friends, museums, and school.

hello everyone!

well the first week of school was a success - nothing much to update on, just getting into a routine and doing homework (yuck!) and still trying to find time to have fun with my friends. So far, so good! =) 

Last Saturday, for Valentine's Day, I had some friends from school over. All Americans, but oh my goodness, was it so much fun! My "group" normally just consisted of me, Laura, and Katy, other DePaul girls. But now, we have friends at school! haha it's a good feeling. Laura and I had Valentine's Day dinner together (we made pasta) and then our friends came over. There were probably like 10 people here, and we all just hung out and laughed and listened to music and had a great time. I was really really happy they all came over and that I'm getting to know them more, because they're great people. =) It feels good to be able to go to school and have a little "circle" of people to talk to outside. (there are pictures on Facebook for those of you that have it.)

I have/had a valentine - kind of! An old old friend, that i've known for about 8 years now, have been talking a lot more recently. Last Friday, the day before Valentine's Day, there was a knock on my door with a flower delivery - a beautiful bouquet of roses. He apparently found local flowershops by my house and had to read the websites IN FRENCH and figure out how to send them to me! Talk about effort. ;) I am soooo happy, to say the least. I'm not gonna divulge the whole story, but I'm sure if you ask my mother she can fill you in, haha! here are the flowers:

Sunday, Katy, Laura, and I went to the Musée d'Orsay, a famous museum in Paris that has art only from the 1800s. It's one of my favorite in Paris, and through our school we have a free pass to go anytime we want, so that was good! I took a bunch of pictures of some of my favorite pieces we saw, which I will post below. It was also fun because I've taken so many art history classes that I knew stories behind a lot of the paintings. Laura and Katy kept saying "educate us, Brittany!" haha so it was cool, I felt like a little tour guide. =) That night, we booked tickets to MADRID!! I'll be going the last weekend in March and I can't waaaait!

Last night I had an orientation meeting (we have them a few times throughout the semester) where we are all split up into groups with a certain member of the school staff. Our leader is the director of the whole program, so it's kind of intimidating, but it was so fun! She took us to a café around the corner from school and bought us all a bottle of wine. It was so nice, we just sat around the table drinking wine and talking about our experiences so far and asking her questions and stuff. She's really easy to talk to, and it was a fun night. 

I found out I have an internship! I have my first meeting tomorrow. I'll be working at a gallery called Galérie Charlotte Norberg - a small independent contemporary gallery. I am SO excited!! I have no idea what kind of work I'll be doing, but I suppose I'll find that all out tomorrow! 

I hope everyone is doing well. It's very strange - I lovvvvve it here, without a doubt, but at the same time I sometimes think about coming home and seeing everyone and I can't wait to be home! It's like I'm caught in between two different worlds. But hey, I've already been here a month, so i'm sure the rest of it is gonna go by fast! I'm definitely gonna be making the most of it. Love you all, God bless, I'll update soon!

pictures:

musée d'orsay

just touched down in London town.

Soooo last weekend I went to LONDON to see one of my best friends, Molly, who's studying there with DePaul. My friends from here, Laura and Katy, also had friends on the same program, so the three of us headed off to see them (Molly, Caitlin, and Wren) for the weekend.

Friday during the day, Laura and Katy and I went to this lunch through our school - it was actually at a cooking school /studio called Guy Martin and we got to work with real chefs and cook our meal! We had risotto with all kinds of vegetables, learned the different ways to cut them, and also had baked chicken and chocolate soufflé. It was really cool to learn all that stuff and then to eat the MAGNIFICENT food. We all felt like we were on the food network. After lunch, Katy and Laura and I headed directly to the Paris Nord train station to catch our train. We had to go through customs and everything, but it went smoothly and then we were on our way! The train was a lot of fun - it only took two and a half hours to get there and time flew by. We brought with a bunch of mini wine bottles to bring our friends, so we each had one on the train. Going through the English Channel was a bit rough, because we went so far down that our ears were popping like crazy! But we finally got there, and Molly Wren and Caitlin met us at the train station. We went straight to the tube (the subway) and headed back to their dorm. They each have their own rooms, so I stayed with Molly, Laura stayed with Caitlin, and Katy stayed with Wren. We all got ready and then met back up in Wren's kitchen in her dorm so we could make dinner. A bunch of other DePaul kids were with their program, so a whole big group of us hung out eating dinner, drinking wine, and getting ready to go out for the night. We all took the tube and went to this craaaazy club called Fabric. It was so much fun, but definitely kind of an intense atmosphere - with smoke, flashing lights, loud music, 3 floors, etc... Molly and I weren't really "feeling it", (and we didn't wanna drink at the club) so we left a bit earlier than our other friends and went back to her dorm and called it a night. sooo much fun though, nonetheless! =)

