strasbourg

so last weekend i went to strasbourg with 5 other girls from my program! (funny story: 3 of the girls that went decided separately from us to go, and neither of us knew till we had both already booked!)
it was a lot of fun, very different from paris, and very worth the cold!

we left on the tgv train (which, btw, is wonderful. so quiet. so fast. so great. lol) friday afternoon and got into strasbourg at 7.15 at night and ended up taking the bus the wrong way (which instead of taking 5 min took 20) and got to our hostel. we then decided that it was time for dinner since we were all pretty hungry. so it was like.. 9ish by the time we got dressed and a recommendation from the hostel. apparently places stop serving food at 10. it was such a change. the whole night we were really surprised at how quiet it was.... VERY different from paris. we saw very few people.

on saturday we started by meeting up with the other 3 girls (who were staying in a diff place) and toured the cathedral and then we did the astronomical clock (a bit of a let down in my opinion..) then we did the boat tour (very enjoyable imo) and then we had lunch. we went to this cute little restaurant where you can REALLY see the german influence of the town (since strasbourg is right on the border and has changed hands between france and germany a number of times there is lots of german influence) anyways at this restaurant i had a traditional dish called a tarte flambee and it had bacon and onion on it and some sort of cheese. very good.
after lunch we went to a chocolate museum. haha. after a quick nap (best nap of my life no jokes) we went out to dinner at 8.30 and had another traditional dish: quiche lorraine (yummmmm) and then we went to a salsa bar. that was pretty funny, a salsa bar in strasbourg: laura you would have loved the music, its all the music they play on 101.1

on sunday we started they day by climbing up to the top of the cathedral! it was SO cool, lots of stairs, but so worth it. it used to be the highest building in the world! we also got up there right as the bells were chiming. very nice. after the cathedral we went to the musee de l'oeuvre notre dame, which was...boring. frankly. it was all of this sculpture and stained glass from churches around alsace and the cathedral in strasbourg. we then went to a cafe to sit for awhile since we were all cold and exhausted, and then we went to the palais rohan, which i'm sad we didn't go to in the morning instead of the musee de l'oeuvre de notre dame. it was cool, cause it was a palace where marie antoinette stayed, and napoleon I and III and all sorts of other cool things. the lib was my fav room!

anyways, thats a very brief version of my weekend! here are some pictures!
this is the cathedral:
a close op of the cathedral:
this is a pic of the astronomical clock:
this is a pic of my tarte: hahathis is a pic of la petite france, a very picturesque area in old town strasbourg:


this is a pic of the group doing a jumping pic on top of the cathedral:

en greve

so france and strikes go hand and hand.
its only fitting that some sort of unrest would take place while i'm studying here! especially in the university system!
recently the government has been trying to reorganize the french university system to be more like the american university system. while some people say that these reforms are needed, many are chastising the way that the government has gone about it. indeed, we went to the main sorbonne campus the other day to go to the main office, and people were handing out flyers all over the place. i'm not exactly sure what the flyers said, something about a meeting that afternoon to talk about whats going on. and i pass an oceanography institue every morning on the way to and from class and they are handing out lfyers there and have a big banner that says "en greve" (which basically means, strike!)
tomorrow there is supposed to be a big "manifestation" where a bunch of students will walk from one place to another.
and its not just paris, but a number of other cities as well.

here are some links if you'd like to read about it (its in french, but i bet you could transtlate the page...)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2009/02/18/01016-20090218ARTFIG00592-nouvelle-mobilisation-jeudi-dans-les-universites-.php

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2009/02/18/universites-la-crise_1157066_3224.html#ens_id=1157181

i guess i'll be able to tell you guys more about everything tomorrow... haha.

i'll still have class though:)

and then i don't know if you guys have heard about the massive unrest going on in guadaloupe and martinique but those countries are basically all "en greve"

its just fun times right now! lol

pictures

here are some pictures of whats been going on!

at the rodin museum (not EXACTLY my cup of tea, not a huge sculpture fan, but still had fun...)


