When we first arrived in Paris, we were given a sheet of paper with 5 different options of things to do: a cooking class, a bike tour, a river tour, tickets to the Degas Nude exhibit, or something else that I can't remember. My number one choice was the cooking class, which I was picked to do! I was so excited. We got to the place where the lessons would be and got on our aprons to begin cooking!
On one side, girls were making a chocolate filling as well as the puff balls which they would be put in. I can't remember what they were called, but I'll try to find the recipe and edit this later with that info. On my side of the table, we made croissants with our homemade nutella in the middle, as well as the crust for some chocolate and orange tarts.
Molly mixing the stuff for our "nutella"
We started out making the nutella for the croissants. We didn't actually hand make the croissant bread which made me kinda sad, but I guess its ok since we made something equivalent to nutella which I have been addicted to since I arrived here.
The homemade "nutella"
Our Croissants!
Next we started making the crust for the tarts, which we did hand make! it was awesome, but let me say trying to read a recipe in French when you don't understand enough everyday terms in the language was difficult at times!
Tart crust
Making the filling for the tarts
The girls next to us made the filling for the tarts, which was some sort of chocolate and oranges. There were a few left over so I got to pour one of the last couple tarts! Mmmm
The finished tarts!
OH! I almost forgot, the girls on the other side of the table also made these chocolate cake/brownie things with a caramel sauce to dip it in, and or drizzle on them. They were delicious, even if the chocolate was a little too dark for my tastes!
All the yummy delicious treats!!
I was really glad I got this option instead of one of the others, since most of the other options would be fairly easy and pretty inexpensive to do on my own compared to taking a french cooking class. Those can be extremely expensive! It was a very fun and exciting experience!
Ok. So first of all, before I begin my story, you must push play in this super nifty youtube video i have up here. Go ahead. Push play. I'll wait.
.... Seriously. I'm waiting. Perfect. Now I can begin :)
Lately it has been very nice in Paris. We're talking sun shining,birds singing, 50+ degrees which is so much warmer than when we got here to 21 degrees tops. I mean last night when I was walking back to my dorm from the bar, the birds were singing. At 2:30 am. And it wasn't that cold! So so nice. The other day, when my petite sœur and I were wandering around, we came across a magic show outside, and a clown making balloon animals and stuff! It was awesome. We stopped and enjoyed the sights for a little bit. It was so wonderful.
Anyways, so like I was raving, its been so nice lately that I decided on Friday after my phonetics class to go wandering around since I assumed CEA was closed. I found out later it was open for two extra hours that day, but i digress. I started wandering around getting closer to the Bastille area, when I remembered the Lover's Bridge was supposed to be somewhere near there. So then my mission became: find the lovers bridge even if I don't have a padlock to put on it myself. I wandered around for about 20 minutes before I found it, along the way seeing a few swans in Le Seine, in which people were feeding them. It was super cute.
And it was so warm! It must have been around 55. I was in these super beautiful tights, knee high boots, a black skirt, red shirt, black blazer, and of course my longer black pea coat and a grey scarf. I ended up taking off the scarf and unbuttoning my coat because I got so hot walking around.
So then I find the bridge, and can I just say, it is GORGEOUS!I fell in love with it. All the beautiful, colorful, hopeful couples who have come here and followed the tradition of placing a lock that either has your name + your lovers name, or a lock with a ribbon attached with your name + your lovers name on the chain links of the fence, then tossing the key into the river. They do this for eternal love! Awww! It made me wish I had someone to write on the lock. Hmm. Maybe I should just place a lock with mine and Ian Harding's name on it? No? I could do Chris Pine instead, or Ryan Gossling, or Chris Hemsworth.... I mean I could be ok with any of those men I think.... ;)
Anyways. Like I said, I definitely fell in love with the bridge. It was kinda magical in its own special way. I would definitely hang out there all the time when its nice. Just sit next to the bridge and people watch. The couples were all so cute too, I loved it! Now, you may be wondering why I had you play that song on youtube, besides the fact that its awesome and beautiful. Its called Pretend (Reprise) by Lights, and it came on over my headphones while I was arriving at the beautiful bridge, and it just felt so perfect. The moment was.... perfect. The song felt like it fit so perfectly for the setting, and it was so beautiful and made a beautiful sight even more lovely. So go ahead, soak in the music as you look at the sights and imagine the sun shining warmly on your back as you take in the sights. Maybe you'll feel a little bit of what I felt with that music playing and seeing so many couples add locks to the bridge, or maybe you wont. Regardless, it was still a wonderful afternoon.
