Paris '09

Summer Plans

2009-05-10T07:14:00.002-05:00

Hello All.

I wanted to update you on my plans for the summer....but first, I'm going to keep you in suspense and tell you about my week!

Thursday night - Seine Boat Cruise with CEA. It was gorgeous going along the river at sunset and we were with all of our friends so we had a great time. From there, I went with a bunch of my friends to a concert for a DJ called MSTRKRFT (I guess he doesn't like vowels). Great show

Friday - NO SCHOOL! It's the Anniversary of the End of WWII so it's a holiday in France. My roommate Justin, my friend Chris and I did a walking tour of Montmartre. It's an amazing neighborhood, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We started at Moulin Rouge, did a tour of the Erotica Museum (very strange, to say the least), saw a bunch of old wind mills, a small vineyard in Paris, and of course, Sacre Coeur. We ate crepes in Place Tetre, which my guidebook tells me is THE SINGLE most touristy place in Paris...but the crepe was delicious! Montmarte reminded me of San Francisco in some ways...really quaint buildings, hills, gorgeous trees and view of Paris. It's worth spending 4 or 5 hours exploring Montmartre if you're ever in Paris. Very enjoyable afternoon. I'll post pictures of it soon.

(SPOILER ALERT! This is the part where I reveal my summer plans)
After coming back from Montmartre, I talked with the Assistant Director of my camp. I had discussed the summer a lot with my parents. For most of the semester, I had been planning to stay in France after my finals...try and get an internship in Bordeaux or Paris and improve my French. But that means I would have no money next year at school and it would definitely be very expensive to stay in Europe. A position opened up at camp and I decided to take it. I didn't go back to camp last summer but I was there the previous 4 summers before that.

So, this summer, I'm leading the Pacific Northwest trip for Thunderbird. I am so excited...I did this trip as a camper in 2002 and now I get to lead it. I have wanted to lead a trip like this for a long time and I lead the 21 day 2 summers ago. I'll be making some money, not SPENDING any money, and I will definitely not be bored, at all, for the entire summer. The trip is a backpacking trip around Washington and Oregon. When I was a camper, we did an Olympic Coast hike, on the beach, a day trip to Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens, a 7 day in the Olympic Rainforest and a 6 day in the Cascades. We also did a white water rafting trip that was amazing. I'll be at camp from June 11 until August 14 but I'll definitely be able to keep in touch.

So now I am planning on coming home in the beginning of June. I will be sad to leave Paris and Europe but I am ready to be in the wilderness all summer. From one crazy adventure to another. I think I'm doing a pretty good job of avoiding the 'real world'.

I have friends coming in town from May 14 to May 22. Jeremy Borovitz, recent graduate of the University of Michigan and future Peace Corps Volunteer, will be stopping in Paris for a few days this next week. Then, 4 of my pledge brothers are coming for 4 nights, the end of their European tour. Theo, Jaryd and Evan all came to Europe after they finished at Michigan for the semester and Marshall (who I visited in Barcelona) has been traveling for a while and will end in Paris. I'm really excited to see all of them and play tour guide again...but I think I won't cram so much into each day this time.

Friday night I went to dinner with a bunch of my friends at a really good Moroccan restaurant. We didn't sit down until 11:45 but had a really fun dinner. I went to another concert after that and went home a little early (early being 3:30) and fell asleep.

Saturday was very relaxing. It was rainy all day so I got a bunch of studying done, sent a few e-mails, caught up on the Office, and just relaxed. My roommate's parents were in town for the day (Justin's mom is a flight attendant and his Dad came with for her trip to Paris) so we went out to lunch. It was fun to meet them; they were very nice. At about 6:00, the weather suddenly cleared up and it was sunny and beautiful! I cooked dinner with my friend Chris - pasta with veggies, chicken, and sausage - and we had a few bottles of wine, with our other friends Will and John.

We all went to this bridge is Paris called Pont des Arts. It's one bridge west of the Pont Neuf and looks out at the Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame (or the Eiffel Tower from the other view). A lot of Parisiens hang out there at night, drinking wine and relaxing with their friends. We met up with our French friends, a group of girls our age who are studying in Paris. We've hung out with them a lot the past few weeks. They'll meet us at bars, come over to our apartments, etc. They're very funny and we pretty much always speak French. We hung out with them at the bridge and some of our American girl friends came too. It was one of my favorite nights in Paris! How can you not be happy when you're surrounded by great people and the most amazing views. You're drinking wine on the Seine! It was a clear, beautiful night and we all just really enjoyed ourselves.

Today is Sunday. I woke up and went to the local market. I bought the most amazing baguette, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and cheese. I made myself a great breakfast: an omelette with spinach, mushrooms and onions; an orange, and bread with jam. Its not that warm out but very nice and sunny. I think I'm going to go for a run in a few minutes, then dinner tonight with Hillary and Carrie August, and presumably Pierre (Hillary's boyfriend).

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY Mom (and Nonnie and Mamo and all the other mother's out there). Miss you all and will hopefully be able to talk to you sooner than originally expected!

Back to Reality

2009-05-06T06:54:00.003-05:00

Now that I'm back in Paris, I can finally get on a real schedule.

The return of Monday night "family" dinners - made burgers yesterday and mexican salad a week ago
The return of French class and the dreaded 8:30 am phonetics. Homework.
The return of lectures. Art History teacher is just the most boring woman alive, literally, and learned about the French Justice system in my Current Events class - really interesting.
The return of a computer! Catching up on E-mails. The long process of updating my blog (sorry!)

Catching up with all my friends and their spring break adventures.
Realizing that I don't have much time left in Paris and getting serious about my "To-Do" List, which includes:
- L'Orangerie (Monet's Water Lily paintings)
- Versailles Gardens (I was there in winter, definitely not the full experience)
- Normandie
- Musée Carnavalet (which I just did yesterday, Tuesday, May 5. It was decent, really cool paintings and models of what Paris used to look like and a lot of artifacts without much, if any, explanation)
- Palais de Tokyo
- Opera House
- Visit each arrondisement (I still need to get to the 16th and the 19th)

This past weekend, friends from Florence came to Paris to visit. My friend Marc Kovarsky from high school, Josh Keller (from Deerfield), and 2 of their friends from Florence (who both go to Indiana) arrived in Paris at midnight on Thursday night. I played tour guide for the weekend. Friday was the French Labor Day. Nobody works (and if you do, you get paid double), and the socialists and leftists have huge rallies. NOTHING was open, not the Louvre, not the Pompidou, not the department stores, only tiny shops and restaurants for the tourists.

Friday:
This is the day that I led my friends on. It was pretty nuts, but a great way to see Paris when no museums are open and its 70 degrees and sunny!
Aaron's Exhausting Tour of Paris:
1) See the outside of Pompidou (and realize that every museum in the city is closed)
2) Lunch at L'As du Falafel (best falafel in the world, Lenny Kravitz's favorite place)
3) Bought some sunglasses in the Marais because I lost mine in Barcelona
4) Place des Vosges - oldest royal square in Paris, absolutely gorgeous!
5) Notre Dame: walked along the Seine until the Ile de la Cité, saw the outside of Notre Dame
6) See where Aaron takes classes, at 6 rue de Fouarre, on the left bank right across from Notre Dame
7) Walk up the huge hill to the Parthenon. I have to run up this hill every Wedensday and Thursday to get from my grammar class to my lecture
8) Pass a Socialist Party rally on Rue St. Michel near the Sorbonne
9) Relax in Jardin de Luxembourg: beautiful fountains, kids playing with boats, free chairs for everyone, a giant gold head
10) Metro to La Tour Eiffel: Get off at Metro La Motte-Piquet Grenelle and walk to the beginning of the Champ de Mars for the dramatic view of the tower. Gorgeous! Take pictures from underneath. Don't even think about going up because the line is 3 hours long.
11) Get frozen yogurt!
12) Saunter over to the Trocadero to gaze at the giant asparagus (aka the Eiffel Tower) in its full glory
13) Use the gross (but free) bathroom at the Metro Trocadero and witness a verbal fight between an Asian man and a African woman
14) Metro to Arc de Triomphe, walk around the base. DON'T RUN ACROSS L'ETOILE! Use the underground walkway.
15) Take the metro back to Glacière and sit in silence because you are amazed by everything you just saw in only 6 hours
16) Shower, get dressed, go to Sacre Coeur. Drink some beers on the steps of Sacre Coeur and listen to the crazy drummers. Great view of Paris at sunset.
17) DINNER (it's only 10 pm, early!) Le Refuge des Fondues - meat and cheese fondue with wine out of baby bottles. yes, baby bottles. Great appetizers, sangria, fun meal, sit next to strangers at a long table. Sat next to "Cosette" from the French Les Mis!
18) Run to see the Moulin Rouge! Stand on top of a vent that blows air and makes you feel like you're flying while you take pictures
19) Metro to Batofar (the club on a tugboat). Wander around the boat, up and down ladders, holding a beer, and being very confused that you're ON A BOAT!
20) Realize you are utterly exhausted and leaving for bed.

That was Friday.

Saturday:
Took it a little easier today. The Louvre in the morning. Free entrance for some reason! Saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and Nike statue, and jetted. We didn't really have the patience for a hardcore museum visit. We bought sandwiches on Rue Rivoli and at them in the Jardin des Tuileries. Walked from there to the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Grand Palais. Definitely happy to have bought tickets online beforehand. It was my second visit to the exhibit but it was still amazing. We walked around the Champs-Elysée after Warhol and decided to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. It is really one of my favorite places in Paris. Much nicer environment to see Paris than the top of the Eiffel Tower. Took a bunch of pictures, took in the view of the main boulevards now that the trees had bloomed. This weekend was so gorgeous because there were flowers on all of the trees and everything was blooming. Tried to find a Longchamps store on the Champs-Elysée for the girls but couldn't find anything. We went back to my apartment for a little cheese and wine tasting that was great. Then the girls went to their hostel to shower and we showered in my apartment. For dinner, we went to a restaurant on my street called l'Alouette. It's a great, basic French restaurant and we all really liked the food, or at least I did! We had an appetizer of salmon tartare that was amazing. We had a long dinner that was really fun and came back to my apartment afterwards. That night, we went to a club called Duplex but on the way there, we got off the Metro at the Eiffel Tower. We stood on the Trocadero and watched the Eiffel Tower at night, all lit up. Then at 1 am, it started sparkling for 5 minutes and then shut off. It is hokey but so much fun and so pretty to see it at night. We went to this club, which was a lot of fun, and went home. I proceeded to make a full meal for my friends: Grilled chicken, sautéed mushrooms and spinach, and pasta. We watched the Bulls game on my computer. Even though they lost, we still had a great night.

Marc and Josh woke up early the next morning and headed to the airport and I went back to sleep. I had a great weekend with my visitors and it was really fun showing people around Paris. We crammed in a lot during the weekend. My one regret, for them, is that they didn't see Musée d'Orsay or Pompidou but everyone needs an excuse to come back to Paris so it's ok.

Sunday afternoon, I went to Hôtel des Invalides with my friend John. We saw Napoleon's Tomb, which is the most ostentatious, memorable monument to a dead person I've ever seen. He is buried under a HUGE gold dome that stands out in the Paris skyline in a monsterous sarcophogus. In the rotunda surrounding his tomb are sculptures detailing all the contributions he made to society, comparing them to Greek and Roman feats. Napoleon will definitely be remembered for a long, long time!

We then spent about 3 hours in the adjacent Musée de l'Armée, which is also in the Hôtel des Invalides compound. Hôtel des Invalides is an old army hospital built by Louis XIV. We went through an exhibit detailing France's involvement in the first and second world wars. It was so interesting - a great museum with old weapons, uniforms, and cars. There were videos explaining different phases of the wars. There were maps showing how the front lines changed and who was on what side. I highly recommend this museum for anyone visiting Paris. It was a lot of history to try and retain but it was so interesting.

Last night (Tuesday), I had dinner with a friend from Chicago. We went to a great restaurant near Metro République called Café Crème. After dinner, I met my friends at our regular Tuesday night bar, the Hideout, for my friend Chris' 21st birthday. We all had a great time, of course. How could we not? We're in Paris!

Now I'm FINALLY all caught up with my blog. I swear I won't let it get so behind anymore. No update yet on summer plans...but I'll let you all know as soon as I do!

A bientôt!

Spring Break: Avignon

2009-05-04T10:17:00.004-05:00

Final Stop. I bet you all were wondering when it would end!

Thursday:
I decided to stop in Avignon for 2 nights on my way back to Paris. Avignon is in the Provence region of France. It's a really old town that's surrounded by a medieval wall. I pulled into Avignon at about 4 pm on Thursday and walked right to the Tourism Office. They directed me to a hostel on an island in the Rhone River, which borders Avignon. It was about a 15 minute walk from the center of town. As I walked there, through the windy streets with old beautiful buildings and mansions, I had no idea what to expect of the town. All I knew was that there was a big castle there and a bridge. I checked into the hostel. It was pretty gross. There were 2 of us in a room for 8. The room smelled disgusting, like stale cigarette smoke from the original Marlboro Man. But it was fine, especially at 16 euro a night with a pretty good breakfast included. I put my stuff in the room, showered (because I was pretty gross after a 7 hour European bus ride), and walked into town.

Avignon was gorgeous! I had to walk across a big bridge to get to town. The Rhone was picturesque. There is this really old Bridge, the Pont de Saint Benezet (also known as the Pont d'Avignon), that used to go across the entire Rhone but now has only 4 arches left. It's kind of like the Bridge to Nowhere, for all of you who follow Alaska politics. Then there is this huge castle and church and some beautiful gardens up on a hill. I just wandered around for a while. It was really windy (the mistral winds blow in from the Alps and are always wisking away people's hats in Provence). I walked around the gardens for a while, looking out into the Rhone valley and at the town. Then I walked by the Palais des Papes and the main church. I walked through a good chunk of the town, just exploring. I found a restaurant for dinner and had a really good salad with all different types of foie gras and duck liver. I talked to the restuarant owner for a while. The town seemed pretty quiet considering all the restaurants that were open. Most places were empty or closed! He said that everyone is eating at home. Also, restaurants have to add a 19.6% tax to their food prices so a lot of people have stopped eating out. The French government is lowering the tax in a month or so because it's had such a negative impact. I loved being in Avignon though because I could really speak French to everyone I met. After dinner, I walked back to the hostel. There, I met my roommate for the night, Mr. Larson. Mr. Larson was a 65/70 year old guy who was biking around Europe for about 4 months. He was one week into his trip. He was a pretty interesting guy who talked A LOT. He kept me up for a long time, making me drink really bad wine he kept in a plastic water bottle, and telling me about how revolutionary it was that he could photocopy his thesis paper when he was in college. hahah, it was pretty funny though. I went to bed that night and tried not to breathe in the disgusting air.

Friday:
Woke up around 9. Had breakfast at the hostel: une petite baguette, un pain au chocolat, une bouteille d'eau et une banane. Not too shabby for being included in the price of my room (which was only 16 euro). I walked into town and met at the Tourism Office for a walking tour of Avignon. There were only 4 people on the tour, including me. A woman from Virginia and a couple from Washington D.C. Our tour guide was this funny French woman with really out there 'purple-red' hair. She had to walk really slowly because she was pretty large. She was a very jolly French woman. Her english was fine and she took us around the streets of Avignon, pointing out architectural styles, telling us the history of certain churches and squares, and telling us about the spirit of Avignon. It's a great little town, a cultural center in the South of France with a lot of artists. Every July, they have a theatre festival in the town and people just put on shows everywhere! We walked by the synagogue in Avignon at Place Jerusalem. There's a decent Jewish community and the temple is still in use. The Jews were protected by the Popes in Avignon because of their religiousness.

After the tour, I walked around some more and found an internet café to book my ticket back to Paris. I found a 10 am train the next morning that got me into Paris around 1. I toured the Palais des Papes after that. It was a huge castle where the Popes lived. For about 100 years in the 13th and 14th Century, the Popes left Rome and came to Avignon. Rome was too politcally unstable and dangerous so they temporarliy relocated to the South of France. The Vatican bought the entire town of Avignon, built a wall around it, and built it up. This brought a lot of people to Avignon, intellectuals and traders, etc. After Rome calmed down, they tried to persuade the Popes to come back to Italy. The Popes of Avignon were all French and didn't want to leave France. There was a schism in the Catholic Church for a while and there were 2 popes at the same time, one in Avignon and one in Rome. The Palace was really really cool. The audioguide was great, the churches and dining rooms were elaborate for the time and there were picturesque gardens in the courtyards. It was a huge complex! The roof was amazing, with paths walking around the castle and a spectacular view of the Rhone and the town of Avignon. After spending an hour and a half or so in the Palace, I went to the synagogue. It was supposed to be open from 3 - 5 but because it was Shabbat, I guess they were closed. I was a little disappointed, I missed the synagogues in Florence and in Avignon. I decided to go to the Pont Saint Benezet after that. This bridge was built when a 17 year old shephard came to the town and said he received instructions from God to build a bridge across the Rhone. Everyone laughed at him but then he picked up a huge rock, showing that his mandate really did come from God. The bridge spanned the Rhone, with 22 huge arches. Dangerous floods have destroyed most of the arches but 4 remain. It is so windy on the bridge! There are signs telling parents to hold on to their children! There is also a famous French children's song called "Sur le Pont d'Avignon" about dancing on the bridge. It's supposed to be "sous" le pont (which is under the bridge, instead of on the bridge, because people would have parties on the island where my hostel was right underneath the bridge. The bridge was very cool and I learned a lot about the history of the region and of Avignon.

I trekked back to my hostel and went for a run on the island. I jogged along the Rhone, passing by all of these house boats that were docked to the island. It kind of reminded me of Louisiana or something with boats in the swamps...a little creepy. But the weather was perfect. I came back, showered, and read on the banks of the Rhone. Around 8:30/9:00, I went into town to find a restaurant. I found one that looked pretty good and asked for a table for one. They seemed a little creeped out and didn't have any actual tables but they put me at a table in the bar that's usually used for people who are just drinking. So I was sitting at this table, alone, while people were getting drinks before they sat down. It was sort of awkward. But, this restaurant was worth it. I wish I had taken down the name because it was really good! The waiter was really nice to me. I ordered a cassoulet for an appetizer and he asked if I was sure. I've had cassoulet before, a mixture of white beans, sauces and meats, kind of like a stew, and I really liked it. He told me this was different, that it was fish. I figured I'd just go with it - and I made the right choice. I think this appetizer was my favorite dish of spring break. It was kind of like a purée of fish with a crusted layer on top in a bowl. It was delicious! I had steak and vegetables for my main course, along with some red wine. After dinner, I walked home and talked to my mom on the phone, read, and went to sleep.

