Hi everyone!
First of all, thank you for all the Happy Birthday wishes! Around 11:30 in the afternoon I remembered that it was my birthday. What a weird feeling to have forgotten it! I guess it's because I already celebrated at home. I got a lot of texts yesterday and it was really nice to hear from everyone.
Moving on..
This past week has been very busy. Class for the public health kids (that's me) starts tomorrow! I wanted to take a little time this afternoon and update you all about this past week!
Tuesday:
Tuesday I spent the day walking all around Paris with a couple of girls. We figured out that we walked close to 10 miles that day. We saw all of the sights that I've already seen, but it never hurts to see them again- especially when walking around with people who have never been to France.
In the morning I met the girls downstairs for breakfast. As I was walking to the water fountain in the back of the cafeteria by the kitchen, I noticed a little mouse crouched in the middle of the hallway. I was really close to it and was surprised that the mouse hadn't scampered away already. I ran to get my friends and I showed them where the mouse was. It still wasn't moving. None of us speak french so we couldn't get the staff's attention right away. After a few moments one of the cooks came out and apparently he said "oh have you seen the little mouse!?" He came over and kicked the mouse to the side of the wall so that it was out of the way. Grossed out, I finished putting my dishes away and immediately left.
We walked from our dorm to this store called Monoprix that everyone keeps calling the French Target. They sell food (pre-made and fresh), clothes, toiletries, housewares, and electronics. All the kids from NU have made Monoprix their second home because they have everything that we need (flat irons, shower caddies, etc..). After dropping off our purchases at the dorm, we headed out. We first walked to the Eiffel Tower and then made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. On the way we stopped at a restaurant for lunch and I ordered a croque monsieur. Near the Arc de Triomphe we entered a large store called "The Public Drug Store" looking for hair dryers. They didn't have hair dryers, but they did have Marc by Marc Jacobs purses, books, designer sunglasses, along with a small section for actual pharmaceuticals.
Can you spot me in the picture below?
After walking down the Champs Elysées and entering another Monoprix to search for a hair dryer, we crossed the Place de la Concorde and up to the Louvre. We spent a little time watching little boys and girls play with toy sail boats in the little pools in the park in front of the Louvre. It was so cute all the boys had boat shoes, khaki shorts, and polos on.
In front of the Louvre a woman and her husband walked up to us and asked in english (with an accent I didn't recognize) for directions to Musée d'Orsay (which I've never been to). She showed us where we were on her map (at the Louvre), and where Musée d'Orsay was on the map. It appeared that Musée d'Orsay was literally across the Seine on the other side of the street.. so I said that. I felt like I was stating the obvious since I was looking at her map, but she smiled and looked relieved and thanked us as she walked in the direction I pointed her in.
Louvre and guy taking a picture:
Place de la Concorde:
We then walked along the Seine and decided to follow it until we reached the Notre Dame cathedral.
(*Please excuse this section of the post. All of a sudden underlining appeared under this section of writing, the font changed and got larer, and somehow I can't get any of this to go away.Oh well, c'est la vie!)
This was my third time in the cathedral but it was no less beautiful than my first two times. At this point our feet were killing us so we walked back across the Seine towards our arrondisement.
Our meal plan includes breakfast (7am to 9am) and dinner (7pm to 7:30pm) Monday through Friday. The food is disgusting and everything we are offered is a pale yellow color. While I waited in line for dinner on Tuesday at the dorm, I noticed that the little mouse from that morning was still there! Most of the students hadn't even noticed it when I asked them if they'd seen that the mouse was still there. They also hadn't seen it in the morning and were shocked to find out that it had been there all day! After dinner we went to Le Deux Magots, a famous café where Hemingway and others frequented, for a glass of wine. It was a great end to a really nice day.
Wednesday:
Wednesday morning at 10am we had dorm orientation. I should take a moment to explain our dorm situation. Sciences Po has no dorms or off-campus student apartments. It is not the norm for French universities to have housing. My dorm is called St. John's and it is owned by the St. Johns University in New York. It is a catholic affiliated school and we live directly next to a church and a place where the priests live. There is a St. John's school in Paris, Rome, and I believe the fourth is in Berlin but I'm not sure. The way this dorm works is that St. John's in New York places it's students here while they are attending their sister school in Paris for one month (then those kids move on to the school in Rome and then Berlin). They let students from other schools live there too. There are about 25 Northwestern students here, around 20 St. John's kids, a few kids from a school in Florida, and a few kids from Parson's. Speaking of the dorm, here is a picture of my room! I'm taking the picture from the top bunk (my bed) of our bunk beds.
That afternoon we met the NU International Program Development director Devorah (the woman who helped me get into the Paris program) at our dorm. She walked us over to the area where the Sciences Po buildings are and lead us into one of the buildings for a program orientation. At the NU study abroad orientation (which included both the public health kids and the EU studies kids) we met the 7 french Sciences Po students who will be in class with us and going with us on our field trips. We were also split up into our individual programs and at the public health orientation our director Bruno went over our class schedules for the rest of the quarter with us. He scared all of us and we all left feeling somewhat worried about our workload. Our average class time is around 4 hours but we also have some classes that are 6 hours long after our 2 hour french classes in the afternoon. Our schedule also changes every week because lectures are dependent on our teachers' schedules, and since they are very important people in France, this is always changing.
Ah, Paris, quelle belle ville!
ReplyDeleteI am so jealous! Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!
Love, Grandmama