I'm 20 now! For my birthday dinner we (there were 8 of us) went out to a restaurant called le comptoir du 7eme near the eiffel tower. Since the restaurant is more of a brasserie that meant we had larger portions that were still pretty delicious. I had filet mignon for dinner and then profiteroles (pastries with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce drizzled on top) for dessert. A few of my friends here suprised me with a cute pastry, a small flower plant for my room, and a bottle of wine. It was a great night!
Friday, I took my intensive language practicum final. I don't know what I scored on that, but now that that's over i have 4.5 units out of the way already. This week I start my real content courses. Tomorrow I have french 2 and then later on in the week I'll have French Art (1715-1914), Paris in Literature, and European Integration.
Saturday morning, Hannah, Marie and I took the TGV train to reims for champagne tasting. We also just wanted to get out of the city and see a smaller, greener town. Reims (pronounced RENS..i think) is about a 45 minute tgv ride east of paris. Once we hopped of the train we went to the notre dame cathedral there and saw a really cool updated stained glass by mark chagall. We went to pommery champange house for our tasting (10 euros for a tour of the house/caves and a glass of bubbly). It was also interesting touring the champagne house because in certain sections there were artists installations. The one that i really liked was a room filled with electric guitars and live finches. The finches would fly around and occasionally land on the guitar strings and play. After the champagne tour we strolled around town, and then arrived back in paris around 7pm.
It was a strange feeling coming back into paris because as the train pulled into its station (maybe because i was so tired and we had just spent the entire day in a new town) it sort of felt like home. The more familiar i get with le metro, the RER, the curving streets, and the owners of the local boulangerie, it starts to sink in that that i'm acutally living here. tres bizarre!
Today (Sunday) Marie and I went to Versailles. What I especially liked about the visit (besides the fact that with our student id cards we get in free) was that there is an upcoming Jeff Koons exhibition within the Versailles palace. It opens sometime next week, but throughout some of the drawing rooms and foyers there would be objects covered up with sheets or folding screens. I don't know, I just think it's pretty fascinating juxtaposing a modern artist like Jeff Koons in an environment rich with french history and all its aristocracy. It's definitely a collision of two very different worlds. [For those of you who don't know Jeff Koons, he created the giant dog outside of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain....here's an article about the upcoming exhibiton: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,,french-round-on-jeff-koons-versailles-show,42366 ]
Another side note -- I've been shooting pictures mostly on my pocket-sized canon and it has various settings depending on the scene. Today I just noticed that the night setting icon has a really tiny stick-figure with the eiffel tower in the background. C'est amusant, oui?
Emmm, I think that's it for now.
Not sure what my plans are for next weekend. But maybe the weekend or two after I might be going to Dublin, because there's some promotional air fare if you book within the next week...and well I want to see as many new places as possible!
PS: if you want to see more pictures copy and paste this address http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2276987&l=394be&id=3624618
(you'll see pictures from the pere lachaise cemetary, jim morrison and edith piaf are burried there...as well as pictures from the opera, the view from my window, and pictures from reims)
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