that same day that we went to the rodin museum we also decided to see the eiffel tower because it was an absolutely gorgeous day! one of the few we've had.and here is the eiffel tower from the rodin museum
here is a picture from my birthday of me and my two friends who visited me in paris!! (they are studying in london)



ok so i've been kind of bad about taking photos, but i hope that helps some!
basically i've just been doing class, homework, and hanging out. did the rodin museum (obv), on friday did the georges pompidou museum (saw some names i recognized, but maybe not my cup of tea either). saturday did shopping... fell in love with a very expensive chloe handbag. ended up buying a cheap top and jeans instead.
start my phonetics classes on wednesday and my cinema course on friday.
and then i leave for strasbourg on friday!:)
i will take lots of pics of that!

metro

so i've spent a lot of time on the metro since being here, as do most parisians i would imagine. since i have yet to figure out the bus system, i take the metro everywhere i go, and its totally affordable because of this wonderful little pass i have. its called a navigo and i paid for a month of unlimited travel on metro, bus, and trams all over paris. best invention ever. so much better than dc.
in dc i would spend about 20 bucks every two weeks when i worked twice a week and then just general goings on. if i used the metro as much in dc as i use it here, i would probably be spending about 20 bucks every other day!
not only is the paris metro affordable (at least for me...) its so comprehensive! you're never far from a stop and everywhere you go is close to a stop (those sound the same i know... but i mean them in different ways, not sure if i can explain it though). for example, in dc you might want to go to the jefferson memorial. well what metro stop should you use? smithsonian? ok, now you've got a very long walk. in paris, its where do you want to go? musee d'orsay? ok, you have a number of metro stops to choose from and if you have to walk, its probably a couple blocks at most.
i guess this post is basically trying to say that i'm so glad that paris has this great system cause i think this city would be much more difficult and time consuming to get around if it didn't!
case in point about metro: there are 4 metro stops that i can go to. pasteur (this is the closest and the one i used the most), falguiere, duroc, and montparnasse. montparnasse is the longest walk at about ten minutes. pasteur is about 3 or 4 min. and there are two lines that go through pasteur, and two different lines that go through duroc, and montparnasse has one other that the other two don't have.
sorry that i keep going on about this, i'm just impressed. haha.

i found out that montparnasse was so close today because i was walking around the neighborhood a bit, since i've never really done it. and i found shopping. lots of shopping. probably not the best thing to find so close to my house!

i also discovered on friday the student cafeterias called the "crus." it works on a point system, so 6 points is a meal and ends up costing 2.85. the meal is very large. on friday i had a big piece of chicken, some fries, a tarte, and a piece of bread. my friend allison got a big piece of fish and some ratatouille with a piece of fruit and some salad and the bread. its probably the best thing ever.

anyways, i need to be doing some homework.

class

so since the last time i wrote i've started my classes at the sorbonne. my class is full of asians. no jokes. there are probably 20 people in the class, and there are probably 7 or 8 non-asians. besides me there are 2 other american girls, but we are the only native english speakers. its a little weird being some place where the language i have in common with people is not english, but french... and VERY VERY VERY VERY hard to understand the asians.... it sounds a little mean but their native languages don't have the same sounds, so its really hard for them to pronounce things and then for me to distinguish what they're saying. i think though that i'm in the right class... everything we're doing is stuff that my profs have assumed i've known since its really basic stuff, like present tense verbs (i know i know..easy right?) but with all of the exceptions in french its really good review. and i'm not the only one doing it. everyone in the elementary level is doing it, and the one guy who placed into intermediate is doing present tense review too. right now the class might be a touch easy, but i was looking at the book and it looks like its going to be alright. i'm also thinking about talking to my professor tomorrow just to make sure... but i'm thinking its probably for the best to be where i am, because my biggest problem isn't understand so much as forming sentances, and with all of this review it should come easier and easier, especially as i grow more confident with my verb tenses and conjugations.
my phonetics classes start on the 18th, which i think is next wednesday. at my oral exam the woman testing me said i had a very good accent:) which i think is pretty good!! i also signed up for a conference course, which will be with other french students. its about the cinema. it should be interesting.