Although it was pretty odd traveling alone (and eating alone), I was really glad that I went to Avignon instead of just staying in Barcelona. I love speaking French and being in a small town like that really forced me to speak French. Most people speak English but they were very receptive to me speaking French. I left the next morning for Paris...the only notable thing about my journey was the AMAZING train station in Avignon. I've never seen such an aesthecially pleasing train station...very modern. It made me excited to be taking the train instead of flying or taking a bus.

Finally, I arrived in Paris for the end of my spring break extravaganza. What an amazing trip. I'm so grateful to my parents for enabling me to travel around Europe. It's such an amazing opportunity to see the world and once you start traveling, it really whets your appetite to do more. Thank you so much Mom and Dad!

Saturday night in Paris I went to this really cool club on a boat called Batofar with my roommate, his girlfriend, and some of my other friends. I did much needed laundry, caught up on homework, and just decompressed from traveling. SPRING BREAK 09. Woo. Amazing.

Spring Break: Barcelona

2009-05-04T08:58:00.003-05:00

Stop #4: Barcelona

Arrived at the Airport on Sunday evening. I took the train to Arc de Triompf and my friend Marshall picked me up there. I would be staying with him until Thursday. It was great to see Marshall – he’s the only other guy from my fraternity at Michigan studying in Europe. We walked around a really cool market right when I got there (I didn’t end up getting there until around 9) and went back to Marshall’s dorm. He lives in a private dorm that is half American abroad students and half Spanish students. They don’t really interact, which is too bad. Marshall spoke great Spanish, helping me out a lot with ordering and interacting with the locals, etc. We went to a bar that night called The George Payne. It was an Irish bar with Karaoke. We were both pretty tired so we went to bed on the earlier side.

Monday:
The next morning, Marshall didn’t have class so he gave me a tour of Barcelona. We went to Park Guell first, a Gaudi designed park. Gaudi is this amazing architect from Barcelona who designed a bunch of apartment buildings, this park, and a church in the 1920s. He died before the Church could be completed and the plans for the church were lost in the Spanish Civil War. It’s still unfinished today, but I’ll get into that a little later.

Park Guell was like a fantasy world. There were crazy caves, colorful rooftops, mosaics, windy paths lined with exotic trees, and tons of tourists. The Park was commissioned by a rich family (Guell) in a nice area for the citizens of Barcelona – or at least the rich ones. It was so much fun to walk around and there was a great view of the whole city. We went from there to Las Ramblas, the main shopping area of Barcelona. Las Ramblas had tons of street performers, little shops, and La Boqueria. That was the meat market, and they usually have crazy meats hanging all over: whole heads, whole pigs, pigs feets, pigs tongues, weird stuff. For some reason, they didn’t have much that day, but we got some great smoothies. After that, Marshall had class so I went to my friend Lauren and Becky’s apartment. We hung out there, catching up and talking about abroad for a while until Marshall was done. I’d been traveling a lot and so had Marshall so we decided to cook dinner in his dorm. A 2-week spring break does wonders to your wallet.

They go out REALLY late in Barcelona and sleep in late too. We woke up around 11 and that was pretty early. Most kids don’t have class until around 4 or 5 pm. Then they go to bars and clubs around 2 am. We went to a bar called Broad Bar on Monday night – I saw so many people I knew. Everyone from Michigan and Chicago was there. It was pretty fun but then the club got shut down by the police because they weren’t supposed to be open after 3 am. Oh well, we went home and got some sleep.

Tuesday:
In the morning, Marshall, his 2 friends from Florida, and I went to Park Cituadella. It was the old Citadel of Barcelona and a great park. There was a pond with row boats, and enormous fountain, and rolling mounds of grass. We ate sandwiches and hung out in the sun for an hour or so. The weather was amazing – about 75 and sunny! After that, Marshall and I went to the Picasso Museum. Picasso lived in Barcelona for a while. This was my third Picasso museum of abroad: the special exhibition in Paris and the Picasso Museum in Paris being the other ones. It was pretty small but really cool – he changed a lot from the beginning of his career to the end.

After that, we went to the Palau de Musica (the Opera House). It is a beautiful building with mosaics all around the outside and the theatre is supposed to be stunning. They were sold out of tours for the day and the next day! So I wouldn’t be able to see the inside. I’ll have to go back. Marshall had class at 5:45 so while he was in class, I went to one of the Gaudi apartments. It was called La Pedrara. I bought the audio guide and wandered around the apartment, the attic and the trippy roof! Gaudi was nuts but really fun and inventive. Every single room in the apartment building (which had about 20 apartments) had natural light. There were courtyards in the middle. The roof had these crazy chimneys and you were walking up and down these funny stairs. I had a great time in there. I met Marshall back at his apartment later and talked with my parents on the phone for the first time in a week or so! Usually we just use Skype but I didn’t have access to a computer over spring break. And I had been really really busy sightseeing.

We met our friends from Michigan for dinner at this place called Cerveceria Catalanya. It was a great tapas restaurant. We had amazing calamari, steak, chicken, Spanish tortillas, and of course, sangria! It was a really fun dinner and it was good to see people from Michigan. I went to dinner with Lauren Ringel, Jenna Carpel and Becky Klein. After dinner, we walked back to Marshall’s apartment. Before the bar, we went to another girl’s apartment and hung out there for a while. We went to a bar called Shoko that night – Japanese themed, on the beach. It was really cool. I saw people from Highland Park and Michigan – of course.

Wednesday:
Marshall had class almost all day so I met up with 2 friends from Paris! The three of us were all visiting Barcelona and all of our friends had class. Emily Haymer, Caitlin Goldberg and I explored Barcelona on our own for a while. We went to the Sagrada Familia, the Gaudi Church. It is enormous and so intricate. There are crazy statues everywhere on the building. We walked around there for a while and had a 3 hour, tapas lunch at an outdoor café looking at the Sagrada Familia. It was perfect. From there, we went to Park Cituadella and then to my friend Jenna's apartment. We all met back up with Marshall and our other friends and went to the FC Barcelona soccer match! We didn't have tickets but scalped some when we got there - 40 euro. The game was incredible! The stadium is huge, the fans are so into it, and the quality of soccer is top notch. FC Barcelona was playing Seville, a regional rival but no match on the field. They won 4 - 0. After the game, we went back to Marshall's apartment and went to a club called Duvet. Again, I had a great night.

Thursday morning:
Somehow, I made it out of bed and got to the bus station at 9:00 am to board the bus to Avignon. I had decided to stop somewhere in France on my way back to Paris because I really wanted to see smaller towns in France, so I pretty randomly selected Avignon. It took 7 hours on the bus to get there but I slept almost the whole way.

Barcelona was great. Fun vibe, beautiful architecture, lots to do. I would love to go back there and definitely recommend it to anyone traveling in Europe.

Spring Break: Munich

2009-04-29T11:49:00.004-05:00

Stop #3. Munich.

For my friend Marc's birthday, his friends and I were going to Munich with him. We signed up through a program that brings American students on European weekend trips. They took care of transportation, housing, and gave us a bunch of activities to do when we were in Munich. Lots of Americans!

Thursday night:

We got on the bus from Florence at 7 pm. It was a pretty nice coach bus with a bathroom and American movies. The 8 hour bus ride wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! I watched "SuperTroopers", "The Layer Cake", and some other movie that I am blanking on that was horrible...oh yeah, "Tropic Thunder". We got to our hotel in Munich around 3 am and went right to bed. I was in a room with Marc, 2 of his roommates, and 2 random guys from Penn State. But it was a nice hostel in a great location!

Friday:
Woke up at 10 in time for the free hostel breakfast. The director of the trip walked us into the main part of Munich, giving us tid bits of information along the way. There, we met Lenny, our bike tour guide for Saturday. It was sort of cold and rainy so he gave us the introduction to the bike tour (talking about the Glockenspeil, the main square, a little history of Munich) so we could have a long bike tour the next day. It was pretty interesting. Munich was the hotbed of Nazism and the city was destroyed in WWII but it is gorgeous now! There are a lot of churches and really cool, old buildings. Me and the people I was with (about 8 of us) went from there to Dachau Concentration Camp. It was about a 40 minute journey from the center of Munich to the suburb of Dachau. We then hopped on a short bus to the Concentration Camp. It was a cold, rainy, windy day and it seemed like fitting weather to visit the camp. I think it reinforced the severity of what happened there. It was chilling. The "Work Shall Set You Free" sign, the barracaks and bunks, the gas chamber that was supposedly "never used". We rented audio guides and wandered around the camp, witnessing touching memorials and gruesome accounts of life in the Concentration Camp. They had a very well done museum on the grounds that detailed life in the camps, who was there, what happened to people, etc. Most of the Jews were sent to Death Camps from Dachau. There were many other political and ethnic prisoners there as well. The Americans forced the people of Dachau to tour the camp just after liberation and see the mounds of dead bodies in the incinerators. The entire journey was very interesting and sad. Just the amount of people that came through that camp and the horrible experiments that were done. It was important for me to see it and be able to have that experience to continue to pass down.

We left the camp and made our way back to Munich. It was hard to come from that experience and continue to sight see and explore. We took a little nap/break at the hotel to 'recover'. From there, we made our way to the OktoberFest grounds to celebrate FruhlingsFest (Spring Fest). It is a huge carnival and beer festival. You walk out of the Metro and there are rides, games, carnival food, people everywhere, it's crazy. In the middle of it all is a beer hall that can fit around 5,000 people! It's completely full of picnic tables and everybody goes in there and to drink, eat amazing German food, and sing! There is a live band that plays all night. We met a bunch of people we knew at the Beer Tent and stayed there for about 4 hours, having dinner and drinking great liter beers! We meet a ton of funny people from all over the world and had an amazing night!

Saturday:
Woke up in the morning and met Lenny and his crew for our bike tour. It was Free!! Which was great for all the students. You are just expected to tip at the end, I gave 10 euro. The tour was great. Despite the fact that we were 3 groups of 30 on these California Cruiser bikes wreaking havoc on the Bavarian Capital, we were pretty discrete. We biked through a ton of historical sights in the city: The Max Palace, monuments , the place where Hitler and the German government had a standoff in the 1920's after Hitler took 3 Bavarian officials hostage! The English Gardens (a park twice the size of Central Park), and a lot of other places. We saw a man-made surfer wave in the alpine river that runs through Munich. We had lunch at the Chinese Beer Gardens - amazing food and beer. The tour provided us the perfect opportunity to really see Munich - definitely not boring! Afterward, we had a beer at the Augustine Beer Haus. There was a bachelor party there and the groom-to-be was dressed in a giant diaper and spandex. He had a list of things he needed to do during the day, and had to get everybody in the bar to sing a song about him and his fiancée. It was hilarious - people come to Munich to have a great time! We took a quick nap back at the hostel and made our way, again, to the Beer Tents at Fruhlingsfest! We had a few beers, went go-karting, slid down some giant slides, and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Then, we took Marc out to Sushi for his 21st birthday. The place we went to was actually amazing! Good sushi in Munich! We were exhausted from a long day of touring and drinking so we went to bed around midnight. Happy Birthday Marc!

Sunday:
Sunday morning, the kids from Florence all boarded their bus to go back to Italy. I was leaving from Munich for Barcelona so I had a few hours to kill before the airport. I walked from the hostel to the Pinakothec Modern Art Museum. The building is stunning, housing a design exhibit and an architecture exhibit along with the modern art. There were some great neon pieces, a whole history of Ikea and furniture design (I feel like I saw a lot of stuff that was similiar to things from my Grandparents old house in Highland Park). I never really thought of furniture as art but it was really interesting. After the museum, I made my way back to the Hostel, got my bags, and took a train to the Munich Airport, which is one of the nicest airports I have ever been in! Off to Spain!

Spring Break: Florence

2009-04-28T07:22:00.003-05:00

Traveling from Nice to Florence was not so fun. I took a 6 hour train from Nice to Milan. The Trenitalia train was probably from the 1960s, with cars of 6 people. I was sandwiched in between 2 old couples, one Italian, one German. I talked to the German couple a little bit (in French). That was when I updated my blog from a few weeks ago. I was the obnoxious American plugging away on their blackberry but when else was I going to catch up on my blogging?! The train took an hour to get through Genoa, Italy for some reason so I missed my connecting train from Milan to Florence. They have one every hour though so I just got on the next one. The train from Milan to Florence was great, very modern, with internet and comfy seats. I got off in Florence and met my friend Marc Kovarsky near the train station.

Marc is one of my best friends from high school and I was staying with him at his apartment in Florence. He is studying abroad there. We did a brief tour of some of the main spots in Florence on the way to his apartment. Florence is gorgeous and very old. There were beautiful churches and plazas everywhere. Marc lives AT the Ponteveccio! It's a really cool, old bridge where they used to sell gold and silver. Now it's a huge tourist attraction but still beautiful. We went out to dinner that night with some of his roommates and my friend Sarah Scully from high school. The food was delicious. Penne alla Vodka, Veal, Gnocchi (me and 2 other guys split our dishes). The bread and balsamic vinegar was amazing too! That night, we went to a bar called the Red Garter that was all Americans! There are a ton of Americans studying in Florence so I saw so many people from Michigan and Chicago that I knew. That night we went to a place called "Secret Kebab". It's a restaurant in Florence that isn't technically allowed to be open past a certain time but all the students know about it. They have all the lights off and if you knock on the door, a guy will bring you quickly into the back of the restaurant and make you kebabs. They were the best kebabs ever!!

Wednesday
Marc and I woke up and made our way to the bridge down river from the PonteVecchio. We had booked a Bike Tour of the Tuscan countryside with a company that my friends from Paris used. This company led you from 10 - 5 through the Chianti region on bikes. I was so excited! There were about 30 people on the tour and they drove us 30 minutes to an old Italian Villa (where a Count and Countess lived and produced wine and olive oil). We had a tasting and tour of the Villa. The olive oil was unbelievable!!! I would have bought some if I wasn't traveling with a backpack for another week and a half. We biked through the stunning countryside, through hills and valleys that were breathtaking. There was randomly a girl from Michigan on the trip! Everyone was pretty young and we all had a great time. We had an amazing lunch at a small Italian restaurant half way through the day. I had some great lasagna and great Chianti wine. The riding had been pretty easy up until this point, all down hill or flat. But after lunch, we rode for about 40 minutes until we got to a huge hill. The company offered to drive people up who didn't want to ride. About half of the people hopped in the van. Everybody else rode up the hill. They were not kidding when they said it was steep. I was the only one who made it up without having to get off and walk for part of it. It took a good 20 minutes of steep uphill climbing to get to the top. I definitely earned my free Tuscany Bike Tour water bottle! The tour took us back to the Villa and they drove us back to Florence. The entire day was just amazing. The weather was perfect, we met so many cool people, saw some amazing terrain, great food, wine and olive oil, and I really enjoyed the biking! I couldn't have asked for a better day! And, we went to get gelato afterwards !! For dinner on Wednesday, Marc, his roommate Josh, and I went to a restaurant on the river that was great. Spaghetti bolognase - perfect. That night we went to a club called Full Up. We went to a girl's apartment first that was unbelievably nice. They had a 6 bedroom apartment on the top floor of a building overlooking the Duomo. This apartment was insane...the kids in Florence live like kings. An apartment like that in Paris would cost AT LEAST 2 million euro. We had a great night though and I saw a lot of people I knew (theme of the trip, I know).

Thursday:
I woke up in the morning and did a little sightseeing on my own. Marc had an Italian quiz in one of his classes. I went to the Duomo first. Before I came to Europe, I'd been inside probablyl 3 or 4 churches. Now, I'm pretty churched out. The Duomo was very cool though, huge and intricate. Then I went to the Academia to see the Michaelangelo. I had a pass from Marc so I didn't have to pay or wait in line. The David was so great, much better than I ever expected. It's so imposing, so perfect, and it really propelled the Renaissance Movement. So the David, definitely worth seeing in person. From the David, I tried to go to the Synagogue in Florence. I saw the outside which looked amazing but it was closed for Passover! Very disappointing! I walked to the Leather Market and went to a store called Massimo's. This is where 'everybody' gets their leather jackets. I knew I wanted to buy a nice, leather jacket in Florence and I spent about an hour trying on different jackets and debating which ones I liked. The people in the store were very patient and spoke great English. I finally landed on a nice, lambs skin black leather coat that is great! Marc is bringing it to Paris for me because I didn't want to travel with it. I shopped in the markets for a leather belt too and found a nice one. Marc finished class and met me at the Leather Market. He took me, with Stephanie Raskin (*who I shared my Bar Mitzvah with) to a great sandwich place called Antico. The food in Florence is great! We went to the Leather School after that, where I got my wallet engraved with my initials. We walked around more of Florence, went back to Marc's, and packed for MUNICH! (NEXT POST)

Spring Break: French Riviera

2009-04-28T06:47:00.002-05:00

First destination of Spring Break: The French Riviera

Saturday:
Vic and I woke up at 4:30 am to make the first RER train to the airport. We had to walk to Denfert-Rocherau because the Metro wasn't running yet. We barely made the RER, an ominous sign. Everything was running smoothly, we were hitting all the necessary stops, and I was not nervous at all about having to check my bags. Until, that is, the train suddenly stopped at a stop in the suburbs. The P.A. told us that the line was being worked on and we all had to get off and take a bus. That's it. No warning before saying "This line stops at X". So 300 people scurried from the train to the bus stop at the train station, where of course, there were no buses. None. 300 people, 5:30 in the morning, middle of nowhere, no taxis, stranded. There was nothing to do but wait and say, "Well, that's France!" Finally a bus came. All 300 people ran to get on it. It was a mob! I could have jumped on but Vic was behind me and it was a mad-house so we decided to wait. Another bus came but it wasn't going to the airport and refused to take us there. Then an empty bus came and we jumped on and demanded he take us to the airport. He was going to do it to, until a man in a backpack came on to the bus and said "I'm on the phone with the director of the RER. He said a train is coming now to take us to the airport!" So we were a little skeptical of this man with the backpack, but finally obliged and got off the bus and a train came 2 seconds later. We ran to get on and it took us to the airport! Just a little detour.

