rien de nouveau à dire

That’s a REAL bacon cheeseburger and chicken club sandwich, with French’s mustard and Heinz ketchup. Are we in Canada? Nope, the Great Canadian pub! We ate real food and watched hockey hi-lights…the world was in balance again.

Nate and I went to check out this little park, and it was fantastic. There’s grass that you can sit on! I’m definitely coming back to work on my tan and read in the sun.

All I need to survive a semester in Paris...

At the Guinness Tavern

Yassir and Nate--the Moroccan and the Italian

The past couple weeks have been nothing too special, just life as usual. We’ve managed to see a bit more of Paris on the weekends. The past weekend we walked around Paris’s oldest quarter, at the very heart of the city. We found some neat shops, even one that was selling a Maggi poster!

Saturday night we went out with a couple of the guys from the Fondation, Yassir and Karaba, and they took us to a Guinness tavern downtown that plays live rock music. It was a blast! In France the bars don’t close at 2am ‘cause they’re allowed to serve alcohol all night, so when these guys usually go out, they stay out til 5 or 6 am! That’s a little to much for me, so we headed home by 1. But it was so nice to finally hang out with some people outside of the Fondation, and also to hear some sweet tunes again. I haven’t heard enough (slash ANY) rock music since leaving Jordan and his ipod behind in Canada.

Sunday we went to the Louvre, because it’s free the first Sunday of every month, and I think I can say I’ve seen pretty much all of the Louvre now. Saw the Mona Lisa; most people say it’s a big let down ‘cause it’s so small, so after hearing that I didn’t go in expecting to see much, and although it is pretty small, it was still neat to think I was standing less than 10 feet away from a priceless piece of art work. The rest of the Louvre was fantastic too—not even just all the art work, but the actual building is absolutely beautiful as well, with lots of arched hallways, marble pillars and painted ceilings. So after 3 trips and countless other museum visits, I think I’m ready to say “no more museums!” If the weather gets nicer, I think I’ll be spending lots more time outside soon.

I keep on saying that I’m going to do all sorts of things once the weather gets nicer—walk around in between classes, go to Versailles and walk through the gardens, eat outside on the patio—but I’m starting to think that I’m going to fly home before the weather here ever gets “nicer”. While you were all getting excited about it being 16 degrees one Sunday afternoon, Paris was being blanketed in snow! Rain every day is annoying, but snow in April…(in Paris!)...that’s ridiculous!

My hands are still freezing as I type, because this afternoon a group of us students were outside in the cold for a few hours, chasing the Olympic torch around Paris. It was making its tour around the city as a relay, but a number of times was stopped and extinguished by protesters, so it ended up on a bus that drove through the city. We tried a couple times to see the torch, even if it was on a bus, so we were running and taking metros back and forth. In the end, I couldn’t even figure out which bus it was on, so that was a bit of a disappointment. I did, however, enjoy seeing the police bus go by, carrying protestors that were arrested who were all in the back waving their flags and banging on the windows. That was kind of exciting! Ah, Paris and her manifestations. We’re hoping to go see another one later this week—there should be about 50 000 students marching down the street protesting the government cuts against teachers. That sounds dangerous and exciting…but really these things happen every week in Paris. And they’ve always got tons of cops around with pepper spray, batons, guns and shields, so don’t worry about me, mom!

I hope you're all survivin crunch time at school! Hang in there, it's almost over! (and you can all remind me of the same a month and a half from now.) Miss you all!