Bonjour and welcome to France!

wow, so a lot has happened since my last post. ill probably separate this into two posts so that its not so long to read. anyways, after the week of informational stuff we travelled to paris with the lc program in Strasbourg. There is only one person actually from lewis and clark on that program but there was a bunch of kids from kalamazoo college ( i love that name!) and one girl from bryn mawr. We met up with them at the train station and went from there to our hotel. Laura, Karen, and I shared a room which was really nice! The day we arrived we had a free afternoon to just wander around before our dinner. Laura, Karen, and I went to get sandwiches and we ate by the seine which was really pretty. We walked to the louvre and also saw the Jardin des Tuileries. After some sightseeing we went back to the hotel to meet up with everyone for dinner at this indian restaurant. The samosas were delicious and so was the nan flat bread! It was a nice change to eat somewhere ethnic... ohh and the curry was really super! Following this amazing meal we went to see the play: La Leçon by Ionesco. All of us had already read the book for one of our classes. The theater: la Huchette where they have been putting on this play as well as the: Cantatrice Chauve ( this ones been playing there regularly since 1957) was pretty small. It was also so hot that I was sweating throughout the play which is not so enjoyable. Its true that you will laugh while seeing this play, but for me its just really upsetting.

The next day we went downstaires to have a nice breakfast of croissants, bread, cheese, jam, chocolate spread, eggs, orange juice, tea, coffee basically whatever you wanted! Then we met upstaires to go to the Musée D'orsay. The nancy students were required to prepare a presentation on one of the paintings in this museum. Karen and I had: Le Cirque by George Seurat. We had to talk for 5 minutes each about the painter and the painting itself. Either Ron Lyndaker the director of our program or his wife Beth who is the director of the strasbourg program had to listen to us. We got Ron and it was a little nervewracking to be talking about a painting in a museum with lots of people walking by. It went well I think and then we had time to explore the museum before going to the restaurant for lunch. This was one fancy restaurant and the food was really good, the desert especially. After the museum we had more free time to look around and see other things. We got some paninis for dinner and ate by the seine again which was really nice. Then Karen and I went to a little store and bought some wine to mix with coca cola ( which is surprisingly really good). We drank some with friends and then decided to head off to the eiffel tower. It was too late to actually go up it but it was really nice just to look at all lit up at night.

The next day after breakfast we went to the Palais Garnier- the opera house. We had a guided visit and actually got to sit in some pretty expensive seats near the front row. It was such a pretty building and I imagine a preformace there would be so much fun! Then Karen, Laura, Max, and I went to a cute cafe and had some lunch. I had the salade au Chèvre Chaud which is always a good choice since I love cheese. Then Max ( the only guy on the nancy program) and I went to the louvre. It is Max's first time in Europe and obviously then was his first time in Paris so this was a huge moment. He is also an art history major so going to the louvre is a dream come true seriously. The place is huge though so I just let Max go where he wanted since I had already been there. We covered all of the major peices including the famous mona lisa which really small so its kinda depressing.

We arrived back at the hotel to go to dinner at this traditional french restaurant. It was the cutest place ever and the people were so nice, they offered us some white wine on the house. As an appetizer I had Calamari in this ink sauce, the sauce looked exactly like blue ink and it made my tounge blue which I was weired out by at first. It was a very good dish tough dispite the odd color. Then I had some viel and vegetables with these potatoes which were crispy. For dessert I had the creme brulee which was also excellent. This pretty much concludes our paris trip. Tuesday we had some free time to walk around before taking the train back. We went up to mont-saint michelle to see the sacre et coeur. We also saw a salvador dali exhibit and went to the moulin rouge. After that it was time to head back to the train station to go to nancy . Overall this trip was really fun! wow this was a long post, sorry. I will post later on my luxembourg trip and things that have been happening in between. but for now, I am gonna leave you all! write to you later

My host mom, Marie Claude Henriot just got wireless internet today which is exciting for me. Though, Charles-Edouard, her youngest son says that if I use the internet a lot then I won't improve my french. This could be true, but I do like keeping in touch with my friends from back home and I already speak in french at the house everyday, all the time, and at school. We started whats called the cycle cours with other erasmus (international) students. We take classes everyday which are really just informational to help us find stuff around the university and the city. We have also done some oral and writting excersises to help us prepare to take our real classes starting in october. Its nice to meet some other students besides the 6 of us from lewis and clark.... everyone is really nice. Tonight we went out to the hemingway cafe where a lot of international students and just university students like to hang out and drink some beers. That was fun but before that the LC students had to go to this lecture about growing old and dying. The person who talked was interresting but he talked a mile a minute about natural selection, genes, an cells all in french. I am supposed to write a 2-4 page paper on this for tomorrow.... omg, we'll see how that goes. On another topic, it was my 21rst birthday on the 8th. Kind of anti-climatic being in France but it was really fun. My host mom, 2 of her sons ( one with his fiancee) came to have lunch for my birthday. It was really nice and we got to eat in her superb dinning room. She gave me a room plant and some chocolate as gifts. She is seriously like the best person ever besides the fact that she might be trying to get me drunk. lol No, just some of the chocolates she gave me had liquer inside them and I did not realize that they were going to be that strong. Its like having a shot inside some round chocolates of different pretty colors. I'm pretty tired and should go to bed, i'll prob write more at another time. ohh and I blew all the fuses in my host moms appartment with my adapter.... opps. Its all fixed now but I never told them that it was me and I feel kind of bad. Power strips are too high of a voltage to work with the adapter I have, but stupid me forgot to check if they would work so I just kind of tried it and sparks flew out of the outlet and there was a big pop. So as to not fall asleap on my computer i'm gonna peace out!