Walking to Bon Marché con mi Camera in the Snow

Second post of the day-

After I wrote to you about the snow this morning I layered up and ventured outside to get some food. The closest thing I have to boots here are my Hunters and they have been my best friend since the colder temps have arrived. I pulled on my thickest socks, put on my boots, grabbed my camera, and headed out the door!

Here are some pictures of the snow:

Outside my building:

Outside Bon Marché:
I walked around Bon Marché mostly for fun and the energy in there was great! I love shopping during the holidays. All the decorations have been up since Thanksgiving and the place was packed with families shopping. People were everywhere!! Jingle bells was even playing outside. I'm not kidding.

I bought some gloves and the lady at the register asked me in english if I wanted to pay in Euro or Japanese money.

??

I was about to ignore her mistake but she caught herself and blushed but her english wasn't good enough for a quick recovery. I successfully told a saleslady "no, merci" when I understood that she was asking if I needed help! Then I went back to her and asked her the price of something. In french. Boo-yah!

I'm going to download a Christmas movie.

-Hillary out.

Hell Week

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd take an early-morning study break to show what this week looks like for me. This will also explain the recent slow-down of posts.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday: 2 hours of French in the morning

Tuesday: 3 hours of class after French

Wednesday: 2 hour essay final

Thursday: another 2 hour essay final

Friday: Our 100 page research papers are due. These are to be synthesized and turned in by midnight on Friday, but as of now, Wednesday morning, no one in my group has finished their sections.

Next week:

Monday: French Final

Tuesday: 1 hr presentation on our 100 page papers. Our teacher has told us it needs to be entertaining and creative.

I am so frustrated with this teacher. Everything that I just wrote out on my schedule, with the exception of French, is for ONE class. He didn't have to clump it all together like this. I went to bed at 2 last night and woke up at 8 to study, so got 6 hours of sleep last night.

Last night I had to call the RA on the room next door. Seriously it sounded like they were having a house party. I'm not sure if I've mentioned them before, but they're St. John's kids and they just moved into the dorm a few weeks ago. Since then they've kept us up at all hours of the night- there seem to always be hoards of people going in and out, and they all talk really loudly. I had to go over there at 3 am a couple of weeks ago and explain that I had a train in 4 hours for London, and I needed to go to sleep. When I knocked all the noise stopped and they wouldn't let me in until I said I was their neighbor.

Also, the girl I mentioned awhile back, who speaks like my New York U.S. Open Ben & Jerry's co-workers is always in there, and you can hear her talk from a mile away.

It was 11:30 and I knew quiet hours started sometime around 11, so I went down and told the RA about the NU kids' finals schedule and explained that "normally it's not a problem, because they do this all the time, but this week is important and we're all stressing out." (I made sure to say that it happens a lot). Five minutes later I went back upstairs and they were quiet.

I went to bed at 2:00 am and woke up at 8:00 am to study more.

Honestly I can't complain about that because it's enough to function normally, and I'm up now writing this at 9:45 am. My final is at 12:30 today.

We have another "health and safety inspection" today, so yesterday I swept and sponged off our sink.

I better get back to studying,

-H.

P.S. The illustrations in this post are from the book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Eating in Paris

After living in one place for 5 weeks, a girl is bound to have formed her favorite places to eat.

To satisfy your hunger in Paris, I recommend the following places:

Lili's Brownies Café

Where: On Rue du Dragon off of Rue du Four

What: A tiny café that has a soup du jour, sandwiches, an assortment of tea, and an extremely wide variety of cakes and desserts similar to American pastries. I've had a really delicious tomato bean soup, and an equally delicious spinach soup. I've also had a slice of banana nut bread and a slice of carrot cake bread. For each bread choice you have the option of frosting or not.

Be aware: They have no patience for a beginner in french. I've gone in their trying to speak french and they just stare at you and say "qoi?" Where most stores would either speak english or help you out by guessing what you want or relying on pointing, they just huff at you and wait. So in this rare case it's better to just speak english and apologize.

Photo Courtesy of: New York Times

L'As du Falafel

Where: Le Marais. 34 Rue des Rosiers. Metro St Paul.