I had to check bags so I got in line...a very long line. An Air France employee asked me if I had already gotten my boarding pass and I said yes. He said, "come with me, we're starting a new line" so I got to check my bags first at a different counter. I definitely would have missed my flight otherwise. I passed out for the entire plane ride from Paris to Nice. We arrived in Nice, took a bus into town, checked into our hotel, and passed out for a few hours. We had only gotten 2.5 hours of sleep the night before and had a stressful morning. When we woke up, we had lunch and made our way to the Marc Chagall Museum in Nice. The museum was incredible, a collection of his biblical paintings and stained glass windows. I really loved his colors and hidden messages throughout. I bought a book from the museum about all the paintings in the exhibit. Chagall spent a lot of time in Nice and donated many paintings to the museum. We explored the city after that, walking around Vieux Nice, getting some great gelato, just taking in the glory of the French Riviera. Place Masséna, the center of the tourist area, was beautiful. Colorful buildings, huge streets, fun performers (and some weird ones, like a guy dancing like Michael Jackson to no music). That night we had moules frites (mussels and fries) in Vieux Nice and went to bed on the early side because we were so exhausted.

Sunday:
In the morning, Vic and I visited the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The building itself was really cool, with a garden on the roof that overlooked the Mediterranean. We saw some American pop art, some crazy lines on canvases (sometimes I love Contemporary Art, sometimes I just don't get it), some really cool mirrors and neon lights, etc. I liked the museum a lot. From there, we went to the train station and took the train to Eze, a small village in the Maritime Alps. Built up in the 12th century, it's main fortresses and streets are still preserved today. The train got us to the main station by the coast at 2:05. The bus from the train station to Eze Village left at 1:55. It makes no sense. So we had to call a taxi to drive us 20 minutes up to Eze Village. We shared the cab with a Russian-American who was really odd. I asked her if she was in France on vacation. She answered, "Something like that". She said she'd also been to Eze many times, which is sort of odd because it's a tiny village. Oh well, I didn't ask questions. We had amazing pizza at a restaurant hanging over a cliff and then explored the town. We wandered through tiny streets, up hills, and into really cool stone buildings. This town was built into the mountain side. We spent about an hour and a half wandering around before we took the bus back down and arrived just in time for our train back to Nice. After a short nap, we met my friend Chelsey (who I saw in London) and her friends for dinner in Vieux Nice. It was Easter so the town was really empty but we had a great time. There weren't really any bars open so we went to bed after dinner.

Monday:
Left our hotel around 10:30, took the train to Cannes. We wandered up and down the beach in Cannes for a while and found a nice beach to set up at. All the nice beaches there are private so we had to pay for a chair and towels. It was really nice. The weather was perfect, about 75 and sunny! We spent a few hours laying on the beach, reading and napping. Cannes was glamorous, nice shops everywhere and gorgeous hotels. I'm sure they were all very expensive. We walked away from the beach for lunch, figuring it would be cheaper. It wasn't cheap but I'm sure it was better than it could have been. From Cannes we got back on the train and went to Antibes (closer to Nice). Antibes was gorgeous. We walked along the shore through the old ramparts. They had a beautiful area for markets and shops and harbor with amazing boats. We stopped and had a drink on the beach and just kept exploring the area. Around 5, we headed back to Nice. Vic and I went for a run on the promenade in Nice, with perfect weather. Breezy, warm, still light out, it was a great end to a great day. That night we had dinner, again in old Nice, outside. It got pretty chilly and we went to a bar afterwards. We met some other American girls who were there on vacation and hung out with them for a while. Then we stopped at a casino on our way back to our hotel, played a little bit of roulette, didn't win anything, and went to bed.

The next day, I jumped on a train to Florence and Vic went back to the States. Nice and the French Riviera was so relaxing and beautiful. It was a different pace of life than Paris. Nice was pretty touristy but I really loved Antibes. Everybody was relaxing on the beach, enjoying life. There were so many Italians in the French Riviera! I guess it was Easter weekend so a lot of people were traveling. A great start to a great spring break. I had a really fun time with Vic, we could speak French to each other and to locals. The woman at the tourists office thought we were German (any time people don't automatically know you're American, it's a compliment to your French skills, haha). Nice and surrounding areas were beautiful and relaxing.

Paris with the Family

2009-04-27T07:04:00.002-05:00

Now it was my turn to play host. Alana, my parents and I got to Paris Sunday night. We got our luggage and headed for the RER (suburban train to take you to the city). The RER, which is always an experience (to be elaborated on when I talk about spring break), took a long time because it just kept randomly stopping. Bienvenue à la France!

We didn't get to our hotel until late (The Mariott Rive Gauche) and had dinner at some weird chain restaurant called The Apollo that was open late on a Sunday night. When my Dad stayed at this hotel in February, we made friends with Florence, the friendly concierge. Well of course, she was there again when we arrived so my Dad had to talk with her for a while. She was nice though. After dinner, I ran back to my apartment to get some clothes and toiletries, etc. because I was going to share a room with Alana for the week. It was great to sleep in a hotel bed and have a hotel shower (that should tell you about the conditions of my apartment). We all went to bed.

Monday
I woke up for 10 am class and my family had the morning to sleep in. My mom and I made a schedule for the week on the plane from London to Paris. They were supposed to see Notre Dame and then meet me there. Well, I hadn't accounted for the sudden influx of tourists to the city. I guess April is the start of the long, swarming tourist season. I usually walk by Notre Dame to go to class and I can pop in for ten minutes and then keep going. Now, there is a 2 hour line to get in! So they didn't go inside, that's oK. I met them after class and we went to a restaurant called "Entrecôte". It's a classic - highly recommended if you go to Paris. We sat outside, with gorgeousss weather, and ate our steak-frites with delicious sauce while drinking the house wine. Finally, good food again! The parents loved it, Alana too. We made a quick stop at La Durée afterwards, a famous macaroon shop. These aren't your passover macaroons, mind you. These are gourmet, NOT kosher, delicious macaroon cookies, called macaroons because of the paste in the middle that I guess has something to do with macaroons. We got a bunch of different flavors and figured we'd eat them by the Eiffel Tower. From there, we went to the Champs Elysée, walked down that for about 10 minutes (I find it kind of trashy and way too crowded) and went to the Arc de Triomphe. We bought tickets for the top and climbed the steep stairs to the museum. It's actually a pretty cool musuem about the history of the Arc and other Arcs around the world. It's one of the largest war momuments in France. I heard a story that some drunk soccer fans once desecrated the Arc and were deported from France! Then we went out on the top for an unbelievable view of Paris. We took lots of pictures and found all of the major landmarks. It was really cool up there! We went back down and went to the Trocadero from there. The Trocadero is this square across the river from the Eiffel Tower with the most amazing views of the tower, cool people hanging out, singing and doing roller blade tricks, and a beautiful fountain and pool. We sat on the grass there for a while, in the beautiful 70 degree weather, eating our macaroons and enjoying the view. After relaxing for a while, we bought some tickets for a boat cruise. It didn't leave for another 40 minutes so we walked around the Eiffel Tower some more, going underneath in and taking some pictures (of course). Our boat cruise on the Seine was amazing. There are so many amazing bridges on the river and you will never see the intricacies like you will from a boat. It was really relaxing and I actually learned a lot about Paris. After our boat cruise, and our long day of tourism (my Dad said to me, "who taught you how to travel like this?? It's exhausting" to which I replied, "There's way to much of Paris to see in 4 days!") we went to dinner in Butte aux Cailles. It's an area in the 13th and there's supposed to be a really fun restaurant there that I wanted to take my family to. They didn't accept credit cards though so we found another restaurant that was pretty good. Chez Paul was the name, in the 13th. After dinner, we went back to my apartment so I could show it to my parents. There wasn't much to show, so we went back to the hotel after that and I attempted to do some homework. Then bed.

Tuesday
Me - Class 10 - 12. Family - Musée d'Orsay. I told them not to go on Tuesday (Don't go to the Musée d'Orsay on Tuesday - the Louvre is closed on Tuesday so EVERYONE goes to the d'Orsay instead) but they didn't listen and it was packed! It's ok, I did my homework at CEA while waiting for them. We met in the Marais and went to lunch at Chez Marianne in the Jewish Quarter. It was delicious, plates full of different mediterranean delicacies. We then bought some macaroons from a Jewish Bakery around the corner. They were delicious and the place was packed with people shopping before Passover. We bought some for ourselves and some for our seder the next night. After that, my Dad and I met with the director of CEA to talk about some insurance issues if I wanted to get an internship over the summer in France. It was a great conversation and I think we figured out a game plan to keep me in France for the summer. I'll keep you posted. I went back after that to relax a little bit at the hotel while the family went to the Musée d'Art et Histoire du Judaisme. I had been there a few weeks before so I went back. I think they really liked it but its hard if you aren't very proficient in French. Dinner that night was really fun. We met our family friend Hillary August at a place called Le Louchebem in the 1st. It is an old steak house. My food was great! My mom didn't love her boeuf tartare - it's a huge slab of raw, ground up steak. Service wasn't so good and our meal took forever! But it was fun. The Metro ride home took us through Chatelet, probably the biggest and sleaziest Metro stop in Paris. My family did not like being there. There were sketchy people everywhere and the RER took a while to get there. And it smelled. Chatelet is the worst. We got home late and went to sleep.

Wednesday
Me: Class 10 - 2. Parents: Versailles. After my class, I met my friend Eric Victorson (we call him Vic). Vic was visiting me from New York for his spring break from Law School and we were traveling to Nice for the beginning of my spring break. He met me and the hotel and we went out to lunch at Alouette, this great, classic French restaurant near my apartment. We wandered around for a while and then met my family back at the hotel. We had to get dressed and meet Francois Denavit, our host for the first night of seder, at 6 pm on the Champs Elysée. I had emailed the French American Congregation in Paris a few weeks ago to see if they could set us up with a family for seder. They found us a family in Fourqeaux, a suburb of Paris. It was a Jewish American woman who married a French man. Their kids grew up learning French and English and went to an American school. We took the RER A, which is 300 times nicer than the RER B (presumably because it goes to the ritzier suburbs) and got picked up by Gillian (the American woman) and driven to their charming house in Fourqueax. We had a wonderful seder with them, my Dad leading because Gillian wasn't exactly sure how to lead the seder. The food was great and it was really fun having a seder in France, even if we unwittingly broke it before it even began. Our first cup of wine was champagne, which has yeast in it. Nobody thought about that until our way home! We had a great time though and got home pretty late. Vic stayed at my apartment and I stayed at the hotel with Alana.

Thursday:
Me: Class 10 - 2. Family: Louvre, Jardin de Tuileries. After class, I finally had some ice cream! (I'd been craving it since London and hadn't gotten a chance to eat it). Then I met my parents at the Centre Pompidou (museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) and we saw two great exhibits. The first was on Kandinsky, the Russian artist, and it was unbelievable. It was packed because it had just opened the day before. Next we saw the Alexander Calder exhibit which we loved. There were all there wire portraits of people from the '20s and his famous "Circus" which was a moving, continuous scene of a circus. Calder was really really great. We spent so much time there that we didn't even make it to the permenant exhibit...oh well, they'll have to come back to Paris! We went from there to Rue Moufftard so my parents could do some shopping and see my local market. My roommate Justin met us for a beer and Vic did too. I had to run back to the hotel so I could register for classes for the Fall at Michigan. 45 minutes later, everyone else came to the hotel and we went to a friend of my Dad's, Jack Siler's, house. He lived in a really cool house in the 14th and we had drinks there on his patio. Then we went to a very fun restaurant in the 14th that Jack used to go to when he was younger. I am completely blanking on the name but I had great lamb curry and it was a fun atmosphere. Again, another late dinner, another night right to bed. My parents and sister were leaving the next morning.

Friday:
Morning, family left for the airport/states. I had class 10 - 12. I'm glad I went because we actually did a lot and got a lot of homework! After class, I went back to the hotel and picked up all my stuff to bring back to my aparment. Goodbye comfy bed and nice shower! Vic and I went to lunch at a cafe near my house that was great. I had a delicious omelette...they have great omelettes in France. I got a haircut after that and Vic and I packed for our trip to Nice the next day. We then walked around the Ile de la Cité and the Ile St. Louis (the two islands on the Seine) before going to Vic's friends house for dinner. He was friends with a girl from law school who lives in Paris and she invited us for Shabbat dinner at her house. We took the Metro to the suburbs and then a bus to her house. Her parents didn't speak English so Vic and I spoke French the whole night. It was really fun but tiring. We had great food (kosher for passover) and it was really fun talking with this French family. They asked us to do an American's version of a French accent so I spoke English with a "french" accent and they spoke French with an "American" accent. It was hilarious. I heard some funny but not exactly PC french jokes. We didn't end up getting home until 2 am!

Next post: SPRING BREAK!

London

2009-04-19T09:49:00.001-05:00

April - my most adventurous month. Lots of travel, visitors, etc.

My first trip was to London. I left Thursday after class, taking the Eurostar through the Chunnel! I was surprised by how time we were above land - I always just figured we'd be underground the whole time when it was really only about 20 minutes. I sat next to a 24 year old French guy named Cedric. We talked the whole train ride, switching off between French and English. He works for the French Federation of Poker - a really sweet job. Then we were headed in the same direction so we shared a cab from the train station. The cabs in London were so cool! Like mini limos, spacious and nice. I checked into my hotel (Thursday night I was staying with my friends who were also visiting London) and met my friends Tanya and Bela for drinks. They both go to Michigan but are studying in London at UCL. It was really fun seeing them and hearing about their abroad experience. Then my friend from high school Chelsey met up with us (also studying in London) and the four of us went to dinner - Indian food. I have definately learned to love Indian food in the past year or so. It was very good. Then we went to this big bar in the center of London called O'Neils which was really fun - live music, 4 stories, a great time. By the time I got back to the hotel, my friend Marc and 2 of his roommates had finally gotten into London from Florence and we went to bed when they got there.

My family arrived in London at about 7:30 am Friday morning. Sarah had surprised my mom and sister and came to London for the weekend! She couldn't stay the whole trip because she had school but was able to come for the London weekend. So the whole Miller family was reunited! Friday morning I woke up and walked to where my family was staying - the Shane's apartment! My dad's first cousin Dan and his wife live in London (Chelsea area) so we stayed with them. Luckily it was only 10 minutes from my hotel. My sisters were sleeping after the long flight with the odd time change. It was great to see Dan and Deb. They had an unbelievable view from their apartment and some cool neighbors: Ringo Starr and a former lady-in-waiting for the Queen. We had some unbelievable Lebanese food for lunch - carry in. It was nice to be in a real apartment for once. After my family awoke from their slumbers, we finally started to explore London. On Friday we saw Westminster Abbey (so much cooler than I ever thought it would be), took a ride on the London Eye, ate some bland British food, and got to ride the Tube (which I call the Metro for Midgets - the walls curve in so you feel like you're going to hit the ceiling). I was not a huge fan of the fish and chips, peas, and potatoes. They were OK. I was also still sick and couldn't really taste anything. We also tried to take pictures next to the Guards at some official building. They told us not to come too close to them. They probably hate tourists. That evening, we all went on a 'Jack the Ripper' tour of London which was very cool. Our guide was so strange but knew a boat-load about Jack the Ripper. We went to the sites of his murders, learned about the rivalries between the actual town of London (which officially is a really small area in the center) and its neighbors (i.e. Chelsea), and saw where the Prostitutes that "Jack" murdered hung out. It was a very entertaining 2-hour tour and the city was really cool. Everyone was exhausted so we went to bed pretty early that night.

Saturday in London. Woke up slowly and didn't get out until a little later than planned. I had hot-cross buns though! I didn't know they actually existed! We walked through Green Park which was gorgeous. London has some really great gardens, huge gardens! The weather was perfect and we stumbled upon the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. We watched for 5 minutes and then left. It was pretty cool, pretty crowded, but definitely not worth watching the entire 2 hour ceremony. I guess we walked in an area that we weren't supposed to and a British police officer on a horse asked us to move, very politely, and explained to us why he had to ask us to move. It was very British. I saw so many cool cars in London. Everywhere you looked were Porches, Maseratis, Range Rovers, and Bentleys. I don't know how they have that much money but the town was literally infested with luxury vehicles. We then went to the War Rooms, where Churchill and his War Cabinet lived during WWII when London was under siege from the Germans. It happened to be the 25th Anniversery of the opening of the museum and it was basically free! We did the audio tour and it was really cool and interesting. Churchill is someone I really didn't know much about but he's a very interesting political figure. After the War Rooms, we had lunch at an English Pub. It was funny because my Dad told us at lunch, "I'm not going to eat that much at lunch because we're having dinner soon", which translates into "You shouldn't eat that much because you're going to have dinner soon." It was very fun to be back with my entire family again. I know we walked through Picadilly Circus at some point, but I can't remember when.

Next stop was London Bridge, which was actually Tower Bridge. Deb was walking us to what she thought was London Bridge and was very confused by the map because the streets weren't matching up. I had heard that Tower Bridge is the really cool one that everybody thinks is London Bridge so I told her that and finally we all realized that we were going to Tower Bridge and London Bridge was the one next to it. Tower Bridge was great though, really cool and imposing. The weather was just amazing in London and the city was really clean and fun to see. I had no expectations for London and I was very pleasently surprised (except for the British food - they have great ethnic food (Indian, Italian, Meditteranean, anything but British). We walked across the Bridge to the Tower of London. Wow. Definitely my favorite place in London. It's huge! In the middle of a bustling metropolis, very old, and gorgeous. We only had about an hour before we had to go back and get ready for dinner so it was a rushed visit. We started walking around and then my father saw that some people had audio guides. He insisted that we go get some, even though we just wanted to walk around. Ok, fine, we got some audio guides. Then, nobody could figure out how they worked except for me. My mom was very confused. So I was the only one who could really listen to the audioguide. The English were really into torture and they imprisoned and tortured a ton of people throughout their history. The grounds of this fortress were beautiful and the old towers and castles were really interesting to see. Then we saw the Queen Jewels. They had an exhibit that displays all of the materials used in the coronation process in England. The scepters, the crowns, the capes, everything. They were all amazing, very shiny and huuuuge diamonds and rubies, etc. They also had video footage of Queen Elizabeth's coronation in the '50s. Very cool.