Ah another birthday. I am not the biggest fan of birthdays, which my friends that have known me a while get why. Valentines day for a birthday is not the greatest day ever, at least not back in les États-Unis. But in Paris, the most romantic city in the world, Valentines day isn't really a big deal. Which I found both odd and kind of awesome. Since I never actually have someone on my Valenbirthday, it can be a pretty lonely day. I usually dread it, or else just try to pretend its just another day.
It was a little difficult to do that here. Everyone kept saying happy birthday and was so sweet and awesome about it, which of course then anyone else around us who didn't know it was my birthday would inevitably ask "Aw its your birthday?!" And of course I would have to tell them that yes indeed it is.
My favorite question though was probably: "So you're going to be 20? 21?" When I'd tell them how old I was really turning they'd be rather surprised, which was both awesome and annoying because then it would kinda make me feel old. But it is what it is, one more year and I get lower car insurance rates for a car I dont have! HURRAH! lol.
Anyways, last night after doing my homework a couple I ventured into the kitchen, which is where everyone tends to hang out, and Maddie, Christy, and Hannah had all bought a few bottles of champagne and a little pastry in honor of my birthday. It was so sweet!!
So we ended up just watching a movie and having a little champagne for the evening. It was pretty nice and relaxing, which was probably the best thing for me since I could feel some congestion starting to creep up in my sinuses. Thank you girls for celebrating my birthday with me :) It was lovely! <3
Thursday, I had my first French class with the Sorbonne. It was pretty intense. I was expecting it to be difficult and only in French, but I was still quite overwhelmed when I got there and nothing but French was spoken. It seemed like everyone in the class had more experience than I did too and was doing better in the class than I was, which didn't help either. Culture shock hit me hard at that point. I was very frustrated and left class feeling like I was going to fail. But I have found one way to overcome culture shock: retail therapy. So I decided to go shopping, since I neglected to bring any of my plain black shirts, which I am fairly certain I have a million of back home. Since people here do the all black without looking goth, and since I am also going as long as possible between washing clothes (ugh more money I need to spend when I could be shopping or traveling!!!) I decided to invest in some less expensive black tops. Dont worry, I was successful and now look even more Parisian than before! Its wonderful.
Speaking of looking Parisian.... The other day (and by other day I mean a week ago) when I was getting on the RER (a train line kinda like the metro only it is above ground and not one of the real bullet trains or anything), this ridiculously good looking man dressed impeccably well asked me something in regards to directions. I was so excited because:
The man was beautiful and he was talking to me
I look Parisian/French enough for people to ask me for directions!!
I was very sad that the only thing I could manage to say was, "je ne parle pas française, desoleil" (I dont speak french, sorry). Le sigh. Soon enough, hopefully, I'll be speaking and understand French well enough so that when the next beautiful and well dressed man who asks me for directions I'll be able to help him and maybe even hit on him. Tee hehehe.... Or just help him. Whatever.
But Friday I had my second Sorbonne class, which I was more prepared for this time around. It was still a little overwhelming at times, but overall it was better. Some of the things I learned before are starting to come back to me slowly, which is good. Its going to be an intense semester, but hopefully it will pay off!!
So with my study abroad program, part of the cost is paying for some excursions around France and close by countries. On Saturday the 4th, we went to Bruges (or Brugge as they spell it), Belgium. Its this little quaint town which I have been informed used to be the hub of all commerce or something in medieval days, which is cra'y since it was SO COLD there.
My adopted little sister of the trip, Christy <3.
One exciting thing is how the snow made it seem like such a fairty tale of a place. I mean this is where the inspiration from Snow White was had! It was beautiful. So quaint. And my adopted little sister of the trip, Christy, who is from Florida (Go Gators! As she would say) has NEVER seen snow in her life. Besides on tv/pictures, which really doesnt even count. So she was all kinds of excited. She got to make her first snowball and first snow angel....
In which of course I had to help brush the snow off of her. She had no form for the snow angel, but it had to be the most adorable thing I've seen since I last saw my nephews. I regretfully did not get any chocolate, I KNOW, what was I thinking?! But I didn't. I did however, have a Belgium waffle and it was THE GREATEST WAFFLE I HAD EVER EATEN! Plus it was made for us by an amazing Englishman who informed us we could indeed have Bailey's in our hot cocoa! I fell in love until I took a bite of the waffle, then all of my love was transferred to the delectably sweet concoction in my mouth. ROWWWWWWMMM (which I am sure 99.95% of you will not understand, but perhaps those of you who watch Archer and remember the episode in which Pam is freaking out about bear claws and makes that crazy awesome hilarious sound will imagine that and be amused. That's what I was going for.)
