Days 3, 4, 5, and 6

This week has been a busy one in Paris. I’ve been faced with getting myself around Paris on my own. This forced me to learn the city and the metro very well. It is time for us to pick classes and now I have to see what classes will and won’t count for my majors. I may even have to switch my French major to a minor depending on how many classes will count. Finally, I have had to adjust to the time difference and try to make my sleep schedule somewhat normal. All I can say is I am happy that the weekend will be a little bit calmer, but I still have a lot hanging over my head with classes and learning this damn language.

Right now I am slightly stressed, but overall this has been a great week and living in Paris is one of the coolest experiences I have ever had. I feel very independent living in and traveling around a big city. Since I can’t always eat dinner with my host family or go out with my friends, I’ve started cooking for myself. Tonight with my dinner I even enjoyed a glass (yes just one) of Bordeaux. I feel way too mature for a college student, but I have also been having fun and going out with my friends at night.

As I said in my first entry, I am so lucky to have the host family that I was given. The physical setup of the house and the personalities of everyone in the family have made me very lucky. I can come and go as I please and I even have my own door in and out of the house. This has made going out with my friends very easy. I don’t have to worry about waking up my family when I come in late.

I have had an exciting nightlife this week. Tuesday I went to an Irish bar called “O’Sullivans” on Grand Boulevard. Not only was the bar a lot of fun because a lot of my friends from EDUCO were there, but also I saw how diverse this city is. People were speaking many different languages with different accents. It was really cool and the best part is they don’t have any bad beer in this city (at least not where I have been). All the beer is about the same level of quality (the only drawback is you get what you pay for). On Wednesday night I went to two restaurants with some other students from EDUCO and some kids from Boston College here with another program. We had wine and cheese at the first restaurant and then we had a nice meal with a lot more wine at the next restaurant. I had escargot and it was delicious. Thursday night I caught up on sleep because of the two exciting nights before.

Tonight I will rest again because tomorrow we have a placement test and then we have lunch and a tour at a museum. I went to two other museums this week. The first was le Musée Carnavalet which focused on the history and development of Paris and the other was at the “Cinémathèque” which is a center devoted to film and the movie industry. It was very interesting and it showed a lot of collaboration between Americans and the French in movies. I also had the “pleasure” of visiting the French universities that I may be attending this semester. They do not fit in with the rest of the city because they are hideous and dreary. It doesn’t make sense to me why the rest of the city is so beautiful but the universities are so ugly, but I don’t have to live there so it’s not a big deal.

That’s all from me. Hopefully when I post my next entry I will have my class situation figured out. Maybe I will have another glass of wine to calm my nerves. Au revoir!