we also started our courses at the accent center, which in my case is paris civilization and culture. the professor is super cool, proably 30 or so, he's from the states, but wrote a dissertation on french lit (in french!) a couple years ago, and ithink has been living here since. but the class is really cool. obviously he's a lit major so we have been reading some very lit-y stuff, like baudelaire. i actually enjoyed the poems he had us read. the class is also pretty cool cause once a week we'll go to a diff part of the city for our class. for example, next week we're going to be studying notre-dame slash paris in the medieval times, so we'll read some stuff for tuesday and then on thrusday we'll meet at notre dame! the week that you guys are here mom and dad, we'll be going to the musee d'orsay, so i'd say you should probs come and just listen at the back haha (this class is in english)

other than that i've just been enjoying my time here. it was sunny yesterday (for the first time in awhile!!) and so i was outside most of the day...even if it was cold. ihave to say, i'm pretty over this whole cold thing. every parisian keeps telling me though that its been a very cold winter and its never like this. of course, when i'm here its cold. haha. it does give me a good excuse to buy scarves though. have to say, love them. i've already bought 3 and want to buy more.....

i've also booked my first trip! i'm going to strasbourg next weekend (the 20-22nd) with some people from my group! i'm stoked:)and hopefully the weekend after i'll be going to annecy!

food

so far i've done ok with the food my host family has given me. its stayed around chicken and salad and pasta and bread and those sorts of things. foods that i like because obviously they are super plain. tonights dinner, however, was an experience.
it was duck.
not sure i liked it so much. yes, i did eat it all (except for the gois part on the bottom...) i hope that she doesn't make it again. i'm sure she will though. there were also mashed potatoes, but dad, after eating your mashed potatoes, no ones will ever be as good, and these i wasn't a huge fan of either...they seemed grainy.
we also had the french version of king cake called "galette du rois" and i'm not exactly sure what was in it, but it was delicious. i'm also a little hazy on the custom/why it was tonight that we had it...but all the same. it was really really good.

on another note, i found out about another art museum that is one of my new favs: musee de l'orangerie. it has monet's big lily paintings and a bunch of renoir and cezanne and some artists i've never heard of, but ended up really liking, like soutine. it was free to get in (for me) and i think it will be a spot i'll go if i'm stressed out or upset about something. it was just so calming!

and classes start tomorrow, i'll probably be so overwhelmed with them after one day...wish me luck!

birthday weekend!

so this weekend was my birthday! my friends from AU who are studying in london, jacky and ariel, came to visit me! it was a really good time:) on friday we met up after dinner around 10ish(they had seen the louvre that day and i didn't want to hold them up!) and went for drinks around their hotel.

we had a semi-early night cause we knew the next day was going to be busy. the next day i met up with the girls around 1230ish at the arc de triumphe, but it started to snow on my metro ride over there and was just generally miserable. and by miserable i mean really freaking cold. we didn't stay there long, and ended up going to the musee d'orsay. def my fav museum in paris. love impressionists and post-impressionists! i will probably be going back there a lot because i get free entry!!! we spent most of the afternoon there.

that night we went out for a nice dinner with four people from my program and then met up with 2 more people and went to a bar. the restaurant was so cool cause we could see notre dame while we were eating!
it was a great birthday overall:)

today ariel and i met up for lunch at a really nice cafe near the louvre, which mom and dad, i think we should go to! they have a really good looking brunch menu:)

after walking all over paris and eating pastries and drinking coffee as we went, ariel needed to get to the train station, and i ended up meeting up with 2 girls from my program for a quick dinner and hot chocolate.
sundays are going to be weird cause i don't get dinner with my host family, and lots of things are closed. i think i'm going to have to ask if i can use the kitchen to cook like, pasta or something. i also think that as money starts to get more important for things like... shopping... i won't want to eat out 3 nights a week.

anways. thats what this weekend was here. i'd post pictures but i didn't really take any!

tourist.

just thought that maybe this pic would be interesting, this is the washing machine in the apartment (there is no dryer) there is also a crazy cat.



