"One day we're gonna live in Paris." - Friendly Fires

“Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.” - Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort

Last night I got everything ready for today so that I could be prepared in the morning. I made my sandwich and wrapped it up and put it back in the fridge, I did my laundry, and I showered and let my hair dry over night. Although it should come as no surprise to me, I woke up this morning with hair that looked like it was trying to run away from my head. After I realized there was no saving it, I had to give in and re-shower which set me back time-wise. While I was waiting on it to dry a little, I made pancakes and bacon (Which turned out delicious), and finished the rest of my morning routine. I finally looked at a clock and realized it was time to leave, so in a hurry I rushed out the door and about four flights of stairs down realized I'd forgotten my lunch. Worried that I would be late if I ran back upstairs to get it, I just kept on walking. So that was my attempt at being independent... I traded an awesome breakfast and nice hair for lunch... I don't think I'll be doing that again.
When I got to school I was filled with a burst of excitement because I realized that a new week meant new students in our class! So we have a girl from China named Ge (pronounced Guh), a girl from Taiwan named Lesley, an older woman from Georgia named Susan, and a guy from Italy named Talos. Talos was obviously the most interesting new student... He looks exactly like an actor from a TV show I watch:

He does some sort of photography. Here's his bio: Talos's Bio Too bad he's 35.......... C'est la vie, non? Anyway, come lunch time my stomach was participating in the French lesson. I had a five euro bill but I wasn't sure if the vending machine would take that so I went to ask Laura if she had change for it. Over hearing me, Alice (the Neiman Marcus lady) told me that she would just give me money. I told her that I would be fine and she didn't have to, and she said "Oh please! I feel like you're one of my babies now!" :P So I was able to eat! 

School finished up, and I began my metro ride home, walked up the five flights of stairs, and into my apartment. Realizing I hadn't had time to make my bed or clean up my dishes this morning, I got straight on that. I actually had fun washing the dishes but note to self: roll up my sleeves next time. When I finished my laundry, dishes, and made my bed I laid down to listen to some music and decide what to cook for dinner. That's when I heard some yelling out on the street below my window. I peaked my head out and saw three cars, and a man walking in front of them on the narrow street. The drivers all had their heads out yelling at the man walking (we're going to call him Steve). So the driver of the first car (we'll call him John) and the passenger (we'll call him Greg) are yelling the loudest at Steve and honking at him to get out of the way. Out of spite, Steve keeps walking in front of them, blocking them from driving around him. Finally John stops the car, Greg gets out and starts yelling and kicks a trash can over, and starts to run after Steve. As you may have guessed, Steve picks up running pace at this point, and so does Greg. It wasn't long before Greg caught up with Steve due to Steve's grocery cart. You can guess the rest of this story.... I was just sitting up on my balcony the whole time with a big grin on my face. I felt like I was watching an action movie or something.
A big thanks to Steve and Greg for making my night, whoever you may be.
So I think I'll go cook some dinner now, and come back and tell you what I made, perhaps with a picture!
Alright, I'm back! I decided on Cordon Bleu and roasted potatoes. I was about to make a salad and then remembered that I either forgot to ask mom how to make salad dressing, or was zoning out while she was telling me how...
Anyway, here is the finished product!

Bon Appetit!!!

So, here's your daily French lesson!

"Vous êtes à Paris depuis combien de temps?"- (Vooz ay ah Pahree dehpwee com-bee-in duh tom) - How long have you been in Paris? 

"Je suis à Paris depuis vingt sept Janvier." - (Juh swee ah Pahree dehpwee vaughn set Jahn-vee-ay) - I have been in Paris since January 27th.

"Vous êtes à Paris pour combien de temps?" - (Vooz ay ah Pahree pour com-bee-in duh tom) - How long are you staying in Paris?

"Je suis à Paris pour trois ans." - (Juh swee ah Pahree pour twa ahn) - I am in Paris for three years.

"Je rêve de voyage en Egypte est en Espagne." - (Juh rev duh voy-ah-juh on Eh-jipt ay on Eh-spaughn-yuh) - I dream of travelling to Egypt and Spain.

Virgule- (Veer-gyoo-luh) - Comma ","

Point- (Pwan) - Period "."

Point Virgule - (Pwan Veergyooluh) - Semicolon ";"

Deux Point- (Dooh Pwan) - Colon ":"

Point d'interrogation- (Pwan din-ter-row-got-see-oh-n) Question mark "?"

