I spent this past week (Oct 26-30) in Paris! Here are my ramblings, observations, and just basically what I did...

Links are pictures, [stuff in brackets] is info about the pictures.

Monday:

We (Mme Dahirel, Delphine, Vincent, Benoît and me) arrived in the early afternoon and walked around the Luxembourg Gardens, saw Notre Dame, the Pompidou, and did a bit of shopping. The gardens were really pretty; I can see why that's a popular spot. I couldn't help but think of Mireille and Robert (MHS French people know what I'm talking about.). Haha. Notre Dame [the 2 towers on the left] was very cool. The rose windows (giant round stained glass windows) were gorgeous, and the organ was magnificent. A bit dark and gloomy overall, but then again, it WAS raining and couldy out. [A different day, the clouds parted for a bit--GREAT silhouette pic.]There were SO many people there. I guess I should've expected that, but it kinda ruined the whole atmosphere...at least for me. The shopping for the day began at the Pompidou Center. The museum itself is closed for renovations, but the shop is open. Fine Art postcards are just the best things! :) And they had a bunch of Keith Haring!!! (I LOVE Keith Haring! It always makes me want to smile and cry at the same time. He died of AIDS at age 32 in 1990. :-( ) After there, we started on our way to FNAC and Chatelet for the RER (commuter train) back to our apartment in the south of Paris. On the way, however, we found this AWESOME little store that had nothing but movie posters, publicity shots, and other film memorabilia. Talk about heaven for a movie freak like me. Of course I dove for the Dead Poets Society folder first. I bought this fantastic still of Neal in his Jesus/Puck crown looking out through the curtain at the play *just* before he sees his father. It's a great shot. So once I was dragged out of there kicking and screaming, we finally arrived at FNAC--a giant underground multimedia store...CDs, videos, TVs, computers, stereos, concert and theater tix, etc. I bought my TI-86 for calc....way exciting. :) Then we finally got on the RER [Delphine in the metro or RER...I can't tell which.] and went home. The apartment is my host dad's parents'. It's in the neighborhood in south Paris called "Cité Univérsitaire." It's an area with a ton of buildings for all of the foreign students studying in Paris to live; each country has a building. The US building is HUGE! So we got home and soon thereafter, Agnes and Claire showed up. Agnes is my «host aunt», I guess. She's my host mom's sister. Claire is her daughter, so Delphine's (and mine) cousin. Being the exact same age, they're very close, but living so far apart, they rarely get to see each other. She's wicked nice, and we became good buds throughout the week. Monday evening I went to bed early because of my cold--a problem I could've dealt without all week. Oh well. :)

Tuesday:

I woke up relatively early (8....ok, early for vacation) because Benoît and I had to catch a 9-ish train to EURODISNEY!!!! :) The family's already been 3 times, but Benoît wanted to go back AGAIN, so I volunteered to take him. It was just the 2 of us and we had a blast. The train ride was about an hour, and we arrived just after the gates opened. We did Space Mountain twice (YAY!), Indiana Jones, and Star Tours twice. The lines were insane, so that was it. Even so, we spent probably a good 3 or 4 hours in lines.

Guess what! I saw an old cast-member from Road Rules!!!! How cool is that? I passed Christian TWICE throughout the day. It was so unreal. He lookd exACTly the same as he did back a few years ago. Of course I didn't have the guts to talk to him and ask him how Emily's doing since the accident. (Go look on the "where are they now?" section at MTV Online for more info on that.)

So EuroDisney was cool, but really small and way too cutesy....what am I talking about--it's DISNEY! :)

When Benoît and I arrived home, I got some very good news! We were going to the NEW MORNING!!!! The New Morning is THE premiere Paris jazz club. All of the females of the group (Benoît and Vincent stayed home) went and saw this samba-ish quintet. They were pretty good, but then again, it could've been pretty much anything and I would've been happy. The girl singer was actually kinda old, but she still had a decent voice...pretty, but lacking a certain power and attitude that a jazz singer needs. Well, at least IMHO. Oh well, it was still a mighty enjoyable evening.

