This Update is Long Overdue

Happy belated Thanksgiving!!!!!

Last weekend was fun, because my parents and brother came up and I got to go to Normandy with them!

Granted, things started off relatively stressful. The public transportation strike was still happening, which meant that our original plan of me taking a train and meeting them in Caen wasn't going to happen because my train was cancelled. I told my host family that I was looking for a taxi online to take me to Charles de Gaulle airport (plan B was to meet my family there), and they said that they would call up their neighbor who is a taxi driver. He told them he wouldn't drive there because the traffic was so awful. They also told me that the RER would be running, so I could take line B to the airport.

I wake up early the next morning (6:00 AM for the second day in a row after being up way too late packing/organizing) and walked to the RER station. Surprise, Surprise-it was closed! I spent about five minutes sitting there figuring out what to do. I then saw a giant street map, which said there was a taxi station right around the corner. I went over there and saw another woman waiting for a taxi to charles de gaulle, too. After about 15 minutes of waiting, I had realized that the amount of time I had been outside caused me to lose feeling in my toes. I also realized that I hadn't programmed my family's phone number into my cell phone, and I didn't know it off the top of my head. I went to a nearby cafe to warm up and get the phone number. I returned to the taxi station ten minutes later, and the woman was gone. Assuming she got a taxi, I began to feel a twinge of hope. However, after ten more minutes had passed, I had not seen a single taxi. I was prepared to make my parents drive into the city to meet me, when I suddenly saw an available taxi! My parents called just as I got inside to tell me that they had landed.

One very expensive taxi ride later, I met up with my family, picked up the rental car, and set off for Normandy! Learning our lesson from Italy, we made sure to get a car with an automatic transmission and a GPS. We stopped in Caen on our way to the hotel to see the Caen memorial. The museum was interesting, as were the films. I decided to take a look at the book shop there in case they had something I could use for my politics paper comparing the french resistance to the german resistance, and they had the book of my dreams for the paper! However, it also cost 20 euros. I decided not to get it.

The hotel we stayed in was beautiful! Since I was not coming along originally, they had to make accomodations for an extra person, which meant I got my own room! After we arrived there, we relaxed for a bit before going into town for dinner. We were the only people in the restaurant! We heard them lock the doors behind us when we left.

We had a tour the next day. We went to Omaha Beach, which is one of the beaches where the American troops landed on D-Day. Our tour guide took us inside bunkers and showed us different military vehicles and such. He also took us to a military graveyard where the families of American soldiers who died during WWII while in France had the option of burying the soldiers. There are 9,000 soldiers buried there.

Even though the weather was beautiful those two days, it was awful the next day! However, we ended up going to Mont-St-Michel. This was my third time there, so I wasn't very into it, but I didnt mind, either. My brother had his first crepe, and the wind destroyed my umbrella.

I was happy to see my family, even though we weren't together for Thanksgiving. The group went to the Hard Rock Cafe for Thanksgiving dinner. We had caesar salad, corn soup, turkey/veggie burgers, mashed potatoes, broccoli, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. It was a lot of food, but it was delicious!

We were supposed to see the Nutcracker afterwards, but it was cancelled because the scenery people went on strike. Instead, we saw the Magic Flute! I enjoyed the play a lot, because it was frickin hilarious!

Possible trip to Madrid next weekend. Keep y'all updated on that!
~Sarah, who is thinking about going on that trip

Lille!

I think that our weekend in Lille was a lot more fun than I expected it to be! Granted, it was cold and wet, but it wasn't much better than Paris. The train ride was good, since it gave me time to catch up on my reading for Orphee. We were all pretty quiet, since most of us were reading, with the exception of Litos and Dan, who were listening to Margaret Cho on my iPod. After dropping off our things at the hostel, we went out to walk around for a bit as a way to kill time until the restaurant where we went to eat opened. We saw a couple of churches and the opera house! Claire, Mandi, and I also got our picture taken with a man dressed up as something crazy. Dinner was extremely delicious and probably the most expensive meal I've had since we've been in Paris! I forgot what the thing was called that most of us ate for dinner, but it's basically a flat, doughy bread (kind of like pizza dough) with different meats and vegetables on it. Mine had olive oil, mozzarella cheese, and tomatoes on it. Traditionally, they come with ham and onions, but I decided to pass on those. Some of us went out afterwards, but I opted to stay in and hang out with Ben and Mandi.

