for quite some time =); Thanks Dr. Hagan! After our excitement we entered the Arch's base and proceeded to climb the 284 stairs up to the top. The view was magnificient and of course we could see La Tour Eiffel, Les Invalides, Sacré Cour and a ton of surrounding Paris. It was pretty cool. After our experience there, we headed to the Eiffel Tower to try again. This time the lady didn't really pay attention to our cards, but since we had decided to climb à pied ( yes on foot) up to the second floor, it was fairly cheap anyway. Apparently we thought 284 escaliers at L'Arch de Triomphe x2 was not enough, so we had to take ourselves up the 669 stairs to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower and then back down too. Of course, being up that high was worth the climb, but our legs were definitely shaking when we found the ground again. We definitely got our steps in!!! After such a feat, we treated ourselves to more expensive ( we usually only spend about 2€ 35 together on lunch) food at the Eiffel Tower food stand. Then we headed back up to our metro stop and and our long ride home. We proceeded to take a nap and then hung out for awhile journalling and watching Saddle Club and The Simpsons in French on TV with our host brother Valentin. Dinner was a really good mix of rice and shrimp with some peanuts thrown in and then we had rhubarb applesauce, yogurt and cookies for dessert. Melissa and I also tried a traditional Greek alcohol, Ouzo ( yes i looked it up), which tastes strongly of black licorace and has a strong aftertaste as well. That night, we turned in early because alas, it is a new school week.

Monday
So far today, we have had 3hrs of class.. It has been raining/spitting on and off and in a little bit we are headed to Les Invalides, where Napoleon is buried. Hopefully the sun comes back out soon!!!

Je vous remercie pour regarder ma blog!!! ( I thank you again for looking at my blog=P)