Wednesday:

I have an old friend from a camp that lives in Paris. I'd tried to call her, but hadn't heard back. She knew I was in Paris for the week, but hadn't managed to get a hold of me to plan getting together, so I'd pretty much given up hope. So, Claire and her mom and I decided to go check out the Musée d'Orsay. We got there, and the line was at LEAST ¾ of a mile long. Forget THAT! I figured I can reserve tix for when I go back to Paris in May and be able to walk RIGHT in! I can't wait! I LOVE impressionism!!! So in the meantime, the 3 of us had nothing to do. Well Mélanie (my camp friend) happens to live very close to the Orsay, and I happened to have her address memorized, so I suggested that we take a walk over to her apartment to see if she was there. Well, she WAS there and we ended up spending the entire afternoon together! Claire and Agnes went and met my host family for lunch at another aunt's house in Paris. Mélanie and I chilled in her apartment for a while. Then she had to go babysit this kid in the first floor apartment, so I went with her and actually ended up helping him with his English homework. :) Then after that, we went SHOPPING! We hit the Boulevard St-Michel and I finally got my wool coat. (Black, double-breasted, kinda like a pea-coat, but not...it's AWESOME!) I can almost pass for a française now. haha. It was SO cool to just spend a day with Mel after not seeing her for over 2 years. I left her around 5:30 and then we all went to dinner at yet another aunt's house in Paris. Nothing too eventful....

Thursday:

Claire and Delphine and I decided to make Friday the Tacky-Tourist day. We spent three hours in the Louvre [standard view]. [the underground, inverted pyramid] [Me in the well-known pyramid] [My really horrible tourist pic of the Mona Lisa.] [A really pretty pic of one of the mini-pyramids and some more Louvre architecture.] The museum is free for anyone under 18....COOLNESS! The Vermeer room was closed....:-( But I DID get more postcards! hahaha! And a Monet print. (The original is at the Orsay along with all the other impressionism.) After the Louvre, we found a cheap Chinese restaurant and had a quick lunch. Then we did the REALLY Tacky Tourist Circuit. First stop: Arc de Triomphe. [view of underside] It was pretty cool. Very big. The detail in the sculpture is interesting. I didn't know that France's unknown soldier is buried under the Arc. So as Delphine said, we "said hi" to the unknown soldier, and then made our way to stop #2: the Eiffel Tower. We took tacky tourist pictures, of course. [me and Delphine] [cool view]I hope they come out. We then returned to the movie poster store to look for more stuff. After a vain attempt at finding decent shots of Harry Connick, Jr. and Jeff Goldblum (sorry, they're my faves....funny, they were both in ID4, but never in the same scene....too bad), anything from "The Cutting Edge", and a picture of the dancing from "Swing Kids," I had a revelation and remembered "The Princess Bride"!! I found a great still of the "BOOO!!!" scene in the dream sequence, so I got it! :) I LOVE MOVIES! And these stills are yet another way for me to appreciate my faves. :) So after that shop, we spent about 45 minutes in FNAC looing at CDs. I listened to REM's latest and didn't like what I heard. Too bad. Friday night we just chilled in the apartment and I wrote a bunch of postcards.

Friday:

We all slept in quite a bit. Agnes had left on Thursday morning, and Claire left Friday morning. So the rest of us chilled and packed up our stuff. We made sandwiches to eat on the train home, and got on the bus to the station. As soon as the bus started, my host mom realized that she'd remembered the train time wrong and that we'd missed it. It wouldn't have been a huge deal, but Delphine and I had a party to get home to. So it was one o'clock, and we still had a 3-ish hour train ride to do. The first train possible wasn't until 6:20, which meant we got into St-Brieuc around 9. Looked like Delphine and I would be a bit late (a bit isn't sarcastic, either...the parties here start late.). But in the meantime, we still had like 4 hours to waste. So we ended up going down the street to this huge movie theater and splitting up to watch different movies. My mom saw "La Vie est Belle," a new Franco-Italian production.....I think it's a Holocaust story. I think I'll be seeing it soon. Benoît saw some movie about a little monkey in Africa...French movie. Vincent and Delphine and I saw "The Truman Show"!!!!!! It was JUST as fabulous as the first time I saw it. It's just SUCH a good film. (read: If you haven't seen it yet, what the heck are you waiting for?? Is it even still out over there? Friday was actually the opening day here in France.) It was even cool dubbed. :) Unlike "Saving Private Ryan." Ugh. But that's another story for another day.... So we ended up getting the train at 6:20, arriving in St-Brieuc at 9:09. Delphine and I left for the party at 10 and got back today at noon. (That's how parties go here.....hehe.)

Hope you enjoyed my week in Paris! SIGN THE GUESTBOOK and email me! :) Ciao!