Saturday we all woke up and went to Buckingham Palace - that was the one place i really REALLY wanted to see. I had high hopes of taking a picture with a guard, or trying to make him laugh, but we weren't even allowed near them. It made me sad =( I took a bunch of beautiful pictures though, and after that we walked around and went exploring, which I love to do because there are so many things to look at. We saw Chinatown, Picadilly Circus, Soho, etc... and decided to go to an authentic English pub to get Strongbow (hard cider - an English classic apparantly) and fish and chips! Both of them were soooo good, and after that we went back to the dorms to shower and get ready again. We all met back in Wren's kitchen to drink a little bit of wine and socialize, and then we all went to dinner at an Indian restaurant in this area called Brick Lane. Apparantly London is known for its Indian food, and I must say, it was AMAZING. We were all so full and decided to go to a bar close to their dorms, so that it would be easy to get home. The London girls told us Paris girls that we had to try a drink called a Snakebite - Black Current juice, Foster's Ale, and Strongbow. It sounds revolting, I know, but we tried it, and it was delicious, haha. There was a band playing at the bar, all American music, so we all just danced and had a good time. Everyone left except for me, Laura, Caitlin, and Molly, because we wanted to hangout a little bit more. We ended up leaving around 1:30 and went back to the dorms. Molly had two friends she wanted me to meet - Mike, who's British, and David, who's another American student. We just went to their dorm and hungout and listened to music and watched them play video games (they're boys, what do you expect) and it was a very relaxed, "American" night. I felt like I was at home. =)

Sunday we woke up and went to an area called CamdenTown which is really eclectic and a rock scene -- the London girls kept saying it was "my people" - I'm not sure what that means haha. We went to an American diner and i got a CHEESEBURGER - oh my goodness it was so amazing, we definitely don't have food like that over here in Paris, haha. When we were done eating we wanted to go see the London Bridge and Big Ben, but the tube line we needed was closed for the day, so there was no way to get there. =( We ended up going towards the train station and going into a pub - I got a Bailey's Latte, and then we got on the train and headed back to Paris! It was so weird to say i was "going home" - but really I was going to Paris. I guess it kind of IS my home now! haha =)

London was so much fun - it was a nice break for the weekend, to see our friends and hang out in a university style setting and just relax. Way different from the homestay experience over here. I won't lie, though, I definitely missed Paris... the three of us all did. We realized how much we like it over here, just because it's so different and such a different lifestyle. It was a good "awakening", so to speak. Molly and Caitlin are gonna come to Paris to visit me and Laura in March, and i can't WAIT to show them our lives just like they showed us theirs.

Monday was my first day of school -- woo! I still am not sure what is going on with my internship, or my outside course at the French university, but my classes through IES are all okay. I'm really excited, they all seem interesting and my professors are cool. I have a seminar that goes along with the internship - we'll just meet every other week to discuss our experiences. Then i have a literature class on comic strips - how cool is that!? Our book for the class is this HUGE binded thing that the school copied for us full of different comic strips, and we'll be talking about the history, style, different genres, art, etc... and my teacher is hilarious. He did an impression of Sarkozy the first day - love it. Then i have a sociology class on women and conflicts - we'll just be going through different experiences with women and how they adapt and react pre-conflict, during conflict, and post-conflict. My professor is a sociologist and focuses on gender studies and she's very passionate, very into the subject, and energetic. I'm really interested to see how it goes! My other class is translation - pretty self-explanatory but we get to translate literature - excerpts from Sylvia Plath, George Orwell, Woody Allen, J.K. Rowling, etc... I'm so excited!!

Laura and I found a new cafe by school that we love. It has good coffee, and just a really good ambiance. We'll definitely be going there a lot. This week I just have more classes, but Saturday is Valentine's Day, so I'm thinking of having some friends over for dinner and whatnot to have a little "celebration", since it's not really common over here (except at bars or clubs, but I don't think I wanna do that.) Anyways, I hope everything is going well at home! For all of you Chicago people - enjoy that 50/60 degree weather! I'm so jealous!! I love you all so much, you're in my thoughts, and God bless!

here are the London pictures:

Londres - London

even the frozen food is better here.

i've learned that, seeming as a) that's all me and my friends have attempted to cook thus far, and b) my host family's stove broke, so we've been eating a lot of frozen things lately! haha but wayyy better quality, i'm tellin' ya...

Sorry i haven't updated in a few days - to be honest there hasn't been anything big to report! Monday through Thursday I just had school all day / academic meetings / dinner with the family. My academic meetings went well -- my advisor, who is the director of the program, told me i HAD to do an outside class at a French university, despite my reservations, because i'm "too good and too advanced to be taking only classes at IES. you will bore yourself to death." haha it was again, quite a compliment, and pretty encouraging. She thinks I'll definitely be able to handle the load because she had heard so much about me. =) So it looks like I have Translation (as my grammar class) , Sociology on Women and Conflicts, Litterature on French Comic Strips, and the Internship Seminar, all at IES. Then I am enrolled in a Contemporary Art class at a smaller university called l'Institut Catholique à Paris -- it's exactly what it looks like, The  Paris Catholic Institute. My advisor said I'll probably like it better there than the Sorbonne, and plus the times for the classes worked better than the ones at the Sorbonne. I'm very excited!! 

