first train ride

Big, fluffy snowflakes outside the hostel window

The French Protestant Church

Beautiful Bern

A Bern bear! They have a couple city "mascots", since Berns name comes from "bear"

In the hills...not quite the Alps

Easter Bunny!

Egg bashing at the Kornhausplatz

Steph's 21st birthday party

Nate cutting the "cake" with his switchblade (they're legal here)

French homies

Joyeux Pâques! [Happy Easter!]

I hope you all had a good weekend and enjoyed fellowship at church and with your families!

I fellowshipped with Nate and Steph...as usual...but we had a great weekend! We had Monday off, and since it was Steph's birthday, we decided to celebrate with a weekend trip to Bern, Switzerland.

We headed out early Saturday, and after a frantic search for the “lost ticket”, we boarded our TGV train and sat down for a relaxing 5 ½ hour ride. Although Bern isn’t in the Alps, we got to see them from the window of our train, and it was an incredible sight. They were huge, snow-covered mountains reaching up into the clouds and sloping down into a big blue lake—absolutely breath-taking.

We arrived in Bern that afternoon and spent the rest of the day wandering Bern and stocking up on Swiss chocolate before the stores closed for the weekend. Our hostel was fantastic (probably nicer than our apartments) and to top it off they played English movies at night.

Sunday morning I rolled over in my bunk to see big fluffy snowflakes falling outside my window, and I felt a little bit like I was back home. We went to church at the French Protestant Church, which we were lucky to find because we were in the German part of Switzerland, and all I understand in German is “danke”. The service was nice and the church was beautiful; apparently it’s part of an old monastery from the 1200’s. After church we headed over to the Kornhausplatz to figure out what “egg bashing” is. We found out that it’s a tradition that takes place every Easter, where everyone brings painted hard boiled eggs to the square and then walks around bashing them against other people’s eggs. First you tap the tops together, and then the bottoms, and whichever egg is still intact at the end is the “strongest egg”, and therefore the winner. And after, to celebrate, everyone drinks beer and eats their eggs. We decided that we’re bringing the tradition to Redeemer next year, so start preparing your egg bashing skills now, ‘cause I plan on dominating.

When we got back to the hostel Nate made a little Easter egg hunt for us in our room and then we dug into our Easter chocolate. I dare say that at the end of the trip, I, Danielle Weesjes, was almost sick of chocolate…probably because we lived off of Nutella sandwiches all weekend to save money. The Swiss chocolate was good though—definitely made up for the fact that I didn’t get an Easter bunny this year. Later on we went to a nite club to celebrate Steph’s birthday, and that was a blast! We danced the night away on a spinning dance floor, and worked off a bit of the chocolate we ate.

Monday we had another relaxing day walking around in the snow and just enjoying the fresh air. We headed back before supper and were in our beds just after mid-night. All in all, a good time was had in Bern!

We decided that Steph’s birthday wasn’t quite over yet, and had a surprise party in my room on Tuesday nite, complete with a little cake from the boulangerie next door, a home made party hat, and some of the cheapest presents she’ll probably ever get. It was a lovely party though, and we finished it off like we do most nights, with tea and another re-run of The Office.

And now it’s back to school for a month! My brain is already reeling from all the grammar rules it takes in every day, so the count down is already on for Spring Break. Three and a half weeks to go!

Oh, by the way, important note about my address: I think I’ve been getting all the mail that’s been sent so far, but I forgot the street number in my address last time I posted it, so here’s the FULL address:

Danielle Weesjes
Fondation Marjolin
Ap. 503, 37 rue Eugène Carrière
75018 Paris, France

i got a love letter

Today, while sitting in the computer lab after class, I had a note dropped onto my lap by a guy heading out the door. It reads:

"I am sorry if I look at you so often but you look like the angel painted by Raffaello in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. If what you have inside mirrors what you have outside, I think that each person on this planet would want to marry you. I really hope so!!" signed, Enrico.

Thanks Enrico, I'm touched. And did you all hear that--you should all want to marry me! Unforutnately, I don't think that would please Jordan too much, and quite frankly I'm very happy being HIS fiancée....so, I guess it's "good-bye Enrico".

Great, one more place I'm not safe from the creepers.

a few pictures of everyone's favourite "tour"

This weekend was quite fabulous!

It didn’t start out looking promising though. I had 2 yogurts explode on me in one day—one all over my floor right before I stepped out the door for school, and the second one in my backpack, all over my wallet, cellphone and papers. And I forgot my umbrella at school all weekend…yup, it rained. And then my metro stopped in the middle of a tunnel and the lights went out and I had a small panic attack because the conductor said something about an “accident”. But in the end I got the yogurt cleaned up, my cellphone still works, I didn’t melt in the rain, and my metro made it safely to the station.