Ok, we were running late and something was wrong with the Tube that weekend. Thoughts on the Tube: Very clean, nice British people telling you to "Mind the Gap", Really far underground, pretty efficient, good customer service. But, WHY WOULD YOU SHUT DOWN HALF OF THE SYSTEM ON A WEEKEND! It was impossible to get around the city because they closed down so many lines! We took some sweet London cabs back to the Shane's apartment and changed for dinner. My friend Marc, who was visiting London at the same time, came to dinner with us. We were celebrating my parents 25th anniversary and we went to a fun Italian restaurant. The food was excellent and we had a really fun meal. It was great that my sister Sarah came out to London for the weekend and we could have the entire family together. That night, I went to a pub with Sarah, Marc, my friend Chelsey and some other people. It was NCAA basketball time and we watched part of the Michigan State - UConn game. It was a pretty calm night and we got back around 2. Sarah and I tried to get back into the apartment (after getting the key from the doorman) but could not open the door for the life of us. We hadn't dranken very much but after 5 minutes of trying to open the door, Alana came to the door from inside. Ok, good, she could open it for us. But no, she couldn't. From the inside of the apartent, she couldn't open the door! She was trapped inside, Sarah and I were trapped outside! She woke up my mom, she couldn't open the door either! Then they got my Dad. He couldn't either! We were all just cracking up. After about 15 minutes of standing in the hallway trying to get into the apartment, we finally got the door opened and went to bed. A fun night.

Sunday Morning - We had breakfast, walked through another really great park, and wandered around a cool Market for a while (of which I forget the name). We had lunch at another English Pub that was fine and watched some 'illusionist' perform for about 200 people from the restaurant's balcony. He was pretty funny. On our way back, we went to a department store in London called Fortnum & Mason, which can only be described as a mecca of fine things. They sold tea, gourmet chocolate and groceries, monogrammed flasks, hunting paraphenalia for a gentleman's office. It was fun to walk around in. Now it was time to head to the airport. We went back to the apartment, finished packing, and took a car to the airport. Sarah was dropped off at a different terminal than us to go back to the States and we went to the British Airways terminal for our flight to Paris.

London was so much fun. We did touristy stuff but it was more about just hanging out with the Shanes and my family. I had a great time and I'll definitely have to go back to London sometime soon.

short week in Paris

2009-04-19T09:33:00.000-05:00

After my Strasbourg trip, I was definitely still under the weather. I was coughing and stuffy, but I really wanted to rest up for my parents visit to Europe that weekend. I did some research on classes for my next semester at Michigan. Monday I just completely relaxed. After class Tuesday, I went to CEA to take care of some housekeeping stuff and I went shopping at the BHV after. I found a button down, a t shirt and a sweater - all on sale. The French dept.stores are huge and intimidating but it was fun to walk around in there for a while. After I got home, I met up with my friends on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was a gorgeous day and we sat, drank wine, ate foie gras and bread and cheese, and basked in the glory of Paris. We watched a pickup soccer game too and one of my friends who plays on college joined in. He borrowed my gym shoes and had a tough time sliding around on the grass. Tuesday night, I went out to dinner with my roommate Justin, his mom, and his sister. They were staying at a great rented apartment about ten minutes from our place. I was still sick so I went to bed early that night. Wednesday, april fool's day. In france, its called le poisson d'avril (april fish) and the little kids go around secretly putting fish stickers on peoples backs. I had class until 2, then went back and did Laundry and homework. That night, I went to dinner with 3 of my girl friends. We went to a really cool restaurant at Pont Neuf but I was a little disappointed with my food. One of the first times I didn't love it! We hung out at my apt for a while after that, and I packed and left for London the next day! I'll write abiout London in the next post

Strasbourg Trip

2009-04-14T05:43:00.000-05:00

CEA trip to strasbourg. saturday and Sunday March 27 & 28. Wake up: 06:30. Our train left from Paris at 8:10 am. I was much more prepared this time and made it to the station in plenty of time. we took the tgv (high-speed train) which was great. I played cards the whole way down with some of my friends. We got to Strasbourg, all 50 of us on the trip, and dropped our stuff off at our really nice hostel. I think it was made for big groups of students and it was perfect for what we needed. I was in a room with 3 of my friends from Colgate. We had lunch at some dinky sandwich shop because we didn't have much time. Then we met at the cathedral for a tour. Our tour guide, Pierre-Jean, was this funny older french man who has been taking CEA kids to Strasbourg for years. The Cathedral was great. They had this really old astronomical clock that was so intricate and cool. I'll post some pictures when I get back to Paris. After the Cathedral, we did a boat tour of Strasbourg. It was pretty fun but it was so hot and the audioguide was so soothing and we all fell asleep. But I did see the European Parliment buildings, lots of bridges, churches, cool architecture. Strasbourg has gone back and forth between the Germans and the French for centuries so it was a really cool mix of French and German architecture. After the boat tour, we had free time to wander around. There was a guy in a square who had long tables surrounding him. There were about 20 chess boards all along the tables and this man was going around playing whoever wanted to play (for free) all at the same time. He would just walk around in a square and move pieces and he always won! 2 of my friends played, and lost. Our whole group met for dinner (paid for by cea) at some huge restaurant in Strasbourg. It was a really fun meal. Chicken and Spaetzl. Spaetzl is amazing, sort of like a potatoe pasta. Dinner was festive and we all went to a bar afterwards for the rest of the night. Strasbourg was pretty sleepy but very fun.

Germany:
We woke up the next morning, had a quick breakfast at the hostel, and drove to Germany on a bus. My cold was in full force so I brought lots of tissues. We drove about 2 hours up to the mountains and Lake Titisee. It was this gorgeous alpine lake, snow all around, in the Black Forest. The Black Forest was so cool - fog everywhere, gorgeous trees, very mysterious. It was pretty chilly up there. We walked around the town for a little and had lunch there - a perfect German lunch. I really wanted sausage and sauerkraut the whole trip and finally got it at Lake Titisee. They had this quasi-grocery store where for 5€, you could get a huge sausage, sauerkraut, spaetzl and potatoes, and sour cream. It was amazing - exactly what I wanted. i couldn't even finish it! I bought some chocolate, dry sausage, and postcards (that I haven't sent yet - woops) and then we left.

The bus took us to Friedburg, Germany next - we got a tour of the city center, cathedral, bell tower, had some apple streudel, and left. It was an odd place to visit - kind of like if they took us to Naperville, IL.

Our last stop was a winery in Alsace, back in France. It was pretty cool that you can just drive over the border without being stopped or anything! Nobody looked at my passport once. I forget the name of the winery (I have it at my apt) but it was a oretty good tour. The wine wasn't great though - ok sparkling wine, baadd reisling and really bad guerstrowimer (that is spelled REALLY wrong) I didn't buy any but it was cool to actually see the vineyards in this tiny town. We went back to Strasbourg, found cheap quick dinners for the train, and then took the train back to Paris. I passed out that night, still sick and exhausted from all the traveling and running around.

missing links

2009-04-14T05:12:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long absence. Things got very hectic around here and i've been putting off the blog. I'm writing from the train on my way from Nice to Florence; so I apologize for any spelling or format errors

Let's see, I think I left off on March 23. My roomates friends were in town that week. I know I started to feel a little sick (a sore throat and cough) so I stayed in a few nights that week.

Sunday - great day. I went to the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Grand Palais with justin and his friends. It was the first time anyone had put together an exhibit on just his portraits. It was so interesting - I learned a lot about him and the pop art movement in the 70s and 80s. We spent hours in the exhibit and went home, ordered pizza, and watched a movie called "Factory Girl" about Warhol and the lifestyle of him anf his friends. It was a Warhol-filled day, but I loved it.

On Wednesday, I hung out in a café for a few hours doing homework and making a powerpoint for my french class (more on that below)

On Thursday, we went to a club called Neo where we were a group of 15 and there were only about 60 people in the whole place. But it was so much fun because a bunch of famous djs were there and it was like we had a private concert. Earlier that night I went to "Casino Night" at CEA (my program). We played fake 'roulette' and blackjack with French students. I spoke a lot of French and it was pretty funny. Not many people showed up (at least CEA students) and the staff was really appreciative that me and some of my friends came. I met some other people at an italian restaurant afterwards that was delicious. Its right near my apartment too. So thursday night was really fun.

Friday: my Foie Gras presentation!
Background: in my French class, each student has to give an oral presentation about anything that relates to France: a tourist site, an artist, a city, anything. I did mine on foie gras.

After trying to go to one store 3 times (it was closed each time), I finally found a shop that specialized in south western french foods. I bought foie gras (duck, entier) to bring into class. I made a powerpoint presentation explaining the history of foie gras, how is made, its place in French business and culture, and its controversy. it went really well - I had my classmates eat the foie gras before I explained the whole process. Basically, ducks and geese and force-fed corn and kept in cages for 3 to 4 weeks so their livers get really fat. Then they are killed. But lots of people get upset about the force feeding, where they stick a tube down the bird's throat and pump food into their stomaches 3 times a day for a few weeks. I showed a You Tube video of the process, haha. I still like foie gras - there are a lot worse things that animals are subjected to. Interestingly, the practice of gavage (force-feeding) was kept alive by the Jews because they needed the liver fat for cooking at it was neither milk nor meat so it was kosher!

Friday - after class, I went to an exhibit in Paris by David LaChapelle. He is a more modern pop artist who was reallly interesting. He does celebrity portraits like Warhol but also recreates old paintings with life size dioramas. Some of his work was pretty explicit and shocking but it was all really cool. I ate dinner at my colgate friends house that night (spaghetti, cheap and easy). We were leaving for strasbourg the next day and were NOT going to miss another trip so I went home early, packed, and went to sleep. At this point, my cough and sore throat, and now stuffiness, had worsened so I was pretty tired.

Springtime in Paris

2009-03-17T10:31:00.003-05:00

The Weather is Great!!!!!

Monday
After class, I took a nap because I was exhausted from the weekend and did my homework. A little later, I went to the Arc de Triomphe for the first time. It was pretty cool, very touristy. Then my friend Caitlin, her friend from home, and I walked to the Trocadero for an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower. The weather was amazing, about 60 degrees F, and walking through Paris on a day like that is so awe-inspiring. That night, we had dinner with my roommate Justin and our other friend Mary. Shrimp with Pinapple and coconut milk, rice, and veggies. It was great. Our dinners are so fun because we start cooking around 7, eat, clean, and just hang out drinking wine until around 11/11:30 when everyone leaves (they're basically always at my apartment). The weather is so nice now and I think it's only going to get better! It brings the city and the people to life.
Tuesday
Happy St. Patrick's Day! I had class this morning - we talked about Affirmative Action in France and in our countries. It was interesting because a lot of countries don't have to deal with that issue (Georgia, Iran, Poland) - they don't have to deal with as many racial and immigrant issues. So it was mostly the Americans, Germans and English that talked. I went out to lunch with 2 people from class today...a girl from the States and a guy from England. It's nice to have friends in the class and I hope we'll do more stuff after class - going to museums or parks or whatever. I came home after doing some grocery shopping and I'm took an hour or so to study the NCAA brackets so I could make my picks. I haven't been able to follow the whole league that well but we'll see how it goes! And now I'm updating my blog! I know we'll do something fun tonight for St. Patrick's Day. That's it for now. Miss you all.

Wednesday
Class from 8:30 to 2. Makes for a really long morning. After class, I went for a run in Jardin des Plantes. It was gorgeous out and I found a really good route. I feel a little strange running outside here. I definitely look very American in my Michigan shorts and white t-shirt. People in France run in funny things...like khakis and converse shoes. I put my facebook status as "Running in Jardin des Plantes" and I got a message when I came back from someone I worked with at Thunderbird saying that he is living in Paris and lives right by the Jardin des Plantes! It is so funny how these random connections keep popping up. So I will go have drinks with him sometime in the next few weeks. After my run, I went to my friend's dorm at Cité U (which is an international student dorm in the 14th) and we went to Sacre Coeur. We tried to make it by sunset but our timing didn't work out quite right. We got there around 7 pm so it was dark but not too dark yet. The city was all lit up and the church was beautiful. Everyone was just hanging out on the steps of the church listening to these guys who play guitar. It's basically a non-stop concert that is free (but you're supposed to tip them a little). Hanging out at Sacre Coeur was another one of those "ahh, I love Paris" moments.

After Sacre Coeur, I went to this restaurant called Le Refuge des Fondues. I went with my friend Caitlin and her friend Eliza who was visiting from the states. It's this really fun place where you sit at a long table (next to strangers) and you have meat and cheese fondue and drink wine out of baby bottles. It's a little strange at first but actually really fun. The food was great and the atmosphere was really exciting. Everyone brings their visitors to Refuge. We saw two other groups of people we knew that night, and it wasn't that cheap for fondue and wine..20 euro per person.

Thursday
After class, I got a bunch of things done on my computer: finalized my Eurail pass, booked my trip to Munich, booked a flight from Munich to Barcelona, updated my resumé. Sometimes it's hard to remember that you have to do the mundane things even when you're in Paris and just want to be exploring all the time. For dinner, my friend Michael came over (he's on a different program in Paris) and Mike, Justin and I cooked burgers. We bought the meat at a meat shop down the street and it was really delicious. After that, some of our girl friends came over and we went to a bar called LongHop to watch some of the NCAA tournament. They had the games!...but not the Michigan game. I was bummed but I had dragged all these people to the bar so I couldn't leave. I could see the constant score updates too. At the bar, I ran into Emily Scott, a girl from my neighborhood in Highland Park that I went to middle school with! We did Problem Solvers together! It was so funny seeing her in a random bar in Paris. She was visiting for spring break. I left the bar a little early and was able to watch the end of the game on my computer (cbssportsline.com has on demand for free). Michigan won! So that was a great end to a great night.

Friday
I had a quiz in phonetics...wasn't too bad. In my French class, this girl did a presentation and brought food from all these different regions of France. She kept pulling out baguettes and cheeses and madelines, etc. It was really funny and everyone loved it. I have a presentation about Foie Gras coming up this week. After French, I went to get a crepe with a girl from my class. Nutella banane, so good. I walked home after that, hung out with the girls from upstairs for a while, tried to watch some basketball (the internet wasn't really cooperating) . I went to my friend's house for dinner and then a bunch of people, probably 25 (he has a huge apartment) came over. We all went to this club called Duplex that was really fun. I had brought stuff over and slept at my friends house because we had to catch the train to Dijon the next day. He lives next to the train station where we had to meet at 8:00 am

Saturday
Alarms did not go off! 4 of us in the apartment all set alarms to wake up at 7:30 for Dijon and at 9:00, the first one of us woke up. It was pretty disappointing that we missed the trip. We had all tried to plan it so we would not miss it and it just did not work. But, it was a gorgeous day in Paris, and we had to make the most of it. We made a great breakfast: eggs, crepes and fruit. Then Johnny and John from Colgate (I was at their apartment), Holly (from Alabama) and Emily Haymer (michigan) and I went to Parc Monceau. It's supposed to be the best park in Paris. It was an unbelievable day out and the park was packed with people just lounging on the grass, having picnics, playing with their kids, etc. We just layed out in the sun for hours, walking around the park, talking, reading. It was so relaxing. I started to get a headache so we were going to get food but ended up going back home. I took a shower, made some pasta, and took a nap. I woke up feeling so much better. My roommate came back and he has two friends in town who are staying with us. We went to dinner and went to this concert for some DJ named Proxy. It was pretty fun but I ended up going home a little early because I was just really tired.

Sunday
I'm writing this from bed, everyone else in the apartment is sleeping but I think I'm gonna wake them up soon. Things to do in Paris!

Belgium

2009-03-17T09:00:00.006-05:00

This past weekend, I went on a trip to Belgium with my roommate, a girl on my program named Elise and my roommate's girlfriend, Kristen. She is studying in Prague but she surprised Justin in Brussels and spent the weekend with us (me and Elise knew she was coming).

Friday
Took the train from Paris Nord to Bruxelles Midi - One hour and 22 minutes...very easy. Once we got to Brussels, we took a cab from the train station to our Bed and Breakfast hotel, called "A Taste of Belgium". You can see the website here: A Taste of Belgium. Elise had been there before and it was so cheap! 25 euro a night per person. It was also ridiculously nice. The bedroom (we had one bedroom for the 4 of us) was three times the size of my apartment. It had a big TV and really comfy beds. The bathrooms were great too, marble counter tops, a rain shower. The owner, Jean Marc, was great. It's required to have a beer with him each night. And he gets really nice, authentic Belgian beer. Each beer has its own glass too and you can't drink it from the wrong glass. The beers we had were all made in abbeys in Belgium and were great. I've never been that into beer but this was great. They also had a dog named Olga that we played with and an unbelievable kitchen where Jean Marc and his wife, Francoise, baked us homemade bread each morning. After having our beer with Jean Marc, we took a taxi to the Grand Place in the center of Brussels. There, Kristen was waiting to surprise Justin. It was very funny seeing them reunite and it was a great surprise. It was already around 9:30 so we got a quick dinner and walked around Brussels all night, going in and out of different bars and trying different beers. It is so much cheaper than Paris, which was a great change. We met so many people too. Some college girls from Brussels, a bunch of French guys visiting for the weekend, a crew of Irish people, and more. We made a lot of friends and saw some great bars. It was a nice change from the Paris bar scene where you don't really meet that many people. Then we took a cab back to the B&B because we had to get up early the next morning for Bruges!

