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!