exam time

Steph and I at La Défense

My new "spot" in the Jardin Luxembourg

The "Port Stanley" of Paris

Sharon and I at the top of the Eiffel Tower

View from the top; I go to school just left of Montparnasse, the tall building

Waffels in Belgium

And of course, sea shell chocolates!

Nate's finger...keep reading...

Grandes Eaux Musicales at Versailles

Versailles

L'Arc de Triomphe on Liberation Day

I realize it’s been a couple of weeks since I last made an appearance here, so I’ll quickly catch you up on what I’ve been up to since Spring Break.

Well, I came home from Holland to sunny skies and shorts weather—absolutely amazing! Paris is finally showing her true colours, and it’s fantastic, I can’t get enough of the sun! The first week back I spent most days after class sitting in the Jardin Luxembourg, reading my book. It’s quite the hot spot, since it has a nice grassy “pelouse” that you can sit on. It’s like Port Stanley beach, except without any waves or metal detectors.

It was a short week at school, only 3 days, so Thursday Nate and I took a trip to Versaille. I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the palace…it was nice, but not worth the number of euros I spent to see it. But the gardens were definitely worth seeing—we went on a day when they performed the “Grandes Eaux Musicales”—where all of the fountains were going full blast to classical music. I felt like royalty walking around to the music, and could barely contain the urge to waltz around like they probably did 300 years ago. But for Nate’s sake, I did contain it…he’s had a rough enough time being the only guy in the group.

Friday we went to Brussels for the day, since it’s only a 1 ½ hour train ride away, and spent another nice day in the sun, wandering around the city. I ate a REAL Belgian waffle, and of course, bought some REAL Belgian chocolate. On a sort of related note, do any of you remember the show “Tin-Tin”? (he’s a French cartoon character). Well the chocolate stores sell truffles in decorated tin boxes, and I saw one selling “Tin-Tin tins”! I thought that was pretty funny…Tin-Tin tins…

Saturday Nate and Steph headed off to Holland for a few days, so I was back in Paris solo. Sharon Heuving and her sister were in town for the day, so I met them under the Eiffel Tower, and we went up to the very top. It was a great view—much better than the second level; I’m glad I waited to go all the way up! Later I took them up to Montmartre and showed them my quartier—we did the tour through the painter’s square, the Sacre Coeur, and then down through the red light district to see the Moulin Rouge. It was such a treat to tour people around, and to show them a bit of what my life’s been like for the past few months.

This past week has mostly been a lot of studying. Exams are next week, and we don’t get any study days, so most nights I’m at my desk typing up study notes. Friday we had a final test in Grammaire (which I think I rocked…in French standards…ie, 70% hopefully?), and it made me feel pretty confident for the exam, since it was a copy of last year’s exam. And in Phonetics my French prof told me that I pronounce my nasals “très, très bien”. It’s always great to hear some positive feedback, ‘cause I can be pretty critical of my French accent. So at least I’m doing one thing right!

Anyways, I was talking about Friday…Well after a long week of study-study-studying, Steph and I were in the mood for a girls nite. So we enjoyed a chick flick, and then some Shawn Paul with facials and magazines. Girls nites have kind of become a monthly tradition, and I look forward to them because I love being silly with Steph.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention one of the most exciting nights! Nate will kill me if he reads this, so hopefully he won’t read it (and if you’re nice, you won’t tell him to!). Well, we were sitting in my room, showing each other our pictures from Spring Break, and Jordan called, so I turned away to talk to him for a moment. When I turned back, both Nate and Steph looked like they were about to faint; Nate had cut his finger real bad with his Swiss Army knife, and was bleeding all over. I quickly hung up as they were going out the door, Nate’s finger all wrapped up in paper towel. They’d barely made it to the hall before I heard a big “thunk”…Nate was down. Steph got her neighbour, who happens to be a nurse, and by the time he came up, Nate was doin a bit better…although his face was still about the same shade of white as my sheets. Julien quickly assured Nate that all he’d need was a couple stitches, so we went next door to the fire-fighters to get him fixed up. Apparently they don’t do stitches, so instead he just came back with a huge band-aid. It was an exciting way to the end the night, and thankfully it wasn’t any worse. We laughed it off, and now Nate’s finger is doing just fine. If that’s the worse of our injuries abroad, I think we’ll have done just fine…cross fingers.

Well…it’s time for me to hit the books again; unfortunately my study notes aren’t gonna write themselves. I’m gonna finish this semester off on a great note, and then smile all the way home on the plane!

…2 days later…

Well I wrote that blog on Saturday (I pre-write my blogs to save internet time) and now it’s Monday and I’m about to post it. Just thought I’d give you a quick update: finished my first exam and I think I rocked the socks off of it in just under 10 minutes. Off to a good start!