Ma maison française

To get to where I’m staying we took a forever long bus ride during rush hour in a huge pink bus (that I think was moving faster than some of the cars around us—magic?). But I think it was worth it.


Seriously? I think I will be posting way too many pictures of where I’m staying but this house is the coolest thing that could happen to me here. Here is my room (with a little kitchenette, couch, and huge TV)




and the room of my roommate.




We flipped a coin to see who got which room. I still can't decide who got the better deal.

This is how we get into the house, by the basement.


And how we get into the yard.


There is more to come, but it will have to wait until I get internet access again, which might not be for a while.

Le Valmy

I promise that I won't post on every little thing that happens, but since I've checked into the hotel that we are at (we meet our host families tomorrow), I have:
found and used an ATM (okay, not that hard since I selected English as my language)
gone shopping for bread, jam, and nutella (mmmm!)
used Euros
ordered dinner and dessert in French
and managed to not yet make a total fool of myself.
Well, that last one might not be true but the rest are. ;)

We ate dinner tonight at Le Valmy (I don't know what that means, or if its just a name), but I had chicken and fries (they didn't have quiche, otherwise I would have had that), and for dessert I had a cream puff type thing whose name escapes me. Anyway, here are pictures of where and what I ate (it looks darker outside than it really was).

"Paris, nous attendons!"

This is what my instructor has been telling me for what seems like forever, "Paris, we're waiting!" And now that I'm here and the waiting is over I feel like life was more real before I came here. Maybe that's because to start my journey off I met this guy (who was super nice by the way):


Then I had a row to myself on the flight to Dallas and from Dallas to Paris (9 hours) I sat next to a delightful older gentleman from Barcelona, Spain who apparently played soccer professionally for Barcelona, has traveled all over the world, and realizes now the importance of family. It was really nice just to hear him talk about his life. He was so nice, making sure that I had a way to get to where I was going (no, I did not tell him exactly where I was going) and money to get there. Also, both of my flights were exactly on time leaving and a little bit early arriving. Woot!

And then after that, a driver named Ahmed who's parents are from Morocco, took us through the CrAzY traffic of Paris (motorcycles form their own lanes, on the white lines, as do cars sometimes), where I saw this:



and this:



and this:



Any wonder why I don't feel like this is real yet?

woRk iN prOgrEss

As you can see, the design of the blog is different, and it probably will change several more times until I find something that I really like. In the meantime, please bear with me and if you really like something, or if you find one layout to be more easily legible than another, please feel free to leave a comment.

I have been a little worried...

...that this might throw a wrench in my plans for France.

Thankfully I just received word from my professor that he was able to land in Paris and that the airports are operating normally. Yay! So, I leave Tuesday afternoon, and arrive in Paris Wednesday morning, if all goes well.

For those of you who don't know about the Icelandic volcano that is causing such a ruckus, here is a little story about why I have been worried that I might not get to France.

Cutting the Cheese

Lizzie told me a long time ago (four months) that I was going to be getting another Christmas present but that I would have to wait until Uncommongoods had it in stock.

Well, last week I got a package (packages are exciting!), and inside was this delightful little set.


Now I can feel like a real cheese connoisseur! Also, for my French final my professor got us bread and cheese to snack on while we worked. Don't worry. I brought these. :)

Grandpa is the coolest

Here's a little update on Grandpa.



He's doing really well, although he's sad that most of his friends are dying or becoming incapacitated while he is still fairly healthy. However, he still has his sense of humor, as evidenced by this video.



Yeah, it's an old-school pack of tobacco.

So...

....what do you think?

Please leave any comments here.

Thanks.

a little experimentation

I'm just trying to see how pictures will look on here.

let's get dangerous

So I've totally revamped the look of this blog. And I like it.
I am officially all done with finals. I like that too.
I'm getting ready to go to FRANCE. I like that even more.

Finally, things are starting to fall into place and I'm ready to fall into them. So lets go.