What: BEST falafel I've ever had. And it's vegetarian! There is a process that you must know before you go. 1) Go inside and ask for "une falafel" at the register and pay the 5 euro. 2) Take the ticket she gives you and go wait in line outside. (When it's really crowded they'll have a guy out there and you can buy your ticket while waiting in line). 3) When you get to the window, hand over your ticket. 4) Watch the art form of packing a pita with hot falafel, diced veggies, eggplant, and sauce. 5) Feast.

Be aware: This place tends to have really long lines. Once I was there at the same time that a camera crew was interviewing half the staff.

Photo Courtesy of: Amorino.com

Amorino

Where: All over Paris.

What: Gelato. They have a ton of flavors and there is always a line because eating gelato from here is heaven. Recently some friends went to Italy and I couldn't get them to admit that gelato in italy was any better than gelato from Amorino. You can get a small but pick however many flavors you want to be included in that small. They'll just put a smaller amount of each flavor but fill your cup. If you order a cone, they'll shape the ice cream like a flower. (See above)

Be Aware: Of returning for gelato every day.

La Grande Epicerie

Where: Corner of Rue du Sèvres and Rue St-Placide

What: Gourmet grocery store. This store is below half of Le Bon Marché, a designer and très expensive mall. The store itself is beautiful. I always buy lunch from here because they have great pre-made food like at Marks & Spencers in the U.K. They have a counter for nuts, a counter for coffee, a counter for fish, a counter for meat, a counter for cheese, a counter for desserts, a counter for fresh bread products, and a counter for pre-made dinner food.

Be Aware: It can get very crowded before and after work hours. You may want to buy everything in the store and start cooking immediately. It can also get very pricey.

There are still a few food places on my list to visit, and I'll let you know how they are once I've tried them. I'm anxious to get a hot chocolate from Angelina's, which was featured on Oprah, but since it's 7 Euro for a cup of their world famous hot chocolate, I think I'll wait until Mom gets here and see if she'll take me and Morgan.

Huelga, part deux!

Hey guys!

Alright, think back to a time, long long ago, when I was in Bolivia. Do you remember me telling you that the way things get done there was to have a strike? While I was in Bolivia there were several strikes. I have recently learned that this is how people express their opinions in Paris as well! Tomorrow there will be a strike..I forgot why.. someone told us last week..but regardless the outcome is that public transit is going to take like 10 times as long. I don't have to worry about this because I'm a 15-20 min walk to class and I don't take the metro to get there. My french teacher warned us today that she might be late tomorrow because of it. After class today I was walking home and saw the roads blocked off and tons of people walking around with stickers that I couldn't read. Maybe it's already starting? It's only a one day strike though so who knows.

Ok let's get down to business. I have a lot of reading to do today and tomorrow so instead of telling you all about Normandy on Friday and Saturday, I'm going to talk about my Thursday and show you some pictures from that day!

Thursday:

Last Thursday we had french placement testing in the morning. After testing we walked over to Ladurée, a famous macaroon place, and picked out a few macaroons to eat! My favorite one was vanilla because it tasted like ice cream in a cookie sandwich. I'd never had macaroons before but they're delicious and they are in all these bright colors! They even have mimosa flavored.

Later, one of the French students in our program, Camille, told us she wanted to show us where the Jardin du Luxembourg was. It's a garden we all kept hearing about but no one had seen yet. What I thought was going to be a 15 min walk to the gardens ended up being a 2.5 hour tour around part of the city.

First we walked back towards school and Ladurée, and up to the Seine.

This is the beginning of Pont Neuf, the island in the middle of the Seine on which Notre Dame sits.

Our first stop was to be Notre Dame. (Again). This marks my fourth time inside Notre Dame. But this time was a bit different, outside one of my friends pointed out something really cool! There was this really old man feeding the birds (enter the Feed the Birds song from Mary Poppins) and the birds were actually on his hand! Then the birds were landing on the shoulders of this old lady chatting to another old lady, and she didn't mind at all!

After Notre Dame we walked past part of the Sorbonne (famous public university), and entered the Pantheon. the Pantheon is where lots of famous dead people are buried, and it is located in this odd but beautiful area next to a law school and what amounts to like a regional government building. Here are a few pictures from outside the Pantheon and inside it.

This is the bad guy from Ocean's 12! I've found the Night Fox! He's in an ad for cologne that's on bus stops all over the city.

