Mon coeur, mon amour

Sorry it's been so long! Last week was truly crazy; I had midterms and the flu. So let's see. Monday and Tuesday were my "partiels" which weren't too bad. My art test took the entire 2.5 hour class period, and my test over La Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald Soprano) was right after that. It was the most interesting test I've ever taken. I went to the grocery store when I finished, which was an awful idea because many people go at that time, after getting off work. I was probably there for an entire hour, 30 minutes of which was spent in line. Needless to say, I was exhausted when I got home, so I just had dinner and went to bed. Tuesday was my grammar test, which I definitely should have studied harder for, but I think I did fine.

I started feeling sick: headache, sort throat, runny nose, so I was rather miserable Wednesday in class. But in Paris Aujourd'hui we studied a song called "Mon Coeur, Mon Amour" which is now one of my favorites. The music video is pretty funny; she sings about how she hates the lovey-dovey couples who remind her that she is single. The best part is when she mocks their phone conversation:

"You hang up first."

"No, you."

"No, you!"

"No, you hang up first!"

She makes some silly faces, too, which is fun.

Thursday in my grammar class it was almost like going back to square one. We went over numbers and telling time. Which may make it sound like we're awful at French, but I definitely learned some new things. For example, when saying vingt (20) you don't pronounce the "t" at the end, but for vingt-et-un (21), vingt-deux (22), etc, you DO pronounce it. The teacher (who is a native Parisian) said they do it to mock the Belgians (the French mock Belgians as much as Americans mock blondes; they even have some of the same jokes). You'll only understand this if you take French, but we also learned that you say "soixante-ET-onze," but "quatre-vingt-onze." We practiced telling "military" time, which takes some getting used to, and also learned a few tricks about that, too. I won't bore you here, but if you're interested, let me know. Most people complain about that class, but I really love it. The teacher is excited about what she's teaching and it's so interesting to have an actual French person as a professor.

Friday was a ME day. I slept in and then went to do some clothes shopping using the books I have that give suggestions for good places to go. I went to a thrift store called Passy Puces and ended up getting 4 shirts and 2 pairs of shoes for only 90 euro! The shirts are all as good as new. The heels on the shoes are a little worn out, but 10 euro for some awesome black boots that would be at least 70 euro new is pretty darn good. I went out for a drink that night with a couple girls, and met some more French people. I gave a guy named Alex my number, because his friend pretty much forced him to ask me, but I think he's too shy to call. (Below, I'm wearing one of my new shirts and my new sweater.)

Saturday I went on a treasure hunt in Paris that was organized by Alexandre, a Parisian guy my age I met in the airport in New York. He organizes activities for the Stanford study abroad program, and each of those students has a French language partner, so it was half Americans and half French. It was a bit difficult explaining to everbody why I was there, but they were happy to have me. I was on a team with 3 French and 3 American students and we were pretty much incredible. We were about an hour ahead of the other teams, and they ended up cutting out 4 of the 10 places we were supposed to find because it was taking people so long. At one point, there was a team following us because they didn't know where they were supposed to go, and so we were, of course, trying to lose them. We went into the metro station and were pretending to get on the train, but were going to hop off at the last second. The other team was watching us very closely, and got on when we got on, but didn't have enough time to jump off when we did. EXCEPT, everybody from our team jumped off right after the buzzer sounded except for one guy! So the doors closed and he was still on the train (I wish I could make this sound as funny as it really was). We were all absolutely hysterical and ran off laughing like hyenas, with everybody in the metro station staring at us. (Below is part of the national French library. There are four towers like that, plus more shelving underground!!)

After the treasure hunt we went out to dinner and then went to a bar to watch the France vs. New Zealand rugby match. I sat with all French people at dinner, and it was really fun, and the rugby match was insanity! France actually beat New Zealand, which was a surprise for most, so everyone was shouting so loud. Afterwards we were walking around and people were yelling in the streets and honking horns constantly.

Then things went awry. I got food poisoning and, pardon my disgustingness, threw up in the street 3 times before I could make it to a bathroom. I ended up deciding to call it a night, and took a plastic bag from the bar to use on the metro because I knew I wouldn't make it home before I needed to vomit again. Two girls from Stanford live just one metro stop away from me, so they left with me, which was so incredibly nice. I didn't even know their names. I woke up this morning feeling fine, which was good because I had homework to do. I absolutely couldn't concentrate though, and ended up trying to plan some weekend trips and watching Grey's Anatomy. I think I'm going to end up going to Madrid this weekend to visit my friend Brielle, and England the last weekend in October, when my break starts. Then, Brielle and Kelly are coming to visit me in November, right before my internship starts! It's all just too exciting!!