ok, so other than that, life in paris has been good. i'm finally (sort of) getting used to the time difference.
yesterday we had our french language placement exam, we'll get the results on monday. it was much harder than i thought it was going to be. i just want to be put into at least intermediate (there are 5 levels: just starting (aka no french), beginner, intermediate, advanced, and superior (aka fluent)) i want intermediate at least cause then i can take an art class as a conference course. a conference course is a class scheduled by the sorbonne that french professors teach and other french students take. our academic advisor said at ACCENT that there can be as many as 500 people in some conference courses. that is really intense.
speaking of the sorbonne, this is where i get to study:!!!




my host family said it was tres chic(dunno why the blog won't let me do the accent...) when i told them thats where i was studying. haha. it is pretty nice. the sorbonne is actually the 2nd oldest university in europe (i think its just europe, i would imagine that asia/middle east had unis before europe did) and was started in the 1200s.
i'm a little worried about the grading because french grades apparently are very difficult! grades are awarded out of 20 and the average is 8. if you get a 14 you're doing wonderfully. no one EVER gets a 20.
but yes.
today we did a lot of tourist-y stuff, really the first of the sort we've done as its all been orientation so far. actually last night we did the bateaux mouches which is a boat cruise down the river. that was cold. today me and 3 friends went to la conciegerie which used to be a palace, but was converted over to a prison and held all of the condemned during the french revolution, including marie antoinette. its a little cheesy, but interesting all the same. our ticket also came with entrance to sainte-chapelle which is gorgeous. definatly worth a visit. it is a great example of high french gothic architecture. and there are so many stained glass windows! there are over 1000 different scenes: here is an example

after we did that touring we headed over to saint-michel to have am uch needed lunch (at this point in the day it was drizzling a tad) i had a crepe. so delish. we sat down for a bit, and then we did some shopping! i bought myself some early bday gifts, a pair of super cute boots and, surprise of all surprises, a leather jacket! its super cute and fits me so well. it was really surprising, i never thought i'd own one, and i was walking past it and just for laughs decided to try it on. i didn't even know what my size was since sizes here do not equal sizes in the states. the first one fit and the rest is history!
we shopped for a bit more and ended up stumbling upon the sorbonne, and then decided we wanted to go to montmartre since by this time the sun was out (go figure, thats paris so far)
so we went and met up with 2 other girls from the group. its soooooooooo pretty up there!

after another crepe i called it a day.
tomorrow ariel and jacky come and then sat is my bday!

Finally here!

So i arrived in paris yesterday!
yesterday was kind of a blur, what with being a tiny bit overwhelmed by 1)how cold it was (it snowed that morning, but then the snow turned into a rainy drizzle) 2) my luggage and 3) jet lag.
today (after spending our first night in a hotel with the members of my enclave group) we had our orientation where we learned about the city, like the metro, phone cards, mobile phones, all sorts of fun things. we also had a meeting about our homestays! at 6, after all receiving the names and address and metro stop of our families we returned to our hotel to get our things and meet our families. the families were supposed to come pick us up at the hotel, but my host mother had something last minute come up, so i took a taxi there with the host family coordinator.
the family is very nice, there are 3 girls ( i think their ages are 14, 11, and 10) and then the mother. the apartment is nice, but really small. i have my own room, and the fourteen year old girl has her own room, and the mom and the two smaller girls sleep in what would be the living room, but they have converted over to their bedroom. there is one toilet and one sink and one shower!!! for four, now five, girls!!
here are some pics of my room:









there is definately a lot of stuff in the room that is NOT mine. haha.
but i'm all unpacked so thats good! (its weird though i have no hanging space, just shelf room)

tomorrow we have our french placement exam and then tomorrow night a river cruise! the first real tourist-y thing we'll have done!
anyways i'm a little tired right now but i just thought i'd post this!
ps... the accent center (our program headquarters) gave us a smoke detector... very random. apparently french homes do not have them and its an insurance issure or something.
who knows. all iknow is that ihave a smoke detector sitting on my desk next to me!

Leaving

Hi everyone!
Here is my address for any mail that you might want to send:
Katherine Brodhead
c/o ACCENT Student Mail
89, rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine
75011 Paris
France

I'll try to update this blog as much as I can with pictures, stories and general goings on in my life in Paris!