Sunday, February 6, 2011

"When good Americans die they go to Paris." - Oscar Wilde

Who says I had to wait until I died?? I'm absolutely in love with this city. Don't believe anything people tell you about the French being rude. They've been incredibly helpful! I haven't had a bad experience yet. I'm sorry it's been so long between updates. I wanted to wait until my mom left so I could really concentrate on making this a good post. Plus, I've got two videos just so my viewers can get an idea of how things look where I am, so I wanted to finish those as well before I posted.
For those of you wondering, my flight went incredibly smooth! First Meme drove me to the airport and waited with me til my plane left so here's a few pictures from that:



 When I first got here on Friday, I walked out of the baggage claim area and mom was here waiting on me which was SUCH a relief because I had no clue whether or not I would have to figure out some way to find her. We couldn't understand why everyone says such negative things about the Charles De Gaulle airport. I thought it was SUPER easy (which was another relief). From there we had to drag our 2 giant suitcases, and four carry on's down 2 giant sets of stairs. Here's a picture of all of our luggage:

Having NO clue how this was going to go, I let her walk down first. Halfway down a man helps her and I'm still at the top of the stairs, and she's at the bottom looking up and laughing at me. I turn the suitcase on its soft side and just walk down and let it thump against each step. Thank god there was nothing valuable in there....
From there we got on a train and took it to a metro station where we, once again, had to walk up a set of stairs (this continues all night). Let me just go ahead and warn you all. Chivalry truly is dead in Paris amongst the young men. NOBODY helped us after that first guy, and then finally some women took our suitcases and carried them up for us. Who'd have thought? FINALLY we got to our hotel which was awesome. Our room was small, but quaint and perfect for what we needed.  That night we stopped by a bakery and bought a napoleon and went to a small restaurant and then went home to enjoy our DELICIOUS napoleon!!!

The first night at about 3 A.M. there was a group of foreigners either above us, next to us, or across the courtyard from us. Either way we could hear them singing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" in broken English just fine. They stayed up until about 5 A.M. and I finally went to sleep. Saturday we just mapped everything out (school, church, etc.) That night we had a small dinner:
and we also had the BEST crepes ever at a creperie near my apartment!!! Look at these babies:
Sunday I went to Hillsong Church in Paris which was INCREDIBLE!!! The minute I walked in someone took my arm and told me to sit with them. And the pastor was so amazing. He's from Australia but there is a french translator. It's really neat to hear a sermon in two languages. I met a ton of great young people there and have already connected with several of them which is so exciting. Here's a video of a few clips of the service:

Afterwards we met up with Lilianne and her friend for dinner where I had the BEST hamburger of my life. It was like heaven wrapped up in a heavenly bun. On Monday I had my first day of school which was INCREDIBLE. The school itself is really beautiful:


I'm having so much fun learning French. I take several pages of notes each day just because it's so exciting to learn a TOTALLY new language from scratch. I also really love everyone in my class with the exception of one. :| Bedo....... he's this stocky turkish man who's about 29. His smell is practically nauseating and he looks like he belongs on the cast of Jersey Shore. AND OF COURSE, he sits next to me everyday. Some of the other people in my class are Jessica, this very sweet girl from Indonesia who is somehow able to answer every single one of my questions, Laura, a really nice lady from Florida, and last but certainly not least, Alice. I absolutely LOVE Alice! She adds life to the class. She's this classy, but somewhat eccentric woman who used to be a producer for the Neiman Marcus fashion shows. When I found that out I thought my jaw was going to drop. She's always making the class laugh and I love the way she dresses. On the second day of school she asked me to give her my contact number which meant the world to me. I can't wait to get to know everyone in my class better as the weeks continue. 
So far the things I've learned that I can remember off of the top of my head are:
Je m'appelle Lauren = My name is Lauren.
Comment ca s'ecrit? = How do you spell this?
J'ai dix sept ans = I am seventeen.
Je suis etudiante en marketting dans le mode = I am a student in fashion marketting.
Quelle est votre nom? = What is your name?
So that's that for my french so far!!! We're sort of just focusing on grammar at the moment, which has been surprisingly easy for me unlike German grammar was.... ALSO, I found out there's an American couple living in the apartment under me that also goes to my school which is really nice because they've already helped me with fixing my internet, and lending me a pair of scissors.
Wednesday night I had connect groups, which is a small group for the teens at Hillsong. I wasn't really sure how I felt about it the first night, but as I've started to get to know everyone I think I'll enjoy it more so I'll keep going. And on Friday night, we all met at the Frog which was great because I met a lot of people I hadn't met yet and so far they've been my favorite people! Today after church we all went together to eat a falafel (which I HATED). But it was a good experience! :P
Yesterday, mom and I went shopping because right now they're having HUGE sales. In most European countries, they only have sales twice a year and right now is one of them so I've to act soon!!! On our way we saw these roasted chesnuts for Meme:
Unfortunately, I didn't find anything good except for a 9 euro sweater from Zara!
So my mom left this morning, and I attempted to make dinner... which tasted AWFUL! So we'll see in the next couple of days how I adjust... For now I have to go do laundry! (Oh, the life of an independent)

Au revoir!!! 

Lauren

P.S. For those of you who can't view them on Facebook, I'll upload the videos of my school and other stuff tomorrow or the next day on my blog.

P.S.S. Check out this awesome video I saw:
http://vimeo.com/18886355

1 comment:

  1. I'm sorry to hear that you "HATED" the falafel! =P

    Have a great weeeeeek....or should I say, passe une très bonne semaine!!! :-)

    ReplyDelete