On Friday after school Steph and I went to Starbucks for a coffee and enjoyed an hour of lounging and chatting before heading over to the train station to drop her off for a weekend away in Bordeaux, where she lived last time she was here. I saw some of the TGV trains for the first time and I’m getting super excited for our trip to Switzerland this coming weekend, since it’ll be my first time on a train (besides the Go-Train, which I’m told doesn’t count as a “real” train). Nate and I decided to go out and take some pictures down town, so we went up the Arc de Triomphe and had a fantastic view of the city. In one direction was La Defense, the opposite was the Louvre, and Place de la Concorde (where the obelisk stands), and we could also see all the other major landmarks, like the Sacre Coeur, La Tour Eiffel, La Tour Montparnasse, Notre-Dame and Invalides. It felt like we were on top of the heart of Paris. We walked down the Champs-Eleysées and headed along the Seine towards La Tour Eiffel to get a few pictures of it all lit up and sparkling. That was beautiful too; I don’t think I’ll get tired of seeing that while I’m here.

Saturday the rain finally stopped for a few hours and the weather was beautiful, I’d say at least 15 degrees! We walked up Montmartre again, wandered the shops, sat on the steps of the Sacre Coeur and walked around the quarter a bit more. At nite we headed out to see a couple FREE concerts; the first was a stringed-orchestra playing in a church that is basically a smaller version of the Invalides. They played Debussy and it sounded incredible! Then we headed over to another church for a jazz concert with a saxophone player and pianist. They were really good too, but jazz isn’t so much my thing…or at least not that kind. We stopped at the Franprix on the way back, and guess what I found!? Skippy Peanut Butter! I’ve finally found something that tastes exactly like it should! I’ve already had 3 peanut butter sandwiches since Saturday nite.

Sunday was really chill. We went to church in the morning and then I spent the afternoon on my bed reading a book. Around 5 I got restless, and since it was raining and I couldn’t go outside, I decided to attack my bedroom with a sponge and bucket of soap. And attack I did—baseboards, walls, back of the fridge…I cleaned EVERYTHING for a good 2 hours. And my room looks and feels wonderful. My boss used to tell me he wanted to be able to eat off of the shelves when we were done wiping them. You could eat off of any surface in this baby… I think I’ll make a good wife (not that cleaning is all they’re good for!....)

And now it’s back to Grammar and Phonetics! But thank goodness I get to start the week off watching another movie in class!

I hope you all had wonderful weekends too and got to have a bit of fun, despite the fact that it’s essay season. I miss you all!

First Oral Presentation

rainbow from my bedroom window

Le Sacre Coeur, which I can see the top of from my bedroom window

Steph and I went to an aquqrium--super sweet!

Find Nemo and Dory!
When we went to the aquarium, we were the oldest people there without kids, but we were still as excited as the 5 year olds to find "Nemo!!!"...I shared a special moment with a little French boy :o)

The Bois de Vincennes

Today I did my first oral presentation. The assignment was: “5-10 minutes on anything…absolutely anything.” So I talked about the Dutch population in South-Western Ontario :o) Represent. I talked about most of the stereo-types that a lot of us live up to, including the fact that many Dutch have married other Dutch people from the area. I said I was going to do the same, and everyone laughed, but when I showed them the ring and said “No really, I’m going to do the same, I’m engaged to a nice Dutch boy” everyone applauded. So now my knees have finally stopped shaking ‘cause I’ve finished my first presentation, and it went really, really well. Sweet.

We got really lucky with the weather for the couple months, but now Paris is living up to it’s rainy reputation. I won’t complain too much, because I hear most of you are under 3 feet of snow (although I’ll admit I’m kind of jealous—I LOVE snowstorms…and snowdays!). I’ve already somehow managed to destroy two umbrellas, so I’m grudgingly getting used to walking in the rain. I don’t mind the rain at all when I’m inside though—at nights it actually makes a really nice pitter-patter sound on the tin roof outside my window and puts me to sleep with a smile on my face. And the other day I saw a rainbow stretch across the top of all the apartments outside my window. I think this was one of the few times when being on the top floor was a bit of a blessing—not much of Paris could see that rainbow from the street.