Inside the Pantheon:
In the basement of the Pantheon where most of the graves are:
Voltaire's body is in the casket behind his statue:

Outside of the Pantheon were two groups of college-aged kids. One group was in all red, and the other in all blue. Most of them had odd random squiggly lines in face paint on their faces and they seemed to be standing around. Camille said it was their form of hazing for "associations" or college clubs. Their hazing is tame and all in good fun, it's not harmful according to Camille. After a stop for gelato we walked into the Jardin du Luxembourg.

THIS PLACE IS AMAZING. First of all, we had a beautiful day to be walking around outside. It was in the 70's and sunny. I don't know how I've been to France twice and missed this. I've always come in March when it probably isn't as magical, but in September at least it was heaven. I can't really describe it in words, but I'll start by saying this place is huge. I didn't see all of it because our feet were hurting and I didn't know exactly how far it went. We walked to the center by the fountain and rested for about half an hour. There were people all over the place going for walks, reading, chatting, or eating. Here are some of the pictures I took:

This is the senate building:

Alright folks! That's it for now!

I'll update again soon!

Love, Hillary

"¡Ayúdeles! ¡Moverte!"

Hey peeps!

Some things I have noticed that are absent from Cochabamba: stop signs, black people, asian people.

Stuff I learned today: we have a nighttime security guard.

Now on to my day- so today when it came to observe the nurses, it went a little differently. My boss told me to learn by observation and had me sit in a chair by the nurses desk to observe, from which I couldn't see anything. After an hour of this, I felt really silly and got up and stood by the doorway where I could see the action a bit better. My boss came in and before he went back to his office he said, "Hillary, Ayudeles! Moverte!" Which means, "Help them! Move around!" (He said this in an encouraging way not a mean way). I was confused and didn't know how I was allowed to help. Should I steal one of the medical students' patients and take his temperature? What am I supposed to do? There was a patient about my age who had been brought in passed out who was now awake, and my boss told me I should get her history. Her history?! I can barely communicate with him! Thankfully her history had already been written down. The medical students weren't there yesterday, but they were a bit better at teaching. I think they took pity on me because I looked pathetic and lost. One of the medical students, not the nurses, gave me my first task. I was asked to take the temperature of the now conscious girl, which I did! I mean, I've done this at Condell Hospital in Libertyville, but the machine here is different, I'm not at home, and I haven't interacted with patients in a few years, so I was relieved. Then when things slowed down a different med student had me practice taking blood pressure on his arm.

At one point a little later on, there was a 1 year old boy on a medical table with his mom and a nurse. The nurse said something in spanish to someone other than the two she was with, and after I looked around I realized I was the only one in there, and she was talking to me. I went over and saw that the little boy had a fairly deep cut directly below his eyebrow. The nurse said something and I figured out she wanted me to hold his eye shut so she could tape the wound closed. AND WE DIDN'T HAVE GLOVES. It wasn't really bleeding at this point but there was a bit of blood in the wound, and while I held his eye closed and stroked his hair while he screamed, she cleaned the wound, swabbed it with iodine, and tried to tape the wound. In my professional opinion, he needed a couple stitches, but I'm not sure they do that at this clinic. He kept crying, so the the tape wasn't sticking, and his long eyelashes kept getting in the way. Eventually the nurse settled for taping gauze over the wound which worked better. The mom kept trying to get him to stop crying by trying to get him to breast feed, which was a bit odd. Immediately afterwards I used their hand sanitizer liberally. When I told this story to one of my housemates, she gave me a brilliant idea! Getting gloves in the clinic can be what I use my mini grant for! (Every volunteer pays $75 included in the cost for their room that they can apply to use for little projects like this).

Side note, almost every time I've told a Bolivian person that I'm from Chicago, I get remarks about Al Capone and the Mafia. Almost as often as that, I will get a comment about Obama. (I remind them of Oprah, don't worry).

Love,

Hillary

Shooting, Lab Coats, and Paralysis

Happy Sunday!

What I thought for the first couple of days after I'd arrived were loud children outside my house, I have decided are actually birds that make noises I have never heard before. They are really loud and may be pets because sometimes the neighbors yell at them to "shut up."

It is Sunday and I guess everything here shuts down on Sunday. My new Irish friend told me this, and he is absolutely right because I heard about 1/8 of the street noise I usually hear. Today I read and finished a book Rachel lent me called "One for the Money" that involves crime and shooting and violence. I alternated between my doorway, which gets all the intense sun, and the rest of my room which is too good at insulating itself from all the heat so it is a bit chilly in the middle of the day in 80 degree temps. I heard firecrackers throughout the day that sounded a lot like gunshots, which fed my already on edge nerves from reading this book all day. (I loved the book Rachel!) So that was today- but let's go back to Friday.