Point d'exclamation- (Pwan dex-claugh-maught-see-oh-n) Exclamation mark "!"

Lettre minuscule - (Leh-truh mee-nee-sk-oo-l) Lower case letter

Lettre majuscule- (Leh-truh mah-joo-sk-oo-l) Upper case letter

Je ne suis pas là! - (Jin swee pah lah) I'm not here!

That's all for today!

Au revoir!

Lauren

"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

"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind." - Seneca

So, I leave tomorrow! Off to Paris I go. To be honest I thought I'd be all shook up with nerves and questions I couldn't wait to answer. However, it's completely opposite. It's like I can't wait to take on the challenge and I'm just ready to start. You know that feeling?
Mom and I packed up all of my things tonight which made it all feel far more final. We weighed the suitcases and much to my surprise we didn't go over 46 pounds. I still have a few things to stuff in my suitcases before I leave though.
My flight leaves at about 8:30 tomorrow so I plan on making one final stop at Five Guys with Fabio and my aunt before the airport. Speaking of final meals...... :|
This morning I was so excited because we were going to get Chick-Fil-A for breakfast. Anyone who's ever even been in a Chick-Fil-A restaurant knows what that means-- Total heaven.

Thinking it would be the last time I'd get to enjoy the sight of this delicious breakfast before Paris, I savored it to no extent. Little did I know, that in about an hour, I'd be throwing it up only to see it once more. I have no clue why I got sick from it but let me tell you, it's enough to keep me from wanting to eat Chick-Fil-A for quite a while. I'll take that as a good and a bad thing.

Alright, well it's already 2 and I need to get some quality sleep tonight before my flight tomorrow!

Adieu mes belles!

xoxo Lauren

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” - Benjamin Franklin

Let me just go ahead and give a welcome to all of my will-be-followers! I hope you find my blog to be as enjoyable as you've imagined it to be.  For those of you that don't know, I'm leaving for Paris in exactly 6 days! (In other words my blog posts will become a lot more interesting six days from now). Although I've been mentally preparing myself for the past half year, I finally started physically preparing for the trip last week. I had to rummage through my ENTIRE closet and figure out what I loved enough to take with me and even worse--- all the things I could do without for the next three months. Usually I just stuff as much as I possibly can into my bags and hope its makes the weight restrictions. This time however, I found it particularly easy to pack light. I guess I'm beginning to realize that its all about quality not quantity. Underneath I've put in a picture of the shirts, sweaters, dresses, jeans, skirts, etc. that I'm taking with me.

 Here's all the jackets I'll be bringing along. Everyone knows Paris is absolutely FREEZING in the winter time so I made sure to bring a lot of fur. :P At first I was worried about what other people would think about me wearing all that fur....... and then I realized I didn't care. So here we are, four fur coats later and one fur scarf. :D

 

These are all my shoes, scarves, jewelery... so on and so forth. Packing shoes is usually really easy for me, because I just pack a pair of black boots and a pair of brown boots and call it a day. It apparently hadn't hit me how many pairs of boots I'd acquired in the past year and my decision became infinitely harder. Especially when it came to my 40 pound combat boots. Still not sure how that's going to work with weight restrictions.

Here's the real set of necessities. My mom asked me the other day if there was anything food wise that I'd like to take with me because often times I get the STRANGEST cravings while I'm there. I realize that Paris is going to have the most wonderful restaurants and food, but there's something about having things from home that make being away from home more tolerable. Last year I had the worst cravings for chili so I made sure I had plenty to take with me. A very healthy diet as you can see...... :D

And now a lovely shout out to my exchange student Mr. Fabio Mehrer! Last year he bought my mother a Longchamp bag, and I fell in love and stole it away from her and haven't given it back since. Seeing how much I loved the bag, Fabio got me one for Christmas!

 For those of you that don't know Longchamp is a French company that produces a lot of leather goods and several other fashion accessories. The best part about a Longchamp bag is the way it can fold up into an eensy beensy square (as shown below, which is perfect for traveling). They come in about a trillion different color combinations.... but everyone knows I don't wear much apart from black, brown, and white so a tope-ish/green/brown bag was a perfect choice!

C'est très chic! If you'd like to look at some of the other Longchamp bags here's a link:

Longchamp Women's Handbags

xoxo Lauren