So you know we're out wandering around, chillin - well more like freezing cause it was freaking cold. We're talking -12ºC, which is like maybe 5ºF. Which, ya know, is cold. So my toes and finger tips start freezing so I do this awkward thing where I ball my fists in the main part of the glove and the rest of it goes limp... which makes my friend Eli (pronounced El-leigh, she is a girl) laugh and actually almost fall over because its so ridiculous looking. It was amazing. Then we found the Lover's Lake / Minnewater or something. which is this place:
Quite pretty really, even frozen over. So here's another pic or two. I cant remember how many I uploaded.
So that was pretty much the trip. Except for all kinds of crazy issues getting to/from Bruges back to Paris, cause there apparently as a massive-ish snow storm in the Belgium area or something that cause some cables to snap or something so then we had to catch separate trains... it was insane and a little stressful but made for quite an adventure!
Well, thats all I got. No Collin Farrel in Bruges, which was depressing cause I totally would've been like, "hey... see that lighthouse?!!......" Which really I think only Eli and Maddy will understand that but that's ok too.
Well, I've almost been in Paris for a week. Technically, I've been in Paris for a work week since they consider their weeks Mon-Sun... which is odd... because if you buy a week long metro pass like i did on Tuesday, its only good through Sunday. Silly Frenchies.
Anyways. I'm really hating the time difference. 9 hours is so huge, its frustrating when I want to talk someone from home but I cant cause they would be asleep or at work/school. Its like if I want to talk to anyone I have to plan it at certain times here, but I don't want to spend my time here trying to plan out things based on when I'd be able to talk to my family or the important people from back home. I'm sure this feeling will pass once I get more use to being here, but for now its quite difficult.
So far I am definitely loving a lot of the people on the trip. I've adopted one girl as my petite sœur (little sister) for the trip, she's so adorable. The girls across and to the right of me are awesome, I've spent most of my time with them so far. We are more on the same page of yes we want to go out and have fun and party, but we're not trying to end up being the real life version of Taken. Especially for the first weekend.
So this week. I feel like we did a lot and yet I also feel like we did almost nothing. We had orientation everyday during the week which kinda sucked but also got us very familiar with the area in which our school is located, at least the English school. The French school we only had one orientation for and didn't even get taken into the campus, so that "tour" seemed quite pointless, but I'll figure it out. The study abroad company also provided a bus tour for us, which was kinda cool for the people who haven't been here before. But since I came in the summer of 2007 and had taken a bus tour then, I mostly wanted to sleep on the bus.
Its really cool to be walking down the road. Everything seems normal and like a normal life, and then you turn a corner and there is the Louvre, or the Notre-Dame cathedral, or the Eiffel Tower. Don't get me wrong, the architecture of even the normal buildings are not like the ones I'm use to in Seattle, but its easy to get use to those nice apartment buildings until you come to an area with a huge monument or ridiculously impressive church. That's when it hits me again: I'm living in Paris. For example, ma petite sœur and one of the guys on our trip and I went shopping. We were walking along and all of the sudden we were at the Louvre. So at that point we decided to just keep going down and walking to the Champs-Élysées. Once we got down there, we were close enough to the Arc de Triomphe so we just decided to walk there. We left at 11 am to go shopping and ended up walking all the way to the Arc de Tromphe by 5pm. My feet were definitely killing me by the time we made it back to our dorm!
Speaking of the dorm, my dorm is at Cité University or Cité U. There are tons of dorms here, all sectioned off by country. So you have our dorm, les Etats-Unis, but then next door is the Belgian house. Down the road a little bit is the Canadian dorm, and the Argentinian dorm. They've got a bunch of them, I'm not sure how many different buildings in total, for different countries. The cool thing about our dorm that Idk if they do with the others, is we actually have some diversity. all of us CEA girls live on the third floor, but a few of us went upstairs and met the people from floor 4 earlier in the week. There were lots of americans (And another guy from Seattle!!!), but there was also a girl from Greece, a girl originally from Paris, a girl from Belgium, and a guy from Switzerland. They all lived in the US dorm! I may be missing some people and where they are from, but those are the ones I met and talked to for a little bit. It was really cool to meet people from other countries, and I found it quite amusing that they were in the US dorm. I guess it made it a little more like America, since we are supposed to be known for having people from everywhere come to American to start a new life and everything.
Well, considering I slept in until noon I should probably go actually do something with my day. Sundays here in Paris (and i think Europe in general) are dead days. I may have to google and at least try to find some place to get some food or something, but it could be a very lazy boring day. That could also be exactly what I need today.
Almost done with the first plane ride. I'm kinda sleepy but mostly I'm just sick of sitting in this tiny chair.
I can't lie, it's pretty ridiculous that the only food they have available is stuff you have to buy. I mean seriously? It's a 7 hour flight.
