The Last Day of Class.

On Friday, I had my last french class before the Christmas Break, I have been taking classes at the Institute Parisien <http://www.institut-parisien.com/ > three times a week for the past few months. It is a good course totally in French, and I am lucky enough to not be surrounded by English speakers. While most of the girls speak english, it is not their first language and so when they cheat and ask questions to each other, it is normally in German or Spanish so I am not tempted to listen. That's not to say I don't cheat and ask questions in English, but at least I am not surrounded by it. The girls and I went out for a crepe lunch after class because it was Austrian Sarah's last day in Paris.

The place we went to lunch was very cool, it was like the interior of a tall ship and I felt like a sailor sitting amongst my classmates. Becca, my Latina friend was taking pictures and the result is as follows:

Me, playing with my food.

Our booth.

We had really a really good crepe meal, including a lunch crepe (onion, cheese, and tomatoes) and a dessert crepe (L'Italienne, with Marron Cream and Whipping cream) and some hearty Cidre for the holidays.

Annika getting creative with her second chocolate crepe.

She had a tummy ache.

Civilization Christmas Party

The Cafe de Commerce

Last night I met up with our family friend Keith and I was able to show him around a bit and talk about myself way too much. I really give him props for putting up with my teenager rambling for a whole evening. We went for a walk to Rue de Commerce where Keith showed me a beautiful, three floored balcony restaurant.

Cafe, photo from website.

 
Their wesbite: http://www.lecafeducommerce.com/. It was very cool and my first time in a real restaurant in about a month. Keith and I both had the French Onion Soup, and it was definitely the best french onion soup I have ever had. With baguettes, onions and cheese inside and a layer of cooked shredded frommage on the top it was incredible. I had Raviole for dinner and we still don't know what Keith ordered. It was solid cheese in a cylinder shape with red leaf lettuce on the top. I hope he will send me pictures and I can put them up. It was great. 

It was so nice seeing someone from home and it was just a taste of what the next fews weeks will bring. Julie, Terri, Mark AND Kaitlyn, in three weeks?! Incroyable!

Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Blogging again from my phone because I left my laptop upstairs while babysitting. So I am currently watching Alvin and the Chipmunks and Frankenstein and I am playing the part of lightening the mood because it's a bit scary for my 6 year old.

Updat on the movie: Frankenstein just brought back Theodore's teddy bear. The chipmunks just rapped about monsters, Alvin is the Bart Simpson of the Chipmunks, and their dad-figure is pretty good looking for a cartoon.

I think I am going to go pick up a Camus book from the hallway and try to translate it from French. But if it is anything like the Metamorphisis from last year... I don't think I will get very far.

The Doctor's Appointment.

I just got back from a doctors appointment at the office located in our building. Now, this whole time I have been feeling pretty good about myself, living in my own place, watching kids regularly and taking care of the few bills I have. But today, more than anything I felt like a second grader. I have a sinus infection, which isn't that big of a deal, and my host mom has been helping me so  much with it. She has been buying me pain killers and treatments and she set up my doctors appointment for me.

I won't go into the details of my cold like I did for my dear friend back home, but I will say that this cold has made me realize how unexperienced I am in life. At the doctors today I really wanted my mom there. Right when I entered the receptionist looked at me very oddly like I was lost and I had to repeat myself three times to have her understand me. (This, I am blaming on my clogged up nose voice). I felt so idiotic making the doctor repeat himself once or twice because I couldn't understand him and I knew he just looked at me as though I was some stupid American teenager, which I am. But it wasn't nice to be reassured of it. Just this little experience made me feel so ridiculous that I have returned to my little abode (where I have spent the last two days while not at work) to hopefully skype someone and complain a bit on the blog.

Disneyland Paris.

Yesterday, four British girls and myself went to Disneyland Paris and if I had not known these girls better, I would have scared them off permanently with my Disney facts and comparisons. The entire day I tried checking myself so that I wouldn't keep saying "THIS is not how it is in California." "Oh, at my Disneyland this is how it is." Unfortunately I was probably pretty annoying regardless. It was very hard not to say anything though because it was as if I had come back to my room which used to be so familiar, and someone had rearranged all the furniture. It had all of the little areas, but the locations were a bit off and the decorations were different.
My comparisons will really mean nothing unless you are someone like Amanda Schwab or Kaitlyn Goodman, but I will put them up anyways.

Probably the coolest changes DisneyParis made were: making Space a better roller coaster by adding loops and corkscrews, adding a dragon beneath the castle (you can also go in the castle to see the Sleeping Beauty story untold through mosaic windows and statues), and Indiana Jones was a roller coaster instead of an indoor ride. They also added some cool locations like Captain Hook's ship, Skull Rock, an Aladdin Walkthrough and a Wonderland Maze. The castle is much more beautiful in my opinion because they designed it trying to impress Europeans, who see castles every other Friday and not Americans who only dream of castles.

They kept the cheesy wild west feeling on the train around the park, and even have the model of the Grand Canyon and the stuffed animals, but it was a totally different experience to see snow on the ground and feel my toes catching hypothermia while being in "New Orleans."

I didn't have a camera with me but I might steal some photos from my friend Charlotte and put those up.