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!!!