This won't be too exciting of a post, this first one that I'm writing of my adventures. I'm too tired and hungry to be amusing.
Although I do like the little video screens like they have on virgin air. Not quite as nice but I'll take it. I got to watch lord of the rings the fellowship of the ring, big bang theory, listened to some music, and now as I'm waiting to land I'm watching avatar. If only I could find a comfy position to sleep in.
I'm missing everyone a lot too. Leave it to me to cave in to my crush right before I leave too, so that doesn't help. Hopefully I'll be able to Skype with my family tonight when I'm there. Which is odd to say since it's 6am here in Iceland but 9pm back home (an according to my phone as well).
Well. It's getting close. 3 days and 19 hours until I am on my long long flight to Iceland then on to Paris. Beautiful Paris! La tour Eiffel, my favorite! And yet I can't seem to make myself pack. It's quite frustrating. But of course here in the lovely PNW, we have snowmaggedon taking over the roads and making me crazy. I swear I'll lose it if this stretches on into the weekend and messes with my flight! I've has enough stress with switching programs last minute that I am just ready to leave and be there and start the new chapter in my life. I can't wait! Hopefully I'll finish reading the girl who played with fire before that though!
So tonight, I finally got word that I can make an appointment for my visa interview for Paris! I am excited because this makes it feel real. Like it will actually happen. I didn't realize how much I had been holding my feelings back about going because of things that could come along and prevent me from going. First, a cancer scare. Next, confusion regarding the visa application which made me worried I wouldn't apply in time. Other things that had me worried about going. But now I am feeling pretty confident about it. I've never had any issues with interviews, and the one job i didn't get when I interviewed was only because I was leaving for school too soon and they wanted someone more long term.
I am feeling extremely excited and grateful tonight. I have a family who fully supports me and my ridiculous ideas which don't always come to fruition. My dad especially has been extremely supportive in my plans to move to Paris for a semester. He's been helping me out a lot, financially and pretty much in every way, including reality checks that I can't travel to every single western European country while I am there. My sister has been extremely emotionally supportive through everything. I can't be more grateful for them.
I can't wait to be in Paris. Its been my dream to live in another country since I was in high school. Its been a desire since I came back from Europe the first time. I always thought it would be London, but Paris is so fitting for the person I am now. It'll be a challenge which I need. I am just so excited. I don't even have room to be nervous with how excited I am. I'm sure that'll change as January 11 rolls around, but until then I'll settle for being lost in my day dreams of living in Paris!
So knowing that I will be going to Paris in approximately 111 days, and I am oh so excited about it, I've decided I should probably start doing actual titles instead of numbered titles. Also, I've decided I should start blogging more to get use to it so when I am exploring Europe I can keep this baby updated! That way my wonderful and amazing family can stay in the know about my adventures and not get all kinds of worried if they haven't heard from me in a few days.
So today, after the 93º weather yesterday, it is bluster and cool. I can't lie, I love the cool weather but I am not a fan of high wind speeds. It just makes riding my motorcycle all the more difficult. Today is one of my studying days. Since I only have class T/W/Th, i typically spend either Friday and Monday studying, or Sunday and Monday studying. I can't lie, I'm having a really hard time getting motivated.
A few days ago I went and saw Warrior. It was SUCH a good movie! I still can't get over how good of a movie it was. I had barely even seen previews for it, nor did I think it was all that interesting when I did watch a preview for it, but I was told by a good friend that it was a very good film so I decided to check it out. I am so glad I did, especially since it is no longer in the theater over here! Oh Pullman. Anyways, I highly suggest everyone go see it, but don't miss the first couple of minutes because I did and I was somewhat confused. At least, I think I missed the first couple minutes. If not, then the beginning is a little confusing. Whatever. Overall, it was an amazing movie and people need to see it! OK! So I am going to go back to watching Bones and trying to study genetics.
Day 29: Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
as you can already tell, i really didnt feel like tryping up my month/year in great detail NOOOOO thank you. so i skipped head to this one. My hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days.
Plans:
i plan to study in Paris this January-May. I am so excited, To finally be in a city again for schooling. I will have to learn french while I am there, but it will be so amazing. I continue to keep working out, i plan to work hard in school and do extremely well. And i plan on designing shoes
Hopes:
My hopes, are I hope to be fluent in french. I hope to meet some amazing people while in Paris, I hope to travel to Spain, Germany, other parts of Italy, Amsterdam, Monaco, while I am in Paris. I hope everything goes smoothly and fabulously. I hope to buy a pair of Christian Louboutins!!!
Dreams:
My dreams are to try out for a movie and get a part, to find someone like Christian Louboutin who sees my shoe designs and wants to use me in his company, to meet someone amazing, to be become wealthy and famous.