There’s a lot of things I miss about home, and about Canada in general…I won’t go into detail ‘cause that would probably take up an hour of your reading time. But there are a few things I’ve discovered here that Canada doesn’t have, and that I really do like. For instance, the croissants—baked fresh every day, so that they’re still moist. I also like that fact that everyone—male and female, old and young—wears scarves everywhere. Now I do it too (so I can blend in, look Parisien) and I love feeling all snuggled into my coat with a warm scarf. One more thing I like about Paris is the gardens. The streets are all built close together here, and often at odd angles, so the buildings along the street form a perimeter around a garden that’s inside, like a courtyard. It’s neat to be walking through a building and look outside a window to see a little paradise hidden from the public inside stone walls. We have a very small one here at the Fondation—no garden, but a small stone patio with a few tables and chairs—so hopefully we can take advantage of that once the rain goes away and the weather gets warmer.

I find these things really awkward to end. So…The End. À bientôt! [See you later!]

First co-ed bathroom

an envelope covered in stamps and full of kraft dinner arrived, and i am EXCITED!!!

Invalides--there's 12.5 kgs of gold on that roof

the motto: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

we like French pastries...a lot!

pretending to kiss Oscar Wilde's grave, which is apparently the cool thing to do...but that's yucky, so i just pretended

view from the top of Musée d'Orsay

Co-ed bathrooms are weird. ‘nuff said.

Well I’m officially not a slacker anymore! Conference classes and Phonetics have begun, so the days are a lot fuller and the weeks seem to be going by faster. Plus I have to get up at 8:00am twice a week, so I feel a little less guilty about this so-called “school”.

The three conferences I’m taking are French Writers and Cinema, Art History, and Europe and French Society. They’ve all been pretty interesting so far—they take place in a big auditorium, so now I know how most university students feel when they talk about classes of 500 people. In Cinema we basically just watch movies based on French books—not a bad way to start the morning, but it’s a bit frustrating because the prof will skip through half of a movie in the first hour, and then half of another movie in the second hour. I would much prefer just to watch a whole movie every Monday morning! In the other two classes we have to take notes, but I’ve heard the exams are completely multiple choice, so I’m pretty excited about that!

I had my first Grammar test today, and I think I did pretty well on it. In France you’re not allowed to get perfect…it’s just…not allowed. So I’m gonna have to start accepting lower marks. But if I pass and come out learning a lot, I guess that’s all that matters!

This week we didn’t do much sight-seeing because Phonetics classes keep us from getting home until 5:30. But it alters every other week, so next week we’ll have more time to see stuff. And we usually fill up our weekends pretty well too. In the last couple weeks we visited Cimetière Père Lachaise, (where Chopin, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison are buried) The Middle Ages Museum, Musée d'Orsay, St. Chapelle and the Concergerie (the prison where they held all the prisoners, including Marie Antoinette, before the executed them during the Revolution) and Invalides where Napoleon is buried and where they have a fantastic museum about the 1^st and 2^nd World Wars. They had some really touching pictures and movies, and just about every kind of weapon, uniform or war memorabilia you could think of—a Jewish star, an enigma machine, a torpedo, a mine…it was really interesting stuff. As a young person who’s never had to live through the horror of war, it’s good to be reminded about just how closely it affected so many people, and to gain even just a small sense of what so many people, like our grandparents, lived through.

We’ve also been making preparations for our Italy trip this week. We have spring break at the end of April / beginning of May, and we’ve already filled up every day. The first few days we’re going to southern France (Marseille and Nice), and then the rest of the time will be spent in Italy (Pisa, Rome, Venice, Florence and Milan), alternating between hostels and (hopefully) lots of Nate’s family. I can’t wait to swim in the Mediterranean!

Our weekends are filling up fast, ‘cause at the end of March we’re going to Switzerland too, for Steph’s birthday! Our Eurail pass is definitely worth its money for this trip. Plus, we’re trying to make a record for most countries visited by Redeemer students on a program abroad. I won’t go into detail about Holland and Belguim yet…;o)

Wedding preparations are also going good. Every day I practice squeezing the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube, (not the middle), just the way Jordan likes. I feel like it’ll come naturally by the time I get home.

Before I finish, I just wanna say thanks for all the letters I’ve been receiving—it’s such a treat to get mail! Special mention goes to Jordan and my mom for sending packages of KD cheese. Thank you—I’m so spoiled! PS. mom, don’t worry—I eat green beans for supper 4 or 5 times a week, so I’m still getting my vitamins.

I’ll leave you with a short lesson on the use of relative pronouns:

“Faites ce que je dis, pas ce que je fais!” [Do what I say, not what I do]

Have a splendid week everybody!