Today I went to the huge art auction house in Paris called Drouot, with a close friend of one of my professors at DePaul. He nicely enough agreed to meet me there and take me around the building and show me "how it all works". It was so cool; there are about 10 or 11 different rooms with huge varieties of objects, but only antique stuff. Anything modern or recent, they don't sell. I saw furniture, clothes, paintings, drawings, photos, posters, WINE, jewelry, firearms, china, sculptures, etc... he explained that every day the rooms are "restocked" so to speak. If you go on a Monday, for example, you make a note of what objects you liked, and then come back the following day to bid on them, of course at a starting minimum price. It was very interesting to see that whole side of the art world that i had never known before! I really wanted to try to get an internship there, but he explained to me that those types of things have to be done WAY in advance, like i should've gotten in contact with people back in  October. I guess it's understandable since there's so many private commissioners there, like "hotshots". But nevertheless, it was a great experience. After Drouot he took me around the neighborhood to show me other galleries and private dealers. It was so cool, and he was really knowledgeable about everything, which was a big help! Not to mention incredibly nice. 

After that I just came home and relaxed. I'm packing right now, going to LONDON tomorrow!! To see my friend Molly who's studying there, and she has become good friends with two of Laura's friends, ironically enough. So Laura, Katy, and I are going to stay with them in their dorms. It should be a blasttttt! I'm positive i'll have stories up here after the weekend. =) Love you all!!!

do you love me? (do you love me?)

i heard a French band play that song on Saturday night. =) we all danced.

Friday I had school from 11:30-1:30, but i woke up at 7am and went with my hostmom to drive Lucie to school and then to the open-air market! It was really cool; we definitely don't have things like this in the U.S. very often, nor for that low of a price! I always found it funny that you have to pay MORE for the real/organic food from a market, less for the fake/processed stuff. But here it's not like that at all! My hostmom bought so many different things, and it was cool to be with her and see what it was all about. So then I went to school, went shopping and bought some school supplies (hooray!) and came home. Lucie gets out of school at 1pm on Fridays, so when I got home from the store she was here, and she asked me if I wanted to go shopping with her. So we went to an area called Marais, which is a huge shopping area, combined with the gay neighborhood of Paris and the Chinatown. Talk about an interesting mix! haha. It was cool to people watch and then to go in random stores. Lucie says it's really hard to remember your way around that part of town because there's so many side streets and shortcuts and whatnot, so we were basically wandering for a few hours. We found a thriftstore that Lucie LOVES -- she bought two skirts and a purse. I found boots! made in italy, for 30€! not bad, not bad. Then we got crêpes and went back to the train. We went to the grocery store to get stuff to make for dinner, and then home. Laura, Madeline, and Katy came over for dinner with me and Lucie, we just made pasta and had bread and wine. It was a good dinner, though! We hung out for a little bit, Laura and Katy left to go to a bar, and I went to bed pretty early. 

Saturday, Katy, Laura, and I went to an art exhibit in Laura's neighborhood in this gallery called Dorothy's Gallery -- it was all about OBAMA! Ranging from photography to paintings to sculptures to collages to caricatures to drawings -- it was a really cool exhibit and interesting to see foreigners' views on him, as well. The lady who owns the gallery was really nice and explained to us some of the stories behind the paintings and the exhibit, but she was a bit psycho. She was American (who spoke horrible French) and just kind of spacey and pushy. She would ask us questions such as "Who's that person in the background of the painting?" We would say "ohhh i don't know" and she would say "Yes you do. yes you do. Think. Yes you do." haha it was really intimidating. But anyways, then we left and we wanted to go to the Catacombs -- too late, they closed at 4pm. =( So we walked around that area, there was the Montparnasse cemetery which is huge, and Baudelaire is buried there. So we took some pictures and whatnot and then got on the metro and parted ways, except Laura came home with me. We went to the grocery store and got stuff to make for dinner, my hostparents went to dinner at a friend's house. So we ate dinner and hungout with Lucie for a bit and then met up with a bunch of friends for this free concert / battle of the bands thing going on. It was fun, and something different to do. There were 5 bands, each one could play one original song and one cover. All the covers were American of course, so this one band played "Do you Love Me?" by the Contours and we were all dancing and it was a ton of fun. After the bands were done, the place turned into a nightclub, but we left and all went home. I got home and just went to bed.

Today I'm not gonna do anything -- i have some homework to do for school and laundry to do etc etc so i'm just gonna have a lazy day. I may treat myself to Starbucks, today ... we'll see ;). Love and hugs and kisses to all! 

here are my pictures -- clearly it wasn't 1/1/08 for the date -- my camera just screwed up the date when i took them =(

Obama à Paris - Obama in Paris