Saturday
Waking up around 8, we got ready pretty quickly and had our amazing breakfast with Jean Marc. He has all of these different spreads and jams for us to put on our bread. My favorite was called Speculoos. It looks like peanut butter but it tastes like gingerbread. It's amazing. Jean Marc gave me a jar to take home at the end of our stay! We took at 10:00 train to Bruges, which was really easy. It was only an hour and a half to get there. Bruges is near the coast of Belgium. It's an old trading town but a lot of the canals dried up and people left. Now they're main industry is tourism...because its pretty much the same layout as the 1400s when Bruges was very prosperous. Lots of the same buildings are still in tact, a ton of churches and abbeys and really cool streets. We wandered around for a while, climbed the bell tower to see the entire city, got fries and waffels in Maarkt Square, bought amazing chocolates (some of which were in the shape of boobs, very funny), and just enjoyed the winding roads and beautiful gardens of Bruges. In the afternoon, we went to De Halve Maan Brewery for a tour. This is the beer that has won the World Beer Cup the past two years and its made in Bruges. De Halve Maan. It was a really funny tour, going over the history of the brewery and the process of making beer. They kept trying to convince us that beer was healthy for us. They even have advertisements from the '50's, signed by doctors, that say "instead of eating meals, you should just drink beer. You'll get all the nutrients you need!" After the tour, we got our pint of Bruges Zot (The Lunatic from Bruges), which is the beer that won the World Beer Cup. It was great! Then we tried one of their other beers that was basically the same but a little stronger. The brewery was packed the entire time. They had 3 tours an hour, one in French, one in English, and one in Dutch. And each tour had about 50 people on it...they must have been raking in the dough. We wandered around more after that, going in and out of stores, finding really amazing parks and bridges, and just enjoying the nice weather. Around 6:00, we decided to go back to Brussels.

At the train station, we saw probably 100 young people dressed all in white. They were wearing crazy outfits. The girls wearing white miniskirts and boots. The guys had their faces painted, white pants, white shoes and white shirts. They told us they were going to a huge rave in Hasselt, Belgium called "Sensation White", where they have DJ's playing from 10 pm to 6 am and the only rule is that you have to be wearing white to come in. We seriously thought about going but in the end, decided that we wanted to be in Brussels and be able to wake up and see things the next day.

After getting back to the B&B, showering, and having another beer with Jean Marc, we went into town to find somewhere to eat. While searching for ATMs, which were few and far between in Brussels, we heard the sound of somebody throwing up. The 4 of us turned to see a bride, in her wedding dress, being held up by 2 other people while she violently vomitted all over the sidewalk. A woman stood on the side holding her vail. After she was done, she was carried back into a car. Definitely an odd sight. All night, we kept trying to guess what had happened to her...we'll never know! We had dinner at a Thai place that was really good and went to a few bars after that. This one place, called Delirium, was great! It had 3 levels and the walls and ceilings were covered in beer paraphenalia. Beer umbrellas, beer lights, beer bottles, beer signs. You also order beer out of a huge book and the different levels serve different types of beer. The place was packed and we met a bunch of people, some Italians, some Irish, some Belgians, some Brits...it was really fun. We had a great day in Brussels and Bruges.

Sunday
We tried to take the tram into town but got a little confused. So we had to take a taxi to the Brussels Central train station. There, we got on one of those bus - sightseeing tours. I know, it's corny, but it was a really good way to see the city because a lot of the major sites are pretty far from each other. The tour companies were fighting over who would get our business and it got pretty heated! We felt kind of awkward in the middle and finally just jumped on one. The tour was great...we sat on the top of a double decker bus and got to see all the sights in Brussels! The European Parliment, the Atomium, the Royal Palace...It was great. When we got off, we had to find some more fries. We went to Fritesland, ate our fries, then jumped in a taxi back to our B&B to get our stuff and head home. Kristen took a cab to the airport and we took the train to our main station. All of us slept on the way back. It was a great trip. Brussels was very relaxed and friendly. Bruges was so fun - gorgeous. It was a great city that you wouldn't always put on your list of places to visit but we definitely enjoyed our time there. And the B&B made it so comfortable so I definitely recommend that place if you ever go to Brussels.Sunday night, I went to a bar to watch Selection Sunday. We got there a little early and watched the Marseilles - Paris St. Germain soccer game...very intense. We walked in the bar and 75 people were silently staring at the screen. Paris lost and everyone left right after the game, very upset. But then I got to see Michigan selected for the tourney for the first time in 11 years! GO BLUE!

March

2009-03-09T12:30:00.008-05:00

This month is going by pretty quickly! Here is a recap of the first 2 weeks.

Monday, March 2 - SARAH'S (my sister) BIRTHDAY! We had our weekly Monday night dinner at our apartment. Although this week finally we realized that Monday is probably the worst day to have our dinners because all of the markets are closed and we always end up running to the supermarket. So that may change to a different night.

Tuesday night we had dinner with the girls upstairs, who are all from Colgate. There are 7 Colgate kids here (4 boys, 3 girls) that I've become pretty friendly with. We had fajitas that were great. My first time having guacamole in France! I brought beer so I went to the Franprix grocery store nearby and bought three 10 packs of beer (there were 11 of us at dinner). We opened it at their apartment and it was disgusting. It turns out I had bought a nasty lemonade with a little bit of alcohol. I need to read the labels before I make such large purchases! It was only $10 for 30 beers, so I guess that tells you about the quality.

Classes have been going well. We learned all about the history of Charles deGaulle in my "current" events class. No, not the airport, the French general and former President. French politics is very interesting...pretty crazy...but interesting. It's amazing that Sarkozy won the election because he seems so different from the general, traditional French politician. Our teacher talks a lot about the struggles he has in modernizing France so that it can actually be a part of the global economy...I think the country will change a lot in the next 5 years, if Sarkozy is successful in pushing through his reforms.

Art History was all about Delacroix. The class is OK but our teacher doesn't really talk a lot about the actual paintings and their characteristics. Still, it's good to get this background.

On Wednesday, I went out to lunch with my friend Emily and we went to the Museum of Art and History of Judaism. It's in the Marais (the Jewish quarter). It was great! I found it soo interesting. It talked about the history of Jews in Paris, Jews in France, North African Jews and their migration to France, the Shoah, etc. There were so many artifacts of ancient arks, torah dressings, megillahs (Happy Purim!) and a lot of art depicting Jewish life in Europe. I found the whole exhibit really thought provoking. I feel very seperated from actual European Jewry. As an American Jew, I haven't thought about the fact that Jews were in Europe for hundreds of years before the Holocaust. So much of our Jewish education seems to start with the Holocaust and it was great to see Jews and models of synagogues from the 1200's. There was a Jewish cemetary on the island where Notre Dame stands from 700 years ago! Pictures and stories of modern French Jews were spattered throughout the exhibit. That was also very thought provoking. There are a lot of Sephardic Jews in France, from North Africa, places like Morocco and Egypt. Their stories are great because some of them are first generation immigrants to France!

There was a temporary exhibit about the Avant Garde movement of Yiddish speaking Jews from the 1914 - 1939. It was amazing! Chagall and many other yiddish artists formed these colonies in Kiev and other places around Eastern Europe and Germany. They drew the illustrations for yiddish childrens' stories and magazines. They were facing an enormous rise in anti-semetism leading up to the Holocaust but their art and stories weren't shaped by the Holocaust, but by political movements like socialism and a modernizing Jewish community that held an affinity for Yiddish and tradition but was also becoming more integrated.

I loved the museum. We spent a lot more time in there than I thought we would, and it was a lot more comprehensive than I thought it would be. Security was pretty intense, as I guess they need to be nowadays. Knowing French definitely came in handy. There were audioguides in English but all the displays were in French and gave a lot more information.

After the museum, I went to CEA for a discussion about culture shock in France. It was ok...some of the people asked the stupidest questions. Every single girl just wanted to talk about how creepy the French guys were and why they were creepy. There are creepy people all over the world! It was funnier to hear all the stupid questions the Americans asked then to hear about French stereotypes. I had dinner at my friend from Colgate's apartment that night.

Friday I had a wine and cheese tasting at CEA. It was delicious. We had Bordeaux and Burgundy and they didn't really tell us anything about the wines. But we had 8 different types of cheeses from different areas of France that were great. I have some new favorites now: Roblochon, Ossau-Iraty, and Cantal...they're great. I met up with Allie White, a friend from Michigan who was visiting Paris from Rome. We walked around the Marais a little and back to Emily's apartment in the Bastille.

That night, we went out to dinner, the three of us and 2 other Michigan people visiting from Rome. I ordered something random off the menu, that I translated but didn't know what it meant in English. A cassolette. It was great...white bean stew with lamb and sausage. Somehow, we figured out that my dad and one of the other girls' mom (Leah Hoffheimer) went to camp together in Zionsville, IN. Such a small world! The 5 of us went out to a bar that night and met up with some other Michigan people. Very fun.

The Weekend:
CEA led an excursion/day-trip to Reims in the Champagne region. This was my second time there, and we actually ended up at the one of the same champagne houses I'd already been to! Mumm was good, for the second time. You can't ever get sick of good champagne. We went to lunch and wandered around the town on our own. Reims is a really nice town, with a lot of shops and restaurants. It was great to be there with the sun shining instead of rain like last time. We spent the afternoon in the Cathedral of Reims. It was unbelievable. All the Kings of France were crowned at this cathedral. They have been renovating it since the 1920s after it was damaged in World War I and it's almost complete. The cathedral is home to a Chagall stained-glass window showing the Old Testament and the New Testament. The stained-glass windows in the Cathedral were gorgeous. I think most people on our trip agreed that this cathedral was more impressive than Notre Dame! I guess you also feel more connected when you have a great little old French lady touring you around, giving you the history of the Cathedral, the architecture, and the town. The cathedral is supposed to be read like a book. All of the architecture, the gargoyles, the statues, etc. tell stories from the Bible. Most people couldn't read when it was built so they came to see the stories of their religion on the walls of the Cathedral and in the stained-glass windows. Here are some beautiful pictures:

Saturday night was a kid on our programs birthday so we went out to a club called Café Oz. Of course, we had a great time. Sunday I slept until 2...because I never get sleep here in Paris! Finished some homework during the day and had some friends over for dinner. It was another one of my friends' 21st birthdays Sunday night so I met up with him at this really cool bar called (in translation) "Zero to 60". It's a really small bar, very calm, and you play board games and card games there. The other draw is that all the drinks come in baby bottles. So there were about 15 of us, 21-22 year old Americans, drinking out of baby bottles while playing French children's card games. Quite a sight! But it was really fun.

Monday, March 9. On the way home, I stopped into Notre Dame, just to see how it compared to the Cathedral of Reims. I wasn't really in the mood for touristy stuff so I only stayed for 15 minutes. Both are pretty amazing though. It was Purim so I walked over to the Marais and bought some great Hamentashen from a Jewish bakery! They have more traditional flavors in France: poppy seed, chocolate, date, almond. No apricot or jelly. Since it was Monday, we were having a group dinner, again, even though the markets weren't open. I did my shopping at Champion, a really good supermarket near my apartment. I found a recipe on Epicurious.com and made it for a few people. It was really good. Broccoli Rabe, peppers and onions mixed in with Italian Sausage. We also put together a nice salad. I decided that I like cooking and it's not as hard as it seems. I just have to really follow the directions and it's fine if I mess something up.

Tuesday. I woke up and it was pouring. Weather.com also told me this would continue all day...but when I left my French class at noon, it was gorgeous. I came home and went for a run in Parc Montsouris. There were a lot of people in the park and it was a good run. It's about 3.5 miles. I haven't found anywhere else to run just yet but I'm keeping my eyes open. I did some homework, I usually have about 30 minutes to an hour each day, and caught up with some people. For dinner, I made a big salad with cut up sausage...really good. Justin, 3 guys from Colgate, and I met up at a bar called Hideout around 8. It's 2.50 euro pints for happy hour, which lasts until 9 - by far the cheapest deal I've found in Paris. We played some drinking game where you spin a quarter (in this case, a 50 centieme), take a sip, and then you have to stop the coin while it's spinning with your finger...not so easy for me. But then we watched the Real Madrid - Liverpool soccer game at the bar and a bunch of our girl friends came and met us. I really like the soccer here...everyone gets so into it. Liverpool won 4 - 0, which was a big upset, but really fun to watch.

My French class was pretty good today. We all have to do presentations throughout the semester and this girl from the US did her's about French Jazz and American Jazz. We got to listen to a bunch of jazz music, talk about where to go hear live jazz, and talk about different types of jazz. The whole class was really into it. I've been learning a lot of grammar lately so it's good when we just get to have discussion. We've also been learning about the French political system which I find really interesting. I had to try and explain the electoral college in French to my class...that was not an easy task. It also sounds so stupid and complicated when you are describing it to people who just have simple direct election. Class has definitely been good though and I think I am starting to see improvement in my language skills.

Wednesday. My lecture was canceled, which was amazing! It was such a nice, sunny day out and I was not in the mood for class. I read walked through the market and bought some great chicken filets and sweet potatoes for dinner. I made myself lunch (I've been making lunch at my apartment lately, it's a lot cheaper), and looked into some things to do in Brussels for my upcoming trip. For lunch, I always just buy a baguette and I have meats and cheese in my fridge that I buy from the grocery. That afternoon, I went to CEA for a weekly lecture series they have. The person giving the lecture was the teacher at CEA that a couple of my friends have. They all told me he was hilarious. Well, he was pretty funny, but the room was so hot and the topic of "French Gardens" really wasn't captivating my attention. It was a struggle to stay awake. I went home after and started cooking dinner. Mashed sweet potatoes, grilled veggies, and pan-fried chicken filets. I have to say I'm pretty impressed I haven't ruined any meals yet! The food was good! I had dinner with Justin and 2 of our girl friends, Caitiln and Mary. After we cleaned up, the girls left, Justin and I watched "24" on his computer and then I fell asleep right away.

Thursday: Class and lecture in the morning. I had my first quiz today, on the subjonctif and l'indicatif. Pretty easy considering we've been studying it for 2 weeks. On Thursdays, I have to run from Grammar class to my Lecture. There's another girl in my class who does the same thing so we always walk together. Her name is Marianna and she's a 27 year old from Venezuala. Her husband is studying oil engineering in France and she's here just learning French. After class, I got a chicken, cheese and mushroom crepe that was amazing. I walked around the 5th arrondisement, getting lost, and I found the "Jardin des Plantes". It's where the zoo in Paris is and it's a huge park that has tons of different plants, labeled so that you know where they are. It is gorgeous and I just walked around in there for a while. Then I walked home. On the way, I stopped at the Jewish school on my street and asked if I could speak with someone about volunteering there. They didn't really get the concept and were kind of weirded out that I just randomly came to their door asking to volunteer. But they gave me a phone number and told me to call the director of the elementary school tomorrow. Now I'm just updating the blog, finishing up some homework, and CHEERING ON MICHIGAN IN THE BIG TEN TOURNEY THAT STARTS IN A FEW HOURS! GO BLUE!

Amsterdam

2009-03-06T05:45:00.003-06:00

Amsterdam! My first real trip in Europe.

The night before I left, I went to my friend Emily's house with Johnny and Laura Lapidus. We relaxed and talked over a few bottles of wine, cheese, and baguettes. The plan was to go to the Eiffel Tower that night. Somehow, the time escaped us but we ran out, made the Metro and got to the Eiffel Tower at around 11:15 pm. Of course, we brought another bottle of wine with us. The 4 of us sat on a bench in the Champ de Mars, the huge field across from la Tour Eiffel, drinking wine and staring up at the monument. On the hour, the lights start blinking and flashing for about 5 minutes which is really cool. It was an amazing night, just to be in Paris, sitting at the Eiffel Tower, realizing how unbelievable it is that I'm here, in this city, at this point in my life. It was a lot of fun.
Now for Amsterdam, also a lot of fun! I left for the train from my friday class. For trains within the EU, there isn't really security or anything. They don't even tell you what track you're leaving from until 10 minutes before departure so it's pointless to show up early. I travelled alone because I bought my ticket kind of last minute. It was cheaper for me to get a first-class ticket for "jeunes" (tickets are cheaper for people under 26). First-class was really fun. All the chairs are really comfy and they serve you a full-course meal. And the drink cart comes by every 45 minutes with wine, beer and whatever else you could want - I stuck to wine. It was a 4 hour train ride from Paris to Amsterdam with a few stops: Brussels, Rotterdam, Antwerp. I brought everything I needed for the weekend in my messenger bag, which included my school books since I came right from class. Travel was really easy.

I walked 10 minutes from the Central Train Station to my hostel, St. Christopher's. The hostel was IN THE MIDDLE of the red light district, on Warmoesstraat! But I walked in and saw 3 people from CEA Paris which was funny, and there were a ton of other Americans. I randomly got assigned to a hostel room with my roommate and another random girl. I would think if I were a girl, traveling on my own, staying in a hostel, that I wouldn't want to be in a 3 person room with 2 boys...but I never even met this girl because I was only at the hostel to sleep and either she was asleep or we were whenever we could have met.

My old camp friend, David Dresner, is studying in Amsterdam for the semester. So he came to the hostel and walked me around the city for a while. Amsterdam is a really cool city - it's techincally below sea level and the whole place is canals. The city is built above the water. It's a beautiful city! The architecture and design makes the whole place feel very quaint. Dresner walked me down Haarlemmerstraat and showed me Leidseplein, both cool areas of Amsterdam. I love the dutch words...they're actually not that hard to say but they just look so funny. We went to his apartment, which made me so angry with my living situation. His room was as big as my apartment! And he had a really nice kitchen and living room...it looked all brand new! We ate dinner with a bunch of his friends (there are a few apartments with kids from his program in the same building). Then he walked me back to my hostel where I met up with my roommate, who had just gotten into Amsterdam, and some other people from CEA.

Red Light District
We explored the city that night. Went to some of the coffeeshops, went to a few bars, walked around the Red Light district. We went into this one bar where we must have been the only tourists, even though a huuuge percentage of the city is foreign born. Everybody looked so 'dutch'. They had their pastel colored button downs and shaggy hair and rosy cheeks. It was funny. They had good beer. The red light district was interesting...pretty shocking. You literally walk down the street and there are women in little rooms that have doors/windows facing the street. They make seductive faces to try and get you to come into their rooms. My roommate compared it to a zoo, where the women are in 'cages' and you can go 'pet' them. When the curtain is closed, that means that the woman is with a customer. I found the whole thing pretty awkward and degrading. I was with a girl walking around and she got really freaked out by the whole concept. It was also funny seeing African women in traditional robes and older tourists walking around at the same time as us. I could not imagine my grandparents touring the Red Light District at night!