The next day was our only full day in the city. We started off with a visit to the Musee des Beaux-Arts. I liked this one much more than the one we visited in Nantes. There were really interesting video displays, including one about a town where there was only one young couple, and the traditions they kept. After a two hour lunch period, we met up at Tri Postal, which is where the used to sort mail for the city. There was a photography/video exhibit going on there. I liked most of the displays there, but some of them I didn't enjoy as much, such as the video of a cat eating a mouse.

It POURED the next morning, but that didn't stop us from going shopping! We found a flea market, where I bought myself a much-needed scarf and some cheap makeup. After lunch, we saw a movie called L'Heure Zero, which is based on an Agatha Christie novel. I enjoyed the film a lot, but it got slightly confusing at times. We walked around a little more, than went to the train station and went back to Paris.

I thought the visit was a lot of fun, and I can't wait for our next visit to Bruxelles!

Stress Much?

Lots of work has to be done in these next few days. I have to write a one page proposal for my topic for my politics final, study for my politics midterm, read orphee, see the movie orphee, and write a compte de rendu comparing the film to the play. Suddenly, I'm back at school.

I got lost today on my way back to the classroom during lunch for about ten minutes, and in the process of doing so, found a tea store that I've been meaning to go to for a few weeks now. I plan on going back there during lunch on Tuesday, since we get three hours for lunch every Tuesday. I tried a cup of their tea when I went to Salon du Chocolat, and I wanted to buy more of it ever since then.

We're leaving for a weekend in Lille tommorow. Lille is a city in northern France that is very modern and is over-run by students, according to my host family.

Yesterday we went to the Conciergerie, which is an old prison that Marie Antoinette was held in during her imprisonment. I've been there before, but I still enjoyed it.

Next Tuesday, there will be another public transportation strike. The last one only lasted for three days, but if this one lasts longer, it means that I will not be able to take the train to Caen on Friday afternoon, which means I cannot see my family.

Shit, my k key just fell off my keyboard. I need to call IBM about getting a new one.
~Sarah, who needs a new keyboard

I'm Still Around, I Swear!

So I discovered the wonderful thing that is the George Pompidou Centre. Free wifi AND I get to plug in my computer! Unfortunately, I can only get an hour and a half of wifi access every time I go there.

Classes have been keeping me busy. We went to Saint Germain and Notre Dame for art history, and the national opera house and the picasso museum on our own. I did a little research and found a Salvador Dali exhibit that's happening in the city, which is really cool, but it also costs ten euros to get in. He's my favorite artist, so I'm saving my money to go.

This weekend was fun. My host family left for a long weekend in the countryside, so last night I invited Ben and Jeana over to make dinner and hang out. We made salad, burritos, and crepes, but we ended up skipping the salad since we stuffed ourselves with burritos. The crepes turned out different than we hoped they would, but they were still good. I bought a present for all of us, too-sparkling apple cider! Overall, it was a good time, and I hope to do it again when my host fam goes to the countryside next weekend. Ben and Jeana also got to meet the other students that I'm living with, so that was nice.

The other day, Jeana, Justin, and I were walking through Forum des Halles to go to the FNAC when a woman with her two kids comes up to us and asks where the movie theatre is. I tell her, and she asks us where we're from. We tell her we're American students, and she insists that we each ask her kids questions in French. No joke, we couldn't leave until we each asked her kids a question. I'm sure she had good intentions, but it was kind of weird.

I saw Un Jour Sur Terre (A Day on the Earth? Something like that...) the other weekend, and I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't enjoy paying 5 euros to see it, though.

I'm going to wrap this up so I can go back to the apartment and cook dinner.
~Sarah, who wants her dinner!