Soooo Sunday I slept in, thank goodness, but then my friends Laura, Katy, and Madeline and I decided we wanted to go exploring the infamous Latin Quarter, so off we went. Katy and I can meet each other on the métro at one of the transferring points, so we normally travel together. We got there a bit earlier than the other two so we walked over to Notre Dame-- absolutely amazing. It's just so breathtaking inside and out, and as we were entering a mass was finishing, so there was beautiful loud organ music playing; it gave me goosebumps. Katie paid 2Euro and lit a candle, it was beautiful. I want to light a candle, too, but to be completely honest I'd like to pray when I do it and reflect on things, so I felt it might not have been the right time. After that we met up with Laura and Madeline, who arrived finally, and we basically wandered (it's what we do best.) We ended up stumbling upon the Luxembourg Gardens -- much prettier in the spring and summer, i'm sure! But it was fun to walk through nonetheless. We saw this giant metal head sculpture in the garden with no labels... so we're not really sure what his purpose was, but he was cool enough to take pictures with, evidently.
After that, Madeline was going to meet up with some other friends, so Katy, Laura and I headed back to the Eiffel Tower area to see the Peace Monument, which is on the other side of the tower from where we had been Saturday. When standing directly in front of it, you can see the Eiffel Tower between the towers, and the word "peace" is repeated in a really abstract way in multiple languages. It's really cool to see, check out the pictures. When we were done with that, we went to the Trocadéro, which is another Eiffel Tower viewing place, but on the opposite side, so we walked a LOT, and under the tower itself, again! We all went our separate ways, home for the night. My friend Alyssa from high school is actually studying in Rome right now and came to Paris for the weekend with her friend, so they came out to my suburb and we went to dinner together. It was really fun! When I got home I just went to bed, because I had to be up early.
Today we had a French placement test and then orientation allllll day long, so I was basically sitting in a room for 9 hours. It was not a very enjoyable day. The funniest part was when this woman Jeanne was talking about the differences in cultures, and how one of them that we probably notice is French people don't smile or talk to each other in public, unlike Chicago where you can smile at a lot of people, or engage in conversation with a stranger on the train. Her opinion for this difference was how we are educated. In France, she said, you are not complimented when you do good work. It is expected of you, therefore the only comments made are negative ones. She said for example the 6-year-old Jean, "Jean, you were supposed to underline this in red! Your 'o' isn't round enough! You shouldn't go past this line! We said 6 words, not 7!" etc etc, as opposed to a 6-year-old in America: *starts speaking in English* "Wowwww John! What did you bring us today? A LEAF? a LEAF from your GARDEN?! Oh my goodness, John, that is wonderful! Everyone, look at the leaf John brought us for show and tell today! wow John, this is really great! Look at how amazing that is!" --- i was CRACKING UP. It's so true though! When I reflect on my childhood, or how I act around children at that age in the U.S., we really do act that way! We hype the unnecessary -- which isn't at all a bad thing, it's just funny how different the cultures are. I told this story to my hostsister Lucie tonight and she couldn't stop laughing. She agreed that it was so true and she couldn't wait to tell her friends that story.
After school, Jocelyn, Katy, Laura, Katie, and I went to Laura's neighborhood (which is right by the Bastille) to look around and wander a bit. I didn't have my camera, unfortunately, but i'm sure i'll be back! Laura got lost twice, in her OWN neighborhood, which was hilarious. Eventually we found our way and got back on the train and just all went home. I got home and did some picture uploading and whatnot in my room, then had dinner with the family. The mom is definitely warming up to me, no problems with Lucie, and the dad LOVES talking to me in English for some reason. Dinner was kind of different tonight than the other nights -- they were all laughing and joking around, there was no more small talk like there was when i first arrived, and I felt way more comfortable. it was definitely a good night =) After dinner, Lucie and I watched episodes of the show House on the computer (with french subtitles for her, so it was really no different for me) so it was fun to spend time with her. Now i'm just writing this, uploading pictures, skyping, etc.. I don't have anywhere to be until 2pm tomorrow, so i get to have another lazy morning, hooray!! =) goodnight everyone, love you all!
here are pictures of the past few days:
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