Last night, our first REAL night out, we ventured over the the Latin district in search of a bar that was in the "MTV's guide to Paris" book. We got out of the metro and were looking at the map, slightly confused i'll admit, and this older man came up to us and said he could help. So he pointed us in the right direction...and then followed us. While he was nice, it was a bit weird. I avoided talking to him. He talked about his business and eventually we got him to leave. Of course before he left he asked for a phone number. He said he had a friend who would like to meet us. "We say 'drinks for everyone'" was his way of convincing us for a phone number. Not working buddy! I quickly told him I just moved to Paris but didn't have a cell phone. As I said this, I was praying my 30 Euro phone didn't go off.
Well we found this illusive club/bar and there outrageous prices. 11 Euro for a drink! Yikes! The drinking/club scene will be kept to a minimum with prices like that. So bailed and enjoyed the lovely atmosphere and evening temperatures of Paris. We were about to go to this other bar when a rather charming young man came up and asked if we needed help. His name is Tom and he moved to Paris from Australia a few months ago. Tom offered to show us to an English bar where he was off too. We graciously followed Tom to The Long Horn. Immediately we stepped out of the classic French culture and back into the world of Caffrey's and Murphy's. This bar was VERY American. All the bartenders and every patron spoke English. Nonetheless, the bar was very entertaining. During one trip away from the table I got roped into a discussion with Sam and Sammy (I know, right). S squared were two men from Paris who "loved American girls because we are not snobby and open to anything." We discussed everything from fashion to how the French "date." These party animals seemed to be a bit out of touch with American music. One of them said he love Brandy and Monica (circa 7th grade-remember "The Boy is Mine?!"). The other said he liked Nelly (and was impressed he was from my hometown) and Akon. They were funny and soon became the second victims of the "I don't have a phone line."
Because I was the only one who had a working cell phone, Tom and I exchanged numbers and he promised to keep us updated on fun parties and said we could call if we need suggestions for nights out.
This afternoon after our last bit of orientation meetings, we wandered over to a book store for our school books. In the book store this gentleman (he is 24), who spoke English, asked us how we were doing. We quickly found out that his name is Julien and his is originally from Paris but spent two years in Australia. After I struggled to remember the word for "to sell" he assisted me. After getting books he offered to take me to the store to find notebooks for classes. We went to the store and chatted. He was very nice and easy to talk too. He goes to an American University in Paris (close to my apartment) and invited us to go to his school's party next Thursday night. He promised to be in touch before then (he mentioned a house party at his place this weekend or next-idk). It will be nice to have a real French friend!
In my district, today and Tuesday are market days. Market day is when all of the local vendors bring there produce and other goods out under tents and sell them at really good prices. I found a big bunch of pink tulips (one of my favorites) for about four american dollars. They are in a vase on our makeshift kitchen/living room table. It's nice to have them!
Thats all for now, mes aims!
xoxo
ABN
Friday, January 25, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
My love affair with this city...
Everything has been going so much better since the first days where I was sleep deprived/hungry/not able to sleep. All of you who know me know how bad I am when that happens. It's a miracle I met anyone! ha
Our 3 day orientation/walk tours have gone by pretty quickly. They were actually not that bad. I really enjoyed the walking tours of the Eiffel Tower region (Today) and then the Mid-Evil district/Louvre. The other day was, as I mentioned, spent talking about culture shock, stereotypes and adjusting to life in Europe. I'm thinking I won't be too homesick, though. I'm not much a homebody and I go to school a bit away from Saint Louis. Plus, over Spring Break/Easter break my family and my grammy will be coming. I'm looking forward to sharing my new city with them. Kate's grandma said she would buy her a ticket to come see me. I'm sure what I share with her will be quite different then with the family. Although, who knows!
Last night one of my roommates and I made dinner for some people. Well, lets be honest, we all know I don't cook so I was the assistant really. Oh well, It was really good (and inexpensive)! We made pasta with sauce, fresh veggies, a cucumber/tomato salad, a baguette and three bottles of French wine for 11.25 Euros! What a deal! It was nice to have a good meal.
Tonight is going to be our first real night out since tomorrow, Friday, we only have a meeting from 10 a.m. until around noon. There is a big group of people going to the Latin district of Paris. This is near the Eiffel Tower just for navigational sense. We opted for the Latin area because we have all heard that this is most like the American college bar scene (we're not quite ready for the full blown European Discotheques!) I'm excited for this! I do miss my friends from home though. I find myself often catching myself wanting to share something or make a joke to people at home. In true Becky style today, someone made a "Don't taze me bro!" reference! I was so excited!
My culinary skills were nothing short of spectacular with the standard Ashley grilled cheese.
I'm looking forward to classes starting and getting into somewhat of a routine. So far its been 8-6 p.m everyday. I'll be grateful when I feel like I have more downtime and time to explore.