The next morning we woke up and went to the Heineken Brewery. I was touring around with my roommate, my friend from Paris, Caitlin, and her friend from Barcelona, Stephanie. I'm glad it was 4 of us because it gets a little intense when you're traveling with too many people. It was about a 30 minute walk...which is all the way across the city. It's not a big city, and only around 900,000 people live there. Everyone bikes in Amsterdam! There are bike lanes on every street and bicyclists have the right of way over pedestrians and cars. They will run you over if you don't move. And people don't lock their bikes to anything. They just put a chain connecting the front wheel to the frame so you can't ride it. It's amazing how trusting they are...and that they don't have to worry so much about theft. They also have a really cool tram system that goes through the middle of the streets. People bike and drive over the tracks and then the tram will beep and they will move. I didn't use it ever because I liked walking around and nothing was really far.

Heineken Brewery
Heineken was 15 euro...which isn't that cheap -- but we did get 4 beers throughout the tour (you're only supposed to get 2 but what can I say, I'm a charmer). The tour goes through the history of Heineken, how beer is made, a tour of the beer vats, and taste tests. The marketing is intense! There is literally a room where you lay down in a chair and stare at images of Heineken around the globe and they yell words at you like, "passion, quality, taste, committment!" It's pretty funny. You walk out like a Zombie, thinking, "I love Heineken, it's the best beer in the world, Must Have Heineken!" My roommate bought Heineken beer glasses that we have in our apartment now. They also have a really funny "ride" during the tour..where there you are on a moving platform as you pretend you're a "hopp" and go through the beer making process...really funny.

After Heineken, we walked back to Leidseplein to meet some other people from Paris and Barcelona. Throughout the weekend, I ran into probably 50 people I knew. That is not an exaggeration. It was Michigan's spring break so I saw a bunch of people who were visiting Amsterdam over spring break. I saw people from high school who were studying in Florence and Barcelona. It was ridiculous. We got thai food for lunch which was pretty good. Then we went to the Van Gogh museum.

Van Gogh Museum
There was a special exhibit at the museum called "Colors of the Night" and all of Van Gogh's paintings that featured the night and dusk were brought back to Amsterdam. It was amazing! Starry Night was so cool. You weren't allowed to take any pictures but I really liked Van Gogh's stuff...and he was a pretty interesting character - nuts! We were at the museum for about 2 hours, which was perfect, and I really was into Van Gogh's paintings.

We left the museum and I met up with Dana Bernstein and the same crew that was in Paris the week before. They were in Amsterdam on the last leg of their journey so we had dinner at a Greek restaurant. It was fun to see them. I met my friends from Paris at an Indian Restaurant after. They were there with a bunch of girls from Boulder who were studying in Barcelona. I didn't really eat but had some amazing Indian spinach dish that I definitely want to try again. We went from the restaurant to an improv comedy show. It's called Boom Chicago! and it's all in English. There are some American actors and some Dutch but they all speak English. It was really funny...they made fun of American tourists and picked on people from the audience. I would say there were at least 40 Michigan students, my year, in the audience of 200 or so.

We walked through the streets on the way home. There are some weiirrdd people in Amsterdam. All of these British girls were dressed up like clowns/hookers and were so drunk (or on other drugs) running around the streets. Amsterdam is like a fairy tale land...everything seems fake and totally bizzare. We took an hour or two to walk home, just stopping at random places along the way. They have really good Fries in Amsterdam, which I ate along my walk.

Anne Frank
Sunday morning, me and Justin woke up early to go to Ann Frank. I had a 2:30 train and he has a 2:30 flight. We walked to 263 Prisengracht, where Anne Frank was in hiding, and there was no line at the museum. I think it had just opened...we got there around 10:15. It was a chilling experience. The museum is very well done...and it's so strange to see this typical Dutch street and think that Jews had to hide in the attic for years to escape the Nazis! I know it sounds naive but Amsterdam doesn't seem like the type of city where things like that happen! Everyone seems so peaceful and friendly...I guess they're also not the type of city that could really stand up to the German Army. The house was truly amazing. Otto Frank didn't want the rooms to be refurnished but there are models of how the apartment was set up and there is a display with the original diary. I was really glad I got to see the Anne Frank house. There was this one quote that has stuck with me since leaving Amsterdam, that basically said, "Of all the millions of people who died in the Holocaust, we only read the story of Anne Frank. Maybe it's better that way. It's too painful to think of the immense suffering and pain of so many stories just like Anne's."

After the museum, Justin left for the airport and I went to find the Fluorescent Light museum that my friend had told me about. Unfortunately, after some extensive searching, it was closed on Sunday! So as a consolation, I went to get Dutch Pancakes with Caitlin and Stephanie. They have these mini pancakes called poffertjes that were delicious! By then, it was time for me to head to the train station and go home! No first-class this time, but I fell right asleep.

Amsterdam was an amazing city. I would love to go back sometime later in life, definitely more in the spring time to see the amazing flowers. There is a lot of really interesting culture there and it's a very inviting place. A very easy, successful first travel experience!

L'itinéraire

2009-02-25T17:16:00.003-06:00

Really quick post.

Went to dinner tonight with Emily Haymer and Laura Lapidus (visiting from Michigan on their spring break). We decided to go to a nicer place, called L'itinéraire in the 5th, right near the Seine. It was classic, classic French. Amazingly pure, simple food. The food here is unbelievable...and I haven't even really had much of the "good" food.
Just thought I'd throw out a good recommendation for people coming to France and looking for a decently price (worth it for what you get) restaurant.

http://www.gourmet.com/restaurants/2008/05/firsttaste_itineraires

Pomp and Cirumstance

2009-02-25T09:29:00.005-06:00

Life continues on here. I completely feel at home in Paris and in my surroundings. I know the routine, I know what I need to do daily, I feel like I am very comfortable in my situation.

Monday I went to class at La Sorbonne. After that, I came home and sent my resumes to 2 French wineries. I should hear from them soon and then I'll be able to figure out if I'm staying the summer or not. I really want to though. I think the 'provincial' French experience would be an amazing complement to living in busy Paris.

I met Dana Bernstein Monday afternoon. Her friends went to Barcelona and she was leaving the next day for Vienna so she stayed at my apartment. We went to the Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art. It was unbelievable! 8 euro to get in, which isn't cheap for the student price, but well worth it. We first visited a temporary exhibit of Ron Arad, an Israeli artist/architect/furniture designer. His stuff was really cool! My grandma (Nonni) would love it...very modern and bold. He had models of all his designs, a bunch in Israel and all over the world. He designed a really cool bridge for the 2012 Olympics in London. Then we went to the permenant exhibit upstairs. 1905 - now. It took us a long time to walk through everything...there is A LOT to see. But everything was very cool: Photography, painting, sculpture, movies, sounds, random white canvases that were 'art'. One of my favorites was a room designed by Dubuffet, called "Jardin d'Hiver" or "Winter Garden". it was this really disorienting igloo type thing that you would walk around in. The elevation was all jumbled and it was really cool. There was also a really cool room made by another Israeli artist that was all different colors. I had a great time at the Pompidou and definitely recommend it to anyone who comes to Paris.

Dana and I went home and bought some wine, cheese and bread on the way. 3 other girls came over, along with my roommate, and we cooked dinner. Salad, sautéed vegetables, and chicken alfredo on pasta. Very good. We had a long, French dinner and by the time we finished, it was 11:30. We were going to go out but it we were all so tired by then so we went to bed. Dana left really early the next morning and I had class.

After class on Tuesday, I finally did LAUNDRY! It was not cheap, about 20 euro when it was all said and done. There is a laverie (laundromat) a 2 minute walk from my apartment so that was great. I had to run to an ATM though because they wouldn't take certain types of money...very random. I did laundry, skyped with a bunch of people, then Justin and I went to a bar in the Bastille to meet some people from our program for the Barcelona-Lyon soccer game. We wanted to watch Arsenal but it wasn't on TV anywhere so we stayed for the Barcelona-Lyon game. It was great! Thierry Henry plays for Barcelona and he's a French legend...the game was a 1-1 tie, an upset because Barcelona is really good. I got to speak French with a bunch of people...I spoke with this one guy about how the French are pretty much cold to anyone who isn't 'pure' French. He was born in France but he's Moroccan and he said he's never felt accepted by French general society. It was pretty interesting. The French aren't necessarily racist but they don't really open up easily to anyone outside of their own racial/religious background.

Today, Wednesday, was legit spring. It was 50 degrees outside, not a cloud in the sky, and just gorgeous. I had my art history class today which is going to be very interesting. We learned about neo-classicalism today and the French painter David. After class, I went for a run in Parc Montsouris. It was full of people, very fun.

I'm going to Amsterdam this weekend, my first real trip in Europe. I am going with a whole bunch of people on my program..it should be very fun. France is great, miss you guys, take care. Aaron

Le Weekend

2009-02-24T10:05:00.004-06:00

Bonjour tout le monde.

This weekend was a lot of fun. I woke up Saturday morning and met a group from CEA at the Bastille. We got on coach buses and went to Chantilly, about an hour outside of Paris. We first visited Chateau de Chantilly, which houses the Musée Condé (an amazing art museum, second to the Louvre in France) and was the Castle for a rival lineage of the King in the French Royal family. It was pretty cool to see the battles that went on between the French Kings and this family throughout the years over who was more rich and powerful. We had a funny little French man as a tour guide who barely spoke English. It was painful...I wanted to tell him to speak in French but most of the CEA kids wouldn't understand. All the art was specifically chosen and placed by Honore Daumet, who had no heir and donated the Museum to the state, with the stipulation that the art not be moved around or changed. After the Chateau de Chantilly, we went to lunch at a restaurant in the town. I don't think the French restaurants are used to cooking for 100 people but it was still, obviously, very good. I tried to drink the espresso at the end but I could only manage a sip or two. I really don't like coffee.

After lunch, we took the bus to Royaumont Abbey. It was a 12th century abbey for monks and it was really cool. The entire place was very peaceful, and we saw the ruins of an old factory that they had and the complex that they used. The stain glass windows were gorgeous and the grounds were very cool. We wandered around there for a while and then came back to Paris.

After getting back to my apartment, I rested for a little and then met my friend Dana Bernstein who was in town from Granada, Spain. I went to her hostel and we went out to dinner with her, her roommate, and her roommate's cousins and brother. I was the translator...and I was definitely needed. The waitress kept making fun of the girls accents...which were pretty bad. The waitress was funny though and we all had a great time at dinner. After dinner, the 6 of us came back to my apartment, where we joined my roommate, some other CEA people, and a bunch of girls visiting from Barcelona. In all, there were about 20 people jammed into our apartment. It was crazy. We all took the Metro to the Champs-Elysée and went to this club called Showcase...very swanky. There was a group of 20-30 Americans and you could just see everyone staring at us. We ALL got turned away. I went up with Dana and her roommate Carly and the bouncer looked at our shoes and then said no. haha. If you go to places like that, you have to dress really nice and go in small groups and look like you're important.

So we walked to another club called Duplex. Everyone sort of got split off into different groups and all ended up in different clubs, but I was with Dana and her friends. This club asked us where we were from, I said "Les Etats Unis", then they checked our I.D.s and then let us in...very weird. It was a lot of fun though...besides the BO and creepy French guys that kept hitting on the girls...and sometimes the boys.

I woke up the next morning pretty late and went to a diner called the American Breakfast in Paris. It was so nice to get a burger and a milkshake! All the waiters were American and it was decorated with movie posters that had diner scenes...very fun. I did some homework that night and relaxed because I was just exhausted from the weekend. I went to bed early and slept great!

Finally, a routine

2009-02-20T11:51:00.003-06:00

School is going well. I have had all of my classes except for one. I started my Phonetics course this week...8:30 a.m.. Thankfully, phonetics is only every other week. My Wednesdays and Thursdays are going to be insane. I have to wake up at 7:40, get on the Metro at 8:10, class 8:30 to 9:30, walk to my next class (through the Luxembourg Gardens...so amazing) which takes 30 minutes. Grammer from 10 - 12, then I have to RUN by the Pantheon to my lectures.

I had my Current Events lecture this week (Thursday). It was definitely hard to have a lecture in French, especially when you have been in class since 8:30 and went out the night before. But I got the gist of what was going on and I think it will improve. I am really excited for the art lecture that starts next week. It's very funny sitting in class (at rue de Fouarre for my Grammar class) and hearing the Bells of Notre Dame every half hour. That's how I count down the minutes. My phonetics class is funny. For 30 minutes, we learn grammer rules from my very peppy teacher. Then we sit in un labo with headphones and repeat phrases that she says. We can then listen to how we said them and do it again. La viande est cuite. Ils arrivent en deux heures. You have to connect the words in certain places...Ils arrivent is pronounced "il za reeve".

I went to L'as du Falafel again for lunch this week...délicieux! Let's see, what else did I do:

- Cooked dinner with my roommate on Wednesday. I bought chicken, broccoli, apples, onions and garlic from a market nearby...I didn't have trouble telling them what I needed, but it's pretty easy. We're slowly but surely getting into the cooking mode...although the other night, we looked at the clock and it was already 10 pm so we decided that instead of cooking, the McDonald's around the corner from our apartment would be a fine substitute. That's the only time I've had American food!

- Cleaned by apartment! We bought a bunch of cleaning supplies and actually cleaned up! We keep the place pretty neat...but we this anti-baceterial cleansing was long overdue. Laundry is my next big task...maybe I'll do it Sunday...or Monday.

- Made a list of all the place I need to go in Paris. I want to try and check one or two things off a week...but I'm happy I made the actual list. I'm sure it will grow pretty quickly as I keep hearing of more things to add.

- Knocked the first thing off my list and went to the Pantheon. Notable things about the Pantheon: 1) It's FREEZING! I was so cold inside, colder than I would have been outside. I think it's because there are so many tombs in there? 2) It was a church but then it was changed into a place to honor great men in France (and now women too, Marie Curie was the first). 3) There was a really cool monument to all Frenchmen who helped save Jews from deportation in WWII, some Jewish, some non-Jewish. 4) The tombs of Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Louis Braille, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Alexandre Dumas. 4) It's an amazing, classically designed structure that really stands out in Paris. It's architect is buried there too and he is widely celebrated in France. The architecture of the whole place is unbelievable. 5) Foucault built an unbelievable pendulum that swings in the middle of the Pantheon to prove that the earth is rotating.

- Finally met our upstairs neighbors. There are 4 girls from Colgate who live in our apartment building and so on Wednesday, we finally went up and hung out with them. We'd met them before, just hadn't hung out. So that was fun, they were all very nice. Some of our other friends came over and we all went out to a bar in Place Contrascape...on Rue Moufftard. It was a lot of fun, and it's great because it's just a 10 minute walk home so we dont' have to pay for cabs or anything.

- The landlord came by. I was taking a nap today and the landlord knocked on my door. He's a little French man named Claude. He lived in Paris for a long time and then moved back to his hometown in Bretagne. He moved back in 2007 and now he's the Mayor! He talked a lot to me in French, which was fun, while he fixed our overhead lights and ventilator. When I got to the apartment, we had 2 lamps total. Now we have 5 lamps and the overhead lights work in the bedroom and living room. I can see! I'm sure my Mom will be very happy...she always yells at me for not having the lights on when I read. The landlord invited me to call him if I'm ever in Bretagne! Maybe he'll give me a key to the city!

- Dinner with the Fishers. I went out to dinner with Marcy and Rob Fisher, from Detroit, on Thursday. Marcy met my parents at a bat-mitzvah in Tuscon. She and Rob live in Paris a few months a year and they were very nice and took me out to dinner. I went to their apartment in the Marais (Jewish and gay area) for hors d'oeurves and then we went to a great new Italian restaurant. It was really thin pizza and the most amazing ball of mozzerella cheese I've ever tasted! The waitress spoke Italian and fortunately, Marcy knew Italian so we had a great time with the waitress. The Fishers were very nice and welcoming and I was glad I got to meet them.

- "Homework". Well I've definitely been doing my fair share of homework. Every night, I have grammer exercises and this weekend I have a small essay. Classes are tough but I'm getting much more comfortable in them. This week we've had to learn a lot of French idioms which will be very helpful. My initial notebook that I bought at the BHV completely fell apart. All the pages are ripping off...so I bought a new one today at a papeterie, a stationary shop.
The "homework" I'm referring to though is for my friends at CEA. I was there doing my homework this Thursday and a few of my friends came out of their Oenology class (wine). They asked if I wanted to help them with their homework after class...to go drink wine and eat cheese. Why not!? We walked to the Bastille area, found 2 Alsatian wines, paired them with some amazing chèvre and comté (cheeses), bought some warm bread, and had a great hour at my friend's apartment identifying the smells in the wines and arguing over which cheese went with which wine.

- Top Chef - Finale Part 1. I found a great site to watch TV shows on. I've really just been watching Top Chef and The Office. But I watched the first part of the Top Chef season finale...it was good. It's nice to watch American TV every once in a while. I'll also have to stop by a place in the 3rd called "American Breakfast in Paris" that is supposed to be a fun American diner. And there are delis in the Jewish section!

Tomorrow I leave for Chateau Chantilly for the day with CEA. It's only 20 miles outside of Paris. I skyped with my parents today...they FINALLY got a camera. They're skiing in Vail right now. Picturing them skiing makes me laugh. Shabbat Shalom. Miss everyone and hope you're all enjoying your winters!

cooking

2009-02-17T06:35:00.004-06:00

Monday morning class - it was not fun getting up early (around 08:50). It takes me just about 20 - 25 minutes to get to class. My classroom is one block from the Seine and Notre Dame. I used to be next to the Pantheon but now I'm in a different building so I take the Metro. I leave at 09:30 and get to class around 09:55...depending on how long I have to wait for the Metro. Class is finally starting to be a little more comfortable. It's definitely a challenge and I'm not that comfortable talking much and asking questions but I felt much better today than last week. After class, I went to L'as du Falafel with my friend Emily and then we went to CEA. I came back to the apartment and tried to organize some travel stuff...it's so difficult! And flights from Paris aren't as cheap as I thought they would be. I also did my French homework. Don't worry, I am studying a little bit now!

