Bonjour!
I have made it! I am in Paris and can proudly say I am beating jet lag (for the most part). I have been here for two days and it has been so much in so little time. So let me lay out these past couple of days for you. The day before I left the United States, I spent time getting lunch with my parents, packing & getting gifts for my host family and trying, although in no way successful, trying to remain calm. The fact that you are going abroad for four months not knowing anyone and choosing to live with a family of whom you've only shared four emails with is surprisingly stressful! But, I have to say that everything is so far so good.
I left Wednesday evening and arrived in Paris at 5:45 a.m. The rest of my group arrived between 9 and 10 a.m. so I was lucky to have a share the experience similar to Tom Hank's actor in The Terminal for a couple of hours. The group left Charles de Gaulle and headed to Vanves, France which is a town located right outside of the Paris walls. It's a cute town with a family feel.
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| The church found in the center of Vanves, France |
We are staying in a hotel here for the first two nights while we get to meet everyone and orient ourselves with the city we are to call our home for the next four months! After dropping off our luggage and freshening up a bit, the group headed out to tour around Vanves. We grabbed some sandwiches from a local cafe and ate them in the town square. After, we headed into Paris to visit our new school, the American Graduate School. AGS is located in the Latin Quarter of Paris which is where many of the universities are located such as the Sorbonne. By this time it is around 6 p.m. in Paris which is around noon in America. I was hitting a wall. Having been unable to sleep the night before nor on the plane I was running on maybe three or four hours of sleep. But that didn't stop us! We left for a traditional French dinner that started at 7 p.m. and we didn't leave the restaurant until almost 11 p.m. By the end of the first day I was so excited to see a mattress! Dinner, however tired I was, was still amazing! It is unusual in Paris not to order an entrée which is what Americans would consider to be a personal sized appetizer. For my entrée, I decided to go big and order duck foie gras. For those of you who aren't the next Julia Child, foie gras translated is "fat liver". Therefore, I was eating fat liver of a duck which you spread on some toasted baguette and add cherry compote. It was definitely an interesting appetizer! You will not find me ordering it at every meal, but it was a good thing to try! It also helps to not remind yourself that you are munching on a duck's liver. After clearing the table they brought out our main courses and I had a wonderful beef fillet in port house wine with fries. After dinner, came dessert and by this point I was stuffed! But I had a couple bites of my lemon tart which was delicious! Most people after dinner in Paris enjoy a cafe which is coffee, but at this point I was almost falling asleep at the table and desperately needed a mattress. Finally, we got the the bill and took the metro home.
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| Duck Foie Gras |
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| Beef Fillet |
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| Dessert of the Day, Lemon Tart |
Today, August 30th, was our second day in Paris. I woke up at 8:15, with surprising ease and our group met for breakfast. We left to go to Alliance Francais, which is conveniently located in the same building as AGS. At Alliance Francais, we had a tour of the building since they are the primary occupants of it, as AGS is only one of the floors. We were also tested to see what French classes we will be taking and I made it into A2 lesson 1...I'm not sure what exactly that means but I will let you know once classes start on Monday. After Alliance Francais, we finished orientation with AGS and grabbed lunch at another cafe down the street from the school. AGS is located right near Luxembourg gardens where we decided to sit down and eat. These gardens are beautiful!! At first it looks like your typical park with trees, benches, and tennis courts, but then you walk further and BAM! This beautiful building comes into sight and these massive fountains and flowers of all different shades of pink are blooming. Even better, the French police's orchestra was playing live music at one of the venues found in the park.
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| The French Senate |
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| The Medici fountain |
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| A view from the gardens...so parisian chic! |
After exploring the gardens, our two on-site directors left us and the eight of us wandered around Paris. We were heading towards Notre Dame where we came across
the Panthéon. We decided not to go in yet, but just being in front of the building was absolutely stunning. It is currently under renovation, but that doesn't hinder the beauty of this building. We then headed next door to the church, l'Eglise Saint Etienne du Mont. Inside was beautiful as well! We later walked around and found our way over to Notre Dame. We decided not to go in today seeing as we still have 3 months to explore and visit museums. As we walked between the gardens of Notre Dame and the Seine we came to the Lock Bridge, which is a small bridge that has thousands of locked locks on it. People come to this bridge to "lock their secrets away" and throw the key into the Seine where their secrets will forever remain. I hope to take part in this and by the end of the semester have a locked secret of my own forever left in Paris.
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| French Panthéon |
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| l'Eglise Saint Etienne du Mont |
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| Inside l'Eglise Saint Etienne du Mont |
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| Notre Dame |
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| Our group outside of Notre Dame |
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| The lock bridge with Notre Dame in the back! |
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| He started to do the invisible wall a little later... |
Tonight was our first dinner where we were on our own! So we went to the center of Vanves and ate at this amazing creperie called Giraffe. They had savory and sweet crepes so naturally I had to have both! For dinner, I had a crepe with ham, tomato, cheese, and egg. It was amazing! Following dinner, my friend Daniela and I shared a chocolate and banana crepe which again was delicious! We made it back to the hotel (some sooner rather than later seeing as our half of the group got lost on its way back!) where we relaxed and discussed some of the countries and parts of France we would be excited to travel to. Loads to do in the next four months, but it will be quite the adventure to say the least! We move into our new houses tomorrow!
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| Savory Crepe! |
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| Sweet Crepe! Can you say yumm?! |
Myself and one other student chose a home stay for the semester where the rest of the students chose dorm/apartment style. We move in tomorrow which is extremely exciting and nerve-wracking! But not to worry, I will fill you in on all that happens!
Au Revoir,
Steph
