Salut, Paris!

So, I hope everyone understands that my lack of blogging is actually a GREAT thing, because I really am just too busy! I don't even get to my computer every day anymore. I guess that's all going to change in a few days...

Where did the time go!? What a great finale to a crazy trip. The past few weeks were packed with visitors, last minute touristy things, and tons of exams (blegh!) Yesterday was my final oral exam, which ironically was definitely the best of all of them. After it was over I walked out a little shaky, finally realizing that I'm actually finished. 

Let's start from a few weeks ago! The rest of my mom's visit was fantastic. We ate at a bunch of really cool restaurants, including Laduree, which is a teahouse pretty similar to the famous Angelina's, except without all the tourists. I had a spectacular pistachio maracon and a pure chocolate hot chocolate, which was sickeningly good. Literally. 

I also got to FINALLY see the Saint Chapelle! It was a rainy day but the chapel was beautiful, as expected. It's really small, but the walls are almost all completely made of stained glass- each one with a biblical story. The back of the chapel has these huge doors (like 4 horses could walk through at one time) and then a rose window that I could only imagine to be gorgeous with the sun shining through! 

Last Saturday the CCA group took a trip to Fontainebleu- definitely one of the coolest spots we've seen. It's a castle that almost all of the kings of France have used- and the tour guide took us through the smaller royal chambers that are only open some of the time. She did such a great job of explaining everything. I had no idea that the furniture used to actually be really brightly colored! It makes sense, but I just didn't think about the changes in color would make to what the halls actually looked like when they were being used. Some of the furniture was restored and some was left to the originals, so you could actually see the differences. They even used bright purple for the salon! The guide also showed us a door where Napoleon (1?) would privately use to travel to his wife's room, and vice versa. When he decided to divorce his first wife since she couldn't bear his children, he actually bricked up the whole door so she couldn't get back through! What a way to break up with someone. 

Anyway, the castle was really cool. In one of the gardens it even had a fountain of peeing dogs... (the French certainly have an interesting sense of humor!) Pretty funny stuff. OH RIGHT! And... Picasso also went and stayed there for 2 years in the 20s for inspiration... I found a book that actually showed his works compared to some of the sculptures/paintings in the castle itself. Kind of crazy! 

So yes. That was a cool last trip with Central... and then last week was full of exams! I had an Art History exam, Film, Phonetics test, and an exam for the Central College class. The final HUGE grammar exam was on Saturday, which was pretty difficult. Like I said, yesterday was the oral exam, and I just got to talk about Victor Hugo's Demain, des L'aube- a poem that every French student has studied multiple times. 

In between all of the studying and exams my friend Caitlin from Drew and a friend of hers came up to visit for their last week! They stayed just outside of Paris with another friend, so I got to see them a few times during the week when I wasn't locked away in a cafe studying. :) We checked out the view from the top of the Galeries Lafayette, which was so cool! The rooftop/high city views here are really great, because it gives you a totally different perspective of the city. Paris feels like it's huge when you're trying to get around it, but then when you actually see how squished together everything is it's really surprising. 

So yes, lots of touring and eating baguettes/hummous in the parks and along the Seine. The parks continue to be my favorite part of Paris, so I plan on spending the majority of the next 48 hours in them! I can't believe it's time to go home... I've been going through intense bouts of excitement and then changing to complete dispair in leaving this beautiful city. I don't think I would ever be able to completely make up my mind about wanting to stay or go- I think that knowing I'm going home in 2 days is making me excited for it, but if I had to stay a few more months I wouldn't complain. :) This was such a journey- going through so much culture shock and getting used to the language, and now having to go home! It's insane. I'm so glad I did it- I know now if I had to (or just wanted to) move somewhere pretty far away, it's not impossible! It just takes a little getting used to. 

I'm going to put some pictures up and get off of the computer- I don't want to spend my last hours inside! It's BEAUTIFUL out today! 

(Side note...)I guess it's pretty fitting that up until yesterday, my login password was salutparis. Salut can mean hello or goodbye, and the password changed just as I was about to leave! Ironic. 