We decided to cook dinner with a few people tonight. I was going to shop at the Rue Moufftard market but it was closed when I got there around 5:30, so I went to the Champion grocery store...which is great! It is very similar to an American grocery store. We made pasta with meat sauce (buying the tomato sauce, ground beef, and veggies at Champion) and had mozzarella and tomato salad, and of course, wine. It is annoying to cook in my tiny kitchen with the random things they give us. The knives are so dull (I'll have to buy a new one) and it's very cramped. But it works! Cleaning up was not fun though, especially in a sink with no disposal. There were 5 of us, my roommate and 3 other girls. We had a great time. After dinner, we went to a bar called the Long Hop and met some other friends. Then we went home and fell asleep.

Tuesday - Class in the morning. Was pretty good. Now just cleaning the apartment and getting organized. I think I'm going to go for a run up in Parc Montsouris in a little.

Les Cours

2009-02-15T11:22:00.003-06:00

(This picture is dinner that my roommate and I cooked) Monday - I went to get the results of my placement test. The bureaucracy of it all was soo French. You go to different rooms by last name. I was in the "M - S" room. You wait in a really long line...but it goes around a corner so nobody knows where it ends. When you finally get to the front, you get to enter a room. You THINK you've finally gotten to the end but no, inside the room is another line. But this time, everyone has a chair. Each student is called up one by one to get their class schedule and have it explained to them. As the first person in the line goes up, everyone scoots down one chair. This repeats 25 times until you get your placement. In the meantime, you listen to people try and argue their placement with the stone-faced Sorbonne lady. I got placed into Intermediate Level at the time I wanted, 10 - 12. I was fine with that.

That night, a bunch of the other kids on my program and I went to Chinatown for a cheap dinner. We wandered around, looking at all the "menus" (menu in french doesn't mean the same thing as menu in english) and finally picked a restaurant. The Chinese food was pretty good...but definitely not the same as American Chinese food. I had some chicken dish with a weird sauce...and hearing the Chinese owners speak French with a crazy Chinese accent was very funny.

Tuesday - Classes started. I went to my classroom, which is only a 20 minute walk from my house. The class was 3/4 people from Japan, Korea and China. There were 4 South American girls and 2 other Americans. The teacher was an old woman with glasses and her hair in a bun...very French. A lot of the people are older - married, with kids, or working as au pairs for French families. It was not what I was expecting at all! Class was fine...we started learning some stuff that I definitely already knew. I think I'm right on the border of Intermediate and Advanced French. I wasn't thrilled with the first day just because it was all stuff that I had learned a while ago, in high school French. The school is also pretty interesting because it's not a community at all. I'm in the Sorbonne CCFS program (Course de Civilisation Francaise de la Sorbonne) which is all international students. The campus is spread out over the 5th, 6th and 14th districts and you pretty much go to class and leave. The buildings are strictly for class. I bought my books for the class at Gibert Joseph, a major textbook store in Paris. 17 euro total, VERY different from buying American textbooks.

After buying my books, I went out to lunch with my friend Emily. As we were sitting in a sandwich shop, eating our food, the couple sitting next to us just starting making out. The tables are very close together too, mind you. In France, people just make out everywhere! Waiting in line for a movie, on the metro, at a restaurant for lunch! It's a little uncomfortable.

Wednesday - Busy day! I had class in the morning. I was a little frustrated because we read a comic strip and talked about what happened in it...and did some really easy grammer stuff. I asked my teacher if I could switch to Advanced at the end of class. She said that nobody was allowed to switch until Friday, but I had some other friends in different classes who were allowed to switch. Of course, all the Americans that wanted to switch were freaking out and harassing their teachers and calling the secretary's office. I called the people at CEA who set up everything with the Sorbonne. I spent the day speaking to them all in French. Because I think I did a good job of speaking in French and talking to them about how to switch, they put in a good word for me at the Sorbonne and around 5 pm, I got an e-mail telling me to go to a new class the next day, niveau avancée (advanced). Between 12 - 5, I had to take my phonetics test and sign up for classes. They put you into classes by the country you come from, so I'm in a phonetics class with all anglophones. The time I wanted was full but none of the other times were going to work so I convinced the woman to put me in 8:30 - 9:30 a.m., the time I wanted. It's early but I'll be able to leave after 12:00 on Fridays to travel. Then we walked through the Luxembourg Gardens to another Sorbonne building to register for our lecture classes (we being 4 other people from my program), but when we got there, they told us we were at the wrong place and it was closed now.

I met my roommate after that to look into train tickets to Nice. It would have been $270 euro because we wanted to go this weekend. We went to an SNCF boutique. SNCF is the French train company and they have travel agencies all around Paris. Then we went to Gare de Lyon, a major train station to see if we could get a Eurail Pass and use that to go to Nice, and then use the rest of it later. Nice was sold out for Eurail tickets so we decided not to go.

That night, there was a DJ named Justice playing at a club in Paris. We went to the club but they were not letting anybody in who wasn't on a list - there are a lot of very exclusive clubs in Paris and I usually don't go to them but we wanted to see this DJ. We went to another bar in the Bastille instead. The Bastille is a really fun area to go out in.

Thursday - I started class in Advanced Thursday. It started out pretty quickly with a quiz on verbs they had learned yesterday! I didn't know everything but didn't do horribly. The class moves at a brisk pace, and the teacher speaks quickly. It will definitely be hard but I think I will be able to handle it. It's a lot of complex verb tenses and literary works. The people in the class seem pretty smart. I bought new books after class and returned my old ones. I took it easy Thursday night, watching some episodes of the TV show "The Office" with Emily and going to bed on the earlier side.

Friday - Class again in the morning - it went pretty well. After class I went to a cafe to do some homework and had some hot chocolate. Then I went to the CEA office for a walking tour. Every Friday, CEA offers tours of different parts of Paris. We went to St. Eustache church, where they have the biggest organ in France that is played every Sunday at 5:30 pm for a free concert. It was gorgeous. We also went to Place Vendome (the ritziest street in Paris), and a bunch of other places on the right bank. The tour ended at Angelina's, the most famous hot chocolate place in France. There were about 10 of us and we all got hot chocolate, paid for by CEA. The hot chocolate comes with whipped cream on the side and is the richest, thickest, most delicious hot chocolate you could ever imagine. I could barely finish one cup, although one of my friends, Johnny, gulped down 3.

Friday night, Justin (my roommate) and I went out to dinner with 2 other girls, Emily and Caitlin, on Rue Moufftard. Went to a place called Le Pot de Terre. It was very, very good. We ordered le menu (16 e) which includes an appetizer, main course, and dessert. The food was unbelievable. We didn't end up getting back from dinner until around 11:45. Then a bunch of our other friends came over and we went out to a bar. We left around 2 a.m. and I got home around 6:30 a.m. It was very fun!! Of course, I slept in the next morning!

Saturday - I woke up late and got a move on around 1:00 pm (13 h en francais). I decided to go explore some more of my neighborhood, going over to the banks of the Seine and the National Library (Francois Mitterand) in the 13th. It was stunning. There are some amazing bridges and it was a very clean, modern area. I got some great pictures of the Seine and the library campus.
There, I met a friend of mine who was visiting from Seville, Allie. We went to an exhibit at the National Library about children's books in France but it was all in French and we weren't really in the mood for an exhibit. So we left and went to a bar in the student area for happy hour. We were both the Presidents of our respective fraternities/sororities and we had said that once we were done with our terms, we would go out for a drink. That didn't happen until Paris! But we just talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly from our experiences. She left to meet her friends and I went back to my apartment. I had a small dinner and then went to meet some people from University of Illinois. One kid is studying in Paris and 2 others were visiting from Barcelona. We hung out at his apartment for a while and then went to a bar in the Bastille. It was very fun to see them.

Sunday - I got up and met my friend Johnny at the Jardin de Tuileries. It was a beautiful, sunny day and tons of people were out. It was great to walk around. We walked to the Musée Rodin (the sculptor) and walked around the garden there. "The Thinker" is there, very cool statue. Rodin was pretty amazing and was inspired by some really interesting stuff. There was a lot about Freud and psychological principles, and a lot of references to Dante. After walking around for a while, we went to lunch at an Italian restaurant near Montparnasse (the 14th). It was great! I just told the waiter to bring me his favorite pasta dish, which ended up being linguine with mussels. I'm not a huge fan of mussels but the pasta was great. We then met two other girls at the Père Lachaise (it's the biggest cemetary in Paris). We went to Jim Morrison's grave, Oscar Wilde's grave, and a few other random ones along the way. The cemetary was very cool. I'm writing this now, having finalized some spring break plans and feeling very tired!

I hope everyone is well and if you haven't already, GET SKYPE SO WE CAN VIDEO CHAT!

A Visit from My Father

2009-02-08T05:57:00.003-06:00

Friday - Dad coming to visit

My Dad was on business in Germany but decided to make a stop in Paris to see me, and to meet with some business people in La Defense (a city right outside of Paris with big skyscrapers). He came in from Germany and went right to La Defense, so I had the morning to see people.

4 girls from Michigan who were in Barcelona, and their friend from Wisconsin, came into Paris this weekend. Friday morning, I went to the Musée d'Orsay with them and Emily Haymer, from Michigan on CEA-Paris and is in their sorority. The girls were staying in a hotel about a 10 minute walk from my apartment. Some of them got up early and went near the museum to walk around. I picked up the late crew and took them on the Metro. I helped them buy a 10 pack of Metro tickets for the weekend. I realized that there was a student-price for Metro tickets that was half the normal price! (***WARNING: this wasn't exactly true, more info further on) so they got their Metro tickets and we went to the Musée d'Orsay. One of the girls, Jenna, ran into someone she knew on the train...very funny. The Musée d'Orsay was unbelievable! I didn't really know what was there at all but they had the most amazing collection of impressionist paintings I think I'll ever see. In each room, I recognized 3 or 4 famous paintings by Monet, Degas, Renoir, etc. It was really amazing. There was also a post-impressionism exhibit with pointillism and other really great paintings, and some amazing sculptures on the main floor. The museum itself is just amazing, built in an old train station with huuuge ceilings and great architecture. I'll have to go back there because I definitely didn't get enough time - and I need to get the audiotour. Those audiotours are worth it just about everywhere you go in this city!

We left the Musée d'Orsay and took the Metro to the Marais - the Jewish District. It was Friday so the place was hopping with Jews picking up last minute things before Shabbat. We ate a late lunch at L'as du falafel, a famous falafel place in Paris. We ordered falafel and hummus for the table as basically an appetizer and I had shnitzel too. Everything was delicious! It was nice sitting down with a group of people I knew pretty well and eating a familiar food. They closed the place down for Shabbat and we had to leave. So I said goodbye to the girls and went to go find my Dad.

I went to my Dad's hotel, which was only a 5 minute walk from my apartment. It was really nice to see him. We went to the 'executive lounge' at the Mariott which was pretty disappointing. There was food all over the place, sticky bottles of soda, and really cheesy music. But we just sat and talked for a while. I went back to my apartment and he finished some work, then I walked back over for dinner. We made friends with Florence, the concierge, who gave us a bunch of dinner recommendations. In the end, we went to a restaurant called La Closeire des Lilals ( ) in Montparnasse, about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Check out the website, it's really cool: http://www.closeriedeslilas.fr/. The meal was incredible. I had ravioli d'escargot and Dad had foie gras, and then I just picked something off the meat menu that I didn't really know what it was. It was Ballottine de pintade fermière. At the end of the meal, I asked what kind of meat it was - it is basically baby turkey (on the English menu - guinea fowl). But it was amazing. During dinner, we tried to figure out what I'm going to do after college - not an easy prospect. Basically nothing was decided so let me know if you have any suggestions. We had some great cheeses at the end of the meal and we left stuffed. I went to bed early because I had to wake up at 7:15 the next day.

Reims

I woke up early and headed over to the hotel to pick up Dad. We had decided to visit Reims, the capital of the Champagne region. We had a 9:00 train out of Gare de L'Est to Reims, only a 45 minute train ride on the TGV. The train was great - so fast and smooth. I fell asleep on the way there and the way back. Reims was pretty cold and kind of rainy. We walked around the town to find the Office of Tourism and book some tours with Champagne Caves. We booked a tour at 12 and another at 2. We had an hour to explore before the first tour so we went to the Musée des Beaux Arts in Reims, a cool musuem with a bunch of local art and historical art. They had this weird modern German art exhibit that was pretty cool. But I got yelled at for taking a picture of it because I guess since it's on loan, nobody can photograph it. But I have the picture anyways and I'll post it up here.

The first cellar we went to was Charles de Cazanove. Dad used to run a private label through them but I guess the company has been sold since he last worked with them. We watched a short video (in English) about how they make champagne, got a really cool tour of the cellars and saw where they store the wine, how they ferment the bottles, how they blend it, etc. It was really interesting and it's a painstaking process - at least it was before they improved the technology. Then we got to try some wines - a rosé, a blanc du blanc (which is 100% Chardonnay Champagne), and another champagne (a mix of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier grapes). They were very good. This was a pretty small, basic cellar but we were the only ones there so we got to ask a lot of questions and really learn about it. There was a really cool French market across from the cellar so we walked around there for a while, looking at the cheeses, meats, vegetables, fish, everything!

We ate lunch at some place in Reims, and of course we had champagne with lunch! I had a great mushroom omelette. Then we ran to G.H. Mums, our next champagne tour. They are a German family that makes champagne that is pretty famous. It's the Red Ribbon champagne bottles, you'll probably recognize it in the pictures. They had a top-notch operation! The only time that worked for us was the French tour, so I had to listen pretty intensely to figure out what was going on - and our tour guide spoke like Speedy Gonzalez! We watched another video about the making of champagne - that doubled as a promotional video for Mums - and went into the cellars. The cellars were huge and amazing! So much wine there - dating back from 1893. Then we had another tasting of 3 champagnes - a rosé, a Grand Cru cuvée, and a blanc du blanc Champagne de Cramand. They were really great. We asked about the vineyards and cellars in World War I and II. The Mums cellars were spared because the Mums family is German. They had sold the operation after WWI and came back and forcefully took it over in WWII to save it from destruction.

Dad and I took the TGV back to Paris and got to the hotel. I got to watch TV for the first time in a while (I have no TV at my place), and I passed out in the huge bed. It was so relaxing. Around 7:30, we walked back to my apartment so I could show it to Dad. I think it's fine...cleaning will be the only issue. I can make it look neat but I'm not so adept with the cleaning of the bathroom, kitchen, etc. We went to dinner with my roommate Justin and my friend Steve at L'alouette, a brasserie on my street. It was really good! A typical French place that was pretty lively with good, basic food. A neighborhood joint - but a little out of the typical student's price range. We had a great dinner. In France, if you dont' ask for the check, it won't come. It's considered rude to bring the check before the customers asks for it because you are seen as pushing them out of the restaurant. So we had a nice, long dinner. Dad went back home and I went to my apartment. Later that night, I met up with those girls from Michigan and we just hung out for a little. Then I went to bed.

I woke up at 9 this morning and went over to the Hotel. I worked out in the hotel gym, something I haven't been able to do yet in Paris. I need to figure out how they gyms work but I think most people exercise outside. Gyms are really, really expensive - like 600 euro for a year membership. Then I had breakfast at the hotel with Dad. He left for the airport and I went up to the hotel room and showered in the nice hotel shower.

After that, I decided to take a long walk around my neighborhood. There is a great market on Sunday mornings that I caught the tail end of. Most places were just about packed up but I'll have to go back, it's only 5 minutes from my apartment. I explored rue des Buttes aux Cailles, a fun street in the 13th with nice bars and restaurants. Then I made my way through a really weird sort of flea market, where people were selling dishes, clocks, old records, anything you could find. It was a sketchy group of people, so I kept my hands over my pockets and walked by quickly. Then I got to Cité U (it's the international dorms for students in Paris). A lot of kids on my program live there. It's gorgeous! There is a huge park that reminds me a lot of Boston Commons across the street - definitely a good place to go running when it gets nice out. There were tons of kids and families playing in the park.

It was a very fun weekend, seeing people from Michigan and my father. I didn't have to spend any money!! And I got amazing food. Now I'll be back to reality, with classes starting in 2 days and the beginnings of a normal schedule almost in place. I am sitting here eating a baguette with jam and butter, the weather is sunny and brisk, all is well in Paris.

Wanderings

2009-02-08T05:21:00.006-06:00

Wednesday night - after Versailles:
I met a bunch of my friends and we had drinks in the 5th, at a bar called the Mayflower. The main beers I've had when I'm out (which are always the cheapest) are Stella Artois and Carlsberg. I've also had Leffe, a Belgian beer that is pretty good. Beer is not cheap here: Usually 5 euro for a pint. Anyways, we were at this bar and the French men at the table next to us were clearly making fun of some of the people I was with. Some of the people on my program aren't really into the whole "adapting to another culture" thing and they speak really loudly and obnoxiously, with huge American accents, and say things that they think the French won't understand (but they do). So these guys were clearly making fun of some of the girls I was with, which was just getting the girls more angry and making them speak louder. I was trying to understand what they were saying, and I couldn't make out much because they were talking to each other, but they were making fun of a red head girl I was with.

Eventually we started talking to the French men sitting next to us. They were a little creepy towards the girls, as is usual. Any time French men see a blond girl at a bar, they touch her hair...it's weird. But I got to practice my French and try to figure out what they were making fun of us about. The pretty much told me that they like when Americans try to speak French and they shouldn't be so loud in public...that is not the French way. In the cab on the way home (the metro was closed after 12:30), the taxi driver took us in a circle...I think trying to rip us off. They also really dont' like when there is more than one stop in a taxi, which of course we had.

Thursday:

I woke up and decided I needed to buy some French cologne before the end of the sales. There is a huge mall a 10 minute walk from my apartment so I ventured to the centre commerciale. It's called Italie 2, and it's a Place d'Italie, a huge roundabout in the 13th. There were a ton of stores and it was a lot like an American mall. I browsed through a bunch of places, just checking out clothes and stuff, getting a feel for prices, etc. Clothes are really expensive here. I guess they buy less clothes and taxes are 20% on the purchases. I went into Printemps, a big department store. I was looking through the colognes, using the tester sticks, I really had no idea what I was doing. Someone asked me if I needed help but I said "non", because I didn't want to expose my lack of French skills / my lack of cologne knowledge. I ended up buying something that I recognized because I did a report on the French Perfume industry for my Business French class last semester. It's called A*Men by Thierry Mugler...I've gotten thumbs ups so far.