Friday was my visit to my volunteer site, and my introduction to how to get there. A really nice Bolivian employee at the office went with me to show me where to go to catch a Taxi Trufi, which if I haven't already mentioned, is like a shared cab that has a specific route like a bus. So we walk a few blocks to a busy street and hail the 132, which took us like 15 minutes to find one. It was already really crowded but we got in and traveled about 15 minutes to the Health Center. You pay 1.50 bolivianos when you get off (about 20 cents or something), and to stop you say "Pare por favor!" or "Voy a bajar." The clinic was filled with moms and their young children. I met the director who asked me what I wanted from my experience. I wasn't expecting an interview and it was conducted in spanish so I was really sloppily portrayed because my first response was "no se..uh.." which means I don't know. I eventually came up with an answer that seemed ok. Anyway he was nice and showed me around the clinic and I met the staff which are half med students from the area. Then I watched a nurse give an infant a shot in the shoulder, and the director showed me a desk with a computer and said something about it not working but I have a hunch that my first assignment has something to do with using it. At least I hope so.

We returned to our neighborhood via a bus, called just "trufi," this way she said, I would know both ways. I didn't understand everything she said but I do not intend on using the bus system, it was less comfortable and dropped me off in different spot that has no easy landmarks, albeit a block closer to home. Tomorrow I am doing this on my own and my work day is from 8am to noon. I was informed by Sustainable Bolivia that I need a lab coat. And I had two options for where to go to buy one:

I could A) go to the med school that the employee pointed out on our way to the clinic, or B) go to the corner of Columbia and Laza, which is what the volunteer coordinator believed would lead me to a shop where they sold this stuff, but she wasn't sure. Since I didn't remember how far it was to the Med school, and what exactly it looked like, I tried the cross-street given to me by my volunteer coordinator. It was only 8 or so blocks away so I walked. It was the middle of the day and very very hot. I didn't expect the altitude to affect my walking stamina but it did. I got to the corner and walked up Columbia and down Laza one block in each direction, but found nothing. So I back tracked and walked up the street where the Med School had been. When I was about 2 blocks up on this street, I noticed a Western looking guy pass me by, so I followed him down the street because,...well I don't know why. After about 5 more blocks of following him and looking for the med school, I ran into a big black dog that was barking at everyone. It didn't start barking at the western guy until he was almost past him, so that guy got past fine. Then, it walked towards me and kept barking so I sat on a bench trying to act cool, but I reverted to my intense fear of dogs and got up and crossed the street and headed back towards my house. (It barked at a Bolivian family too and they also freaked out so it wasn't just me!) A 4 year old tried to take my water bottle on my walk back to the house which is strange because this isn't the type of area where kids commonly do that. I decided I wasn't meant to get the lab coat that day and I'd have to hope the Clinic Director could help. I was also frustrated that this was a requirement but no one at the office could tell me where exactly to go. Anyway I've decided not to worry about the lab coat. The dog was a strong enough signal of that- as it turns out I was heading towards the bus terminal where people commonly get pick pocketed. So.. yay scary dog! Oh just a side note- Cochabamba has an alarmingly high number of stray dogs. All of whom, except scary black dog, ignore people and hold their heads down sniffing along the sidewalks.

Oh also! My mom treated all my jeans and all my button down shirts with mosquito repellant for clothing. It is supposed to last a week or so. The day I got here I started to notice my nose feeling tingly every time I touched it. I also noticed the tips of my fingers feeling tingly too. I didn't want to overreact, how could I have contracted some fatal paralysis disease already! Friday morning while waiting at the office to leave for the clinic, it hit me. My nose has been kind of sniffly because of the temperature shifts here, and I've been touching it with my shirt sleeve or my hand. My hands have been constantly touching my jeans and my shirt to roll up my shirt sleeves! This stuff is strong! I made an effort all day Friday to not touch my clothing and it started to lessen. Now that I've gone two days without wearing the treated clothing over the weekend (I've been in sweats and t-shirts), it hasn't happened at all.

Talk to you soon!

Love,

Hillary