And.. signing out, for the last time in Paris. Au revoir!

a very delayed response.

What a crazy three weeks! I have decided that my “culture shock” is FINALLY officially over and I’m ready to just live here for the rest of my life. It’s almost like you have to go through trials to become officially prepared to live here- 5 months just isn’t enough time! First there’s the language adjustment, then the people. Then you have to be able to let go of some of your own traditions (granted, I still waaay prefer the American breakfast of an omelet or pancakes over some bread and jam) and just kind of get used to some of these ways of life. I finally realized that it’s not about changing who YOU are, it’s about letting yourself accept who these people are, and dealing with it.

            Seeing as I haven’t written anything for about three weeks, there obviously has to be a reason. After my “buttons” finally disappeared for good, I decided to make good use of the last three days of Spring Break- I spent a good four hours wandering around the Louvre, ate a spectacular dinner at a great bar called Styx (on Mondays they have jazz night!) and of course took another trip to Breakfast in America. Yes, it’s American, but at the same time it’s crazy to see how many people actually go there. It’s pretty popular among French students around brunch-time. J

            School started back up, and all of my professors have been beginning to prep us for exams (next week! ah!). I have an exam for my two conferences (Art History and Film) as well as a written exam and an oral on a separate day. The Art History professor literally told us that he wouldn’t be giving us any paintings we couldn’t go visit ourselves while in Paris, so as to better prepare ourselves for the questions. That’s so cool! This gave me the incentive to finally drag myself to the Musée D’Orsay (the Impressionist museum in an old train station). What a mistake to only give myself two hours. First of all, I am utterly ashamed that I have not visited this museum once a week since I’ve been here- it’s amazing! It’s like someone took out all the boring paintings that no one wants to look at and just put all of the beautiful famous ones in it. (This is partly because most of the paintings were donated by the same owner- a doctor who bought up all of Monet’s, Renoir’s, Corot’s.. etc. paintings to support them when money was too tight to afford paint.) Anyway- I know the museum is famous, but I cannot stress to you how beautiful it really is. Even the train station is beautiful. It’s wide and has huge ceilings so you don’t feel claustrophobic like so many crowded museums seem to do.

            The CCA class for the week was a visit to the National Museum of Immigration, which turned out to be really cool! It showed an evolution of immigration, with the different numbers of immigration over the years, as well as the country’s current problems and examples of real problems that people are still facing today. It was worth the trip, and the tour guide was really great (We kept trying to guess where she was from… she was speaking French, but in a completely different accent! It came down to a tie between Brazil and Portugal. Who knows. It’s crazy to be able to notice things like that in a different language though…)

            I am really disappointed to not be running the marathon- it’s next weekend! After my chicken pox, it was too much and too close to start training again, so I took some time off. I’ve gone on a few great, non-stressful runs that have ended up pretty nice, especially in the afternoon sunshine around the Tuileries. Plus my mom is visiting this week! I’ve taken them to all of my favorite eating places in the last three days, so it was definitely a weekend full of food. We went to Angelina’s (the teahouse by the Tuileries), had a picnic with my favorite pastries today on the Champ de Mars (the park right below the Eiffel Tower) have had lots of coffee, pizza and crepes.

            Last night, my friend Margaret and I went to a party in Neuilly-Sur-Seine- a kind of suburb of Paris that’s still on one of the metro lines. It was a friend of mine who I met a few weeks ago, and it was awesome! We were the only two Americans, so of course we became the “token” English speakers for the night and had an interesting time trying to comprehend the attempts at phrases. It’s fun to do that sometimes though- usually it’s the other way around and I’m trying to make some sort of argument in French! By the end of the night everyone had switched back to French, so my brain definitely hurt from thinking so hard. I still love it though- I’ve definitely come a long way from being petrified to even start a conversation! Three weeks left won’t be enough time for perfection, but I definitely want to keep practicing until the moment I get on the plane.