I went back to the apartment and met up with a friend to go to the Eiffel Tower. It was nice and sunny that day so we thought it'd be a good time to get to the top. I took the Metro there...the stop for the Eiffel Tower is on my line. While I waited for my friend, I bought my first crepe in Paris! Chocolate and banana...delicious. The Eiffle Tower is enormous! Everything in Paris is grandiose and ornate but nothing is really tall, except the Eiffel Tower. My friend Steve and I (he goes to Berkley), climbed to the 2nd level, which is as high as they let you walk. We then had to pay another fee to get on the elevator to the top. It was really worth it because the view at each level is completely different. At the 2nd level, Sacre Coeur was gorgeous and stuck out as a huge monument in Paris. At the very top, we couldn't even see Sacre Coeur beacuse it was just a little blip in the view. It was a great visit. I had dinner at the apartment that night, just made a little sandwich with turkey, mustard and a baguette.

Later that night, I met a kid from Michigan for drinks. He is spending the year in Paris and has been here since September. We met at the Bastille, in front of the Opera. The Bastille is a really cool area with a ton of bars. We went to this place that you have to ring a doorbell and the bartender looks and decides whether or not to let you in. Of course, they let us in. I guess they really hate when hoardes of tourists come in and take over the bar so they keep it controlled. He just told me about Paris so far and learning French, ect. The couple at the table next to us was just making out the entire time...it was so corny. I don't know why the French love PDA so much...but they are always making out on random street corners and going to bars to just make out.

We were going to another bar when we ran into a bunch of people from my program (it's a small world, even in Paris). We all went to some place that had bras and ammunition hanging from the ceilings. The bartender was excited to get a huge group of Americans so he gave us some free drinks. We all hung out there for a while and then went home. It was good to see someone from Michigan and I had a fun night.

Versailles

2009-02-04T12:48:00.008-06:00

Versailles was amazing today. I woke up early and took the train with my roommate, Justin, and two other girls, Emily and Mary. The town of Versailles is about 1 hour from Paris on a train that reminded me a lot of the Metra in Chicago. It's called the RER and it's how people get to Paris from the suburbs or outskirts of town.

The Chatêau de Versailles is about 5 minutes from the train station but we stopped at a Starbucks first. I got hot chocolate...yeahh, I know, Starbucks in France. But we didn't want to sit and have a relaxing café. It was like we walked back into America for 5 minutes! The castle was unbelievable! You walk up to these huge golden gates and it's just gorgeous. We got the audio tour, which was necessary because the place is so big and there is so much backstory. The Chatêau de Versailles was used for so many different things and lived in by so many different people...many Kings of France, the French Government for a time, Napoleon, etc.

There is a gorgeous chapel that King Louis XIV built, so many rooms for the King, Queen, and their subjects, and of course the amazing Hall of Mirrors and the Hall of Battles. The Hall of Mirrors was basically the hallway that the King walked down and met lots of dignitaries. They had official functions there. The Hall of Battles is more museum-like, with amazing paintings of many important French war victories, dating from the 11oo's.

The gardens look amazing but it's winter. I will 100% have to come back in the spring to really appreciate the extravengce of the Versailles gardens.

Here are some pictures:

We ate lunch somewhere cheap before getting back on the train for Paris. Cheap is 5 euro, which is about $7.00 - but it was good. I like all the people I've been hanging out with and there are still people in Paris that I have to see but haven't had a chance to yet. One of the girls, Mary, told us about teaching in Africa for a summer and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. It made me really miss camp and hiking, and made me really want to go to Africa!

Now I'm just hanging some posters, etc. up in my apartment (Michigan Flag - GO BLUE!) and I'll probably meet some people for drinks in a little. I am still getting the apartment set up...the little things like organizing random toiletries and hanging stuff up. I had some bread with jam (la confiture - NOT preservatif (which means condom)) and le fromage chevre (goat's cheese).

I am going to plan out my class schedule soon and then I need to start planning travel. I think I'm going to arrange it so that I am done with class by 12:00 p.m. on Fridays so I can get out of town and visit places over the weekends. I'll spend a lot of time in Paris because I'll actually have homework and our program has already arranged a bunch of excursions that we don't have to pay extra for, but I do want to visit some places: Barcelona, Florence, Rome, Venice, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, and who knows where else. My dad will be here Friday and Saturday and it will be nice to see him - he is in Germany for business right now. Class starts
Tuesday and there are still so many places in Paris I need to see! But I have 4 months and when people visit, we can hit a lot of the touristy spots.

Getting my Bearings

2009-02-03T17:26:00.006-06:00

Things I've done in Paris so far:

Went to a concert at Elysée Montmarte - craaazy - got back at 6 a.m. on the Metro. The metro doesn't run from 2:00 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. on weekends

Bus Tour of Paris - saw all the major monuments, La Tour Eiffel, La Place de Concorde, L'Arc de Triomphe, etc.

Shopping at Les Soldes. The French government mandates when stores can have sales, and that period is from Jan 10 to Feb 10, and then again in July. So right now, everything in the country is on sale. I bought a pair of Nike shoes, but I need to go back and buy some cologne and maybe a sweater or something.
Went out in St. Germain/Latin Quarter. Ended up at a French person's apartment, someone a girl I was with went to camp with. It was the nicest apartment I've ever seen! 2 stories, at least 20 rooms, marble floors and statues everywhere...very cool.
Museums - I tried to go to the Picasso exhibit at the Grand Palais with my friend Emily Haymer, from Michigan. We thought it was at Palais Royale so we walked around there for a while first, then went to the Grand Palais. We waited in line for about 20 minutes and then realized that we were at the wrong place, just as we got to the front of the line. We went to "6 million other people", an exhibit of interviews with people from all countries of the world talking about really deep topics. It was cool, not amazing. The Grand Palais was very cool though. We left and went to the other side of the museum, where the Picasso Exhibit was. The line was 4 hours, and it was closing the next day. Because it was the last weekend of the show, the exhibit was open 24 hours. We made an executive decision to come back. Then we went to the Louvre, free the first weekend of every month, and walked around for just 30 minutes or so until it closed. I'll be back to it, no worries.

Dinner at Les Relais de Venice. It's a restaurant where you sit down and all you tell the waitress is how you want your steak cooked. They bring 2 helpings of steak frites and lots of wine. It was very, very good. I went with a bunch of people from my program. Then we went to watch the superbowl.

Superbowl. I watched it at Patrick's, an Irish sports bar. They kept the place open for the Americans. There were about 70 or so people from my program watching. After 2:00 am, all bars are supposed to be closed but they let us stay on a few conditions. All the lights were off, we couldn't cheer, and we had to stay away from the windows so nobody could see us. But we could still drink! The superbowl was a LOT of fun and I met a lot of the other kids on my program there.
After the Superbowl, we realized it was snowing! It hardly ever snows in Paris. Me and a few other people decided to take a cab to the Picasso exhibit, at 4:30 a.m.! We got there, had a 5 minute wait, and got to see the UNBELIEVABLE exhibit. The place was packed! We walked around the exhibit for 2 hours, seeing Picasso's famous works next to the originals of the paintings that inspired them. It was very, very cool. Picasso was a genius. We all took the metro home that morning with all the people going to work.

Orientation. CEA informed us about the dangers of Paris and culture shock. Basically, because I am a man, I will not be pickpocketed. And if I don't obnoxiously speak english on the metro, I won't be pickpocketed. And If I don't get beligerently drunk and go on the metro or walk the streets, I won't be pickpocketed. We also were told about good neighborhoods to go out in and places to shop. That night, I went grocery shopping at La Champion (my local grocery store) for the first time. I made myself chicken breast for dinner, with bread, cheese and of course, wine. I went to bed early that night, finally getting some sleep.
Academics. Finally, we're at today (Tuesday). I learned about classes for La Sorbonne and policies. We ate a typical french student meal (a sandwich with cheese, lettuce and tomatoe and maybe some meat) and took our placement test at La Sorbonne. I'll find out next week how I did and then pick my classes for sure. I'll have a lot of class: 2 hours of grammer a day, 5 days a week. 1 hour of phonetics a day, 5 days a week (but only every other week), then 2 elective classes that are 2 hours a week. It's a full schedule! After the test, me and the others on my program walked down Rue Moufftard and went to a few happy hour bars. A couple of us got dinner and then went out to some bars for a bit. I came home early because I'm getting up and going to Versailles tomorrow.

Paris is still amazing. I will have a lot of class and I'll have to study, but the program offers great day trips on the weekends and I'm sure I'll find time to see all the places in Europe I want to see. People on the trip are a lot of fun. My roommate was in Prague this weekend but now he's back. Sometimes it's intimidating to speak French in public, because you know you are going to mess up, but I think I am getting better. I'm anxious for classes to start so I can continue to improve.

The apartment is good, neighborhood is very fun and easy to get to places. I'll be pretty close to my classes at La Sorbonne. Now I have a week to explore the city before I start classes on Feb. 10.

More Random Observations:

Water bottles are more expensive than bottles of wine
All the cheese smells A LOT more in France than in America
I hate going on the Metro in big groups of Americans because you stick out so much
The Metro makes the city so easy
I went to the Kosher Bakery on my street but I didn't know what to say to the people who worked there, so I just bought a baguette and left. I'm sure I'll go back...but it's cool that I live by Jews
If you try to speak French, the French people really appreciate it and will speak French back to you.

First Day

2009-01-30T09:55:00.003-06:00

Hello! I have arrived and settled in Paris. Everything is great!!

The Flight
I flew Aer Lingus to Dublin. The flight was pretty empty and I had 4 seats to myself. I watched the movie Pineapple Express (very disappointing) and 3 episodes of 'Mad Men'. Before I left, I had been feeling pretty sick, I think from a bad burger at Blackie's in Chicago. So I didn't really eat on the plane and got a little bit of sleep. I had a 4 hour layover in Dublin, which was from 2 am to 6 am on my time...a horrible time for a layover. I couldn't really sleep in the airport but I passed out on the hour-long flight from Dublin to Paris. I woke up because the stewardess made me open my blinds for landing (apparently it's some airline regulation). I looked out and the first thing I saw was the Seine River in Paris, clearly recognizable because of the island in the middle. That got me very excited to land and start exploring. I got my bags with no issues, customs was fine (I don't think they even looked at my visa) and I got picked up by a driver with CEA.

Paris: Day One
There was a huge strike that day so traffic in Paris was horrible. Random streets were closed, cars were doing U-Turns everywhere, it took us about 2 hours to get to the CEA office in the 3rd district! I was in the car with a girl from my program, from Boston, goes to Madison, in SDT. There are Jewish connections everywhere! More to come on that later. I recieved the key to my apartment while the driver waited. He then drove me to my apartment . It's on rue des Cordelières in the 13th, a really nice quiet street. I live above a Japanese sword and martial arts shop! I also live across from a Jewish Day School, called Lycée Jacob Safra, and a Kosher meat market! I pulled up to my apartment and saw a mom putting her kid into a Mercedes with a hebrew bumper sticker on it. I brought the luggage upstairs (I live on the 3rd floor, which in France is the 2nd floor - the ground level doesn't count) where I was greeted by my roommate, Justin Johnson from Dallas, TX. He does not have an accent. Justin was there with his girlfriend, who is leaving to study in Prague in a few days. They both were very nice and welcoming. The apartment is good! There is a bedroom with 2 twin beds, 2 dressers, and a closet for hanging stuff and shoes. Then there's a living room with a couch, table, and kitchen. The bathroom is tiny! You can barely close the door and it's hard to move at all, but there is more than enough room for 2 people. And I really like the neighborhood.
I unpacked a little bit and then the 3 of us went out to dinner. We walked to Rue Moufftard, a really fun street with a ton of bars, restaurants, and an open market. We walked around for a little and browsed the restaurants. In France, most of the restaurants post their menus and prices outside so customers can pick where they want to eat with more information. We settled on a small French brasserie and got "le menu", a fixed-price meal where you pick an appetizer, main course and dessert from a list of options. I got escargots, steak roquefort (blue cheese), and sorbet, along with a jug of red wine (not very good wine, but still enjoyable).

We had to talk really quietly because everyone in France talks softly and you really stick out if you're loud. Even when the restaurant is crowded, it's really quiet. The French are all about intimacy. We finished the meal with a digestif or after dinner drink of cognac with a prune in it. It was really good and helps your stomach digest the food. I unpacked some more that night and then went with Justin and his girlfriend to another girl's apartment for a birthday celebration and then the bars/clubs. I got to use the Metro for the first time, which is soo easy. It was free too because it had been closed earlier due to the demonstrations and strikes. I met a ton of girls from Boulder, some doing CEA, some doing AUP (American University in Paris), and some visiting from other cities in Europe. We went to a few bars and a club that played a lot of Mo Town music that my mom would have liked. I met a ton of other people from CEA there and we had a great time.

I spoke in French to the waiter at the restaurant, some random guy on the Metro, and a taxi driver. I held my own and I could understand them and communicate to them. I'm sure they simplified their speaking for me but I am definitely able to get around in French.

Day Two:
I woke up at 8:45 am, having gotten 4 hours of sleep, and went to the CEA headquarters for orientation. There are 9 people on CEA taking classes at La Sorbonne. They all seem great. There is one other guy who goes to Berkley and he seems really cool. I am happy I am not the only guy...something I was legitimately worried about. Everyone wants to speak French and improve their knowledge of the language. We met to talk about transportation, apartment issues, excursions, and just general stuff we needed to know about the program. Then we all had lunch at a brasserie and saw an amazing view of Paris from the top of the Centre Pompidou. I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time (from afar). It is amazing how inspiring the landmarks in Paris are and how they shape the city. I bought my monthly metro pass in French with no problems, which was very nice. I am not really tired yet, which is weird, but I'm sure it will hit me soon. Right now I am just relaxing in the apartment. I will go grocery shopping tomorrow, find some posters for the apartment, maybe find a pouch for change, and I have a bus tour of Paris with my program. Tonight I'm going to a concert with a bunch of people from my program. It's called Busy P, he's a DJ, and it's supposed to be at a really cool venue in Montmarte (near Sacre Coeur).

Random Observations:

Parisians walk very fast - which is great because I love fast walkers
Everyone has been very friendly, but going out in big groups brings a lot of annoyed attention
When I speak in French to French people, they've been responding to me in French
People are very quiet in public - on the metro, in restaurants. Don't even think about using a cell phone in those places
Meals take a long time. Everyone is very relaxed at meals times and nobody will ever rush you out of a restaurant
The dijon mustard is really really strong here

The Start

2009-01-15T16:04:00.004-06:00

Hi All.

Welcome to my blog of my adventures in Paris. I'll give you a little information about the trip first. I have wanted to go to Paris to study since high school. I am going through a program called CEA (I actually have no idea what it stands for). They set up my housing, classes, etc.

I'm taking all of my classes in French. Naturally, I'm a little nervous about this part. A lot of people going through my program are taking classes in English, with all American kids in American style classrooms. I am here for immersion. I am here to understand what it's like to live in another country, to look at the world from a completely different point of view. Without learning the language and really trying to understand the culture, I won't experience the full benefits of being abroad.

The program is called: University of Paris IV – Cours de Civilisation Française de la Sorbonne. It's through La Sorbonne, the oldest school in France. Classes are taught by professors from La Sorbonne and my classmates come from all over the world (not France though). My French language class is 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. Once every week I'll also have a phonetics class to improve my accent. Then I'll be taking 2 other classes at the school, both in French. Those will be 2 days a week. As of now, I plan on taking Paris: Architecture & History and Political & Economic Issues in Modern France. I don't pick my classes until I'm there, after I take my placement exam to determine which exact level I will be in.

CEA arranged my housing. My apartment is in the 13th arrondisement, next to the Latin Quarter and about a 20 minute walk from my school. It's near the Metro Stations Les Gobelins and Glacière, Chinatown, and the Luxembourg Gardens. The 13th is an up-and-coming neighborhood in Paris. It isn't too expensive (which is really nice) and it's not touristy at all. I'm living with another guy from CEA, named Justin Johnson. He goes to Boulder and is from Dallas, TX. He seems like a very nice guy. I really don't know much about him and I won't meet him until I get to my apartment in Paris. I'm trying to learn how to cook because I'll have a kitchen in my apartment. I am pretty close to Rue Moufftard, an extremely popular market place in Paris, where I will buy groceries. I will have a pretty small apartment: a bedroom, a living room, a kitchenette and a bathroom. Low expectations can't disappoint, right? You can see the door to my apartment here:

View Larger Map

I don't know many people in Paris. A few people from Michigan, a few from Highland Park, and a few random connections. But I'm excited to go to a city without knowing many people. I can't wait to meet so many people from so many different countries. I have friends studying in Florence, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, London, Prague, and many other places all over the world. Those visits are going to be very fun. I have a 2 week spring break in mid-April and I hope to make many weekend trips, while still taking time to explore Paris and France. I really want to travel to Israel some time during my time in Europe. My ideal trip would be Paris to Greece, Greece to Turkey, Turkey to Israel and then back to Paris. I have a bunch of friends in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and I would love to visit the country again, just a year after my first time there on Birthright. My program lasts from January 29 until May 30. I'm hoping to stay later than that to travel and possibly work at a winery.

How to Stay in Touch:
I will keep you all updated on my classes and travels throughout the semester. Feel free to leave posts or e-mail me at any time (Admiller15@gmail.com).
BBM: I'll have my blackberry so I will be accessible easily by e-mail and BlackBerry Messenger (pin:2453b3c).
Skype: Skype is probably the best way to have conversations. If you download Skype (it's Free), you can talk to be through voice or video chat for no charge. Click here to download Skype: Skype. My Skype name is Admiller15.
French Cell Phone: I get free incoming calls to my french cell phone. To call from the states, dial 011 33 6 14 28 05 41. If you're in France, dial 06 14 28 05 41. If you're in Europe, dial + 33 6 14 28 05 41.

I've been busy collecting all the random items I'll need when abroad: adapters for electricity, a new raincoat, walking shoes, headphones, etc. Other than that, this 5 week break is the longest break I've had in the past 4 years. It's been great to really relax and get ready for Paris. A bientôt!