The Louvre is open on Friday nights for free so we're planning on starting some Friday nights at the Louvre. Not quite Milwaukee, eh? Also, France, unlike America, really only has sales twice a year. The first of the biyearly sales ends in a week or so. Our guide told us today about high end fashion stores that send there clothes to retailers who mark down the prices down "dramatically." My expectations for these markdowns are not very high so hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.
We are already in the process of planning Spring Break vacations because they often have amazing flight deals. We have about five different Web sites where you can find good deal. So far the big winner is Greece! How amazing would that be? Maybe i'll be like the girl in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants! I have some fun photos so far but I'm already missing my mom taking pictures at every possible second. I find my skills are not quite up to par.
Well I'm off, I'm introducing Erica to Michael Buble's music over some red wine before we go out.
Bon Soir mon amis!
Ps-Earlier tonight I blew out the power in our apartment trying to get my American electric products to work! No harm done and the power was back on in five minutes. I feel better because I'm not the first one to do that on our floor.
Our 3 day orientation/walk tours have gone by pretty quickly. They were actually not that bad. I really enjoyed the walking tours of the Eiffel Tower region (Today) and then the Mid-Evil district/Louvre. The other day was, as I mentioned, spent talking about culture shock, stereotypes and adjusting to life in Europe. I'm thinking I won't be too homesick, though. I'm not much a homebody and I go to school a bit away from Saint Louis. Plus, over Spring Break/Easter break my family and my grammy will be coming. I'm looking forward to sharing my new city with them. Kate's grandma said she would buy her a ticket to come see me. I'm sure what I share with her will be quite different then with the family. Although, who knows!
Last night one of my roommates and I made dinner for some people. Well, lets be honest, we all know I don't cook so I was the assistant really. Oh well, It was really good (and inexpensive)! We made pasta with sauce, fresh veggies, a cucumber/tomato salad, a baguette and three bottles of French wine for 11.25 Euros! What a deal! It was nice to have a good meal.
Tonight is going to be our first real night out since tomorrow, Friday, we only have a meeting from 10 a.m. until around noon. There is a big group of people going to the Latin district of Paris. This is near the Eiffel Tower just for navigational sense. We opted for the Latin area because we have all heard that this is most like the American college bar scene (we're not quite ready for the full blown European Discotheques!) I'm excited for this! I do miss my friends from home though. I find myself often catching myself wanting to share something or make a joke to people at home. In true Becky style today, someone made a "Don't taze me bro!" reference! I was so excited!
My culinary skills were nothing short of spectacular with the standard Ashley grilled cheese.
I'm looking forward to classes starting and getting into somewhat of a routine. So far its been 8-6 p.m everyday. I'll be grateful when I feel like I have more downtime and time to explore.
The Louvre is open on Friday nights for free so we're planning on starting some Friday nights at the Louvre. Not quite Milwaukee, eh? Also, France, unlike America, really only has sales twice a year. The first of the biyearly sales ends in a week or so. Our guide told us today about high end fashion stores that send there clothes to retailers who mark down the prices down "dramatically." My expectations for these markdowns are not very high so hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.
We are already in the process of planning Spring Break vacations because they often have amazing flight deals. We have about five different Web sites where you can find good deal. So far the big winner is Greece! How amazing would that be? Maybe i'll be like the girl in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants! I have some fun photos so far but I'm already missing my mom taking pictures at every possible second. I find my skills are not quite up to par.
Well I'm off, I'm introducing Erica to Michael Buble's music over some red wine before we go out.
Bon Soir mon amis!
Ps-Earlier tonight I blew out the power in our apartment trying to get my American electric products to work! No harm done and the power was back on in five minutes. I feel better because I'm not the first one to do that on our floor.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Bonjour tout le monde
Bonjour from beautiful Paris!
After a long flight and being up for 30 hours, I finally made it. When I got to the airport I was really grateful to see that both of my massively, overstuffed bags made it to France. Sadly though, my adventure started off with the bad news of the Packer's loss. Great season though. Soon after getting to the airport, I met Dainelle, the program manager for KEI. She is just shy of 50 and beyond adorable. She greeted me with two bisus (the French style of kisses) and a "large" espresso. We soon met one of my other roommates/my only other program mate. Danielle arranged for travel to our apartment and we all took off. Danielle has already set up a dinner date so we can go over to her apartment and have dinner and wine. It's so nice to be able to have home cooked meals while I'm here. She said she has a twin brother who lives in Strausburg, Germany and said we would go to his house this semester and tour the town! I'm really excited for that since Germany was on my "must see" list. She also offered to take me to the ballet and American films
So far we've just had orientation and learned to use the metro (way easy)! :D Today in orientation we had a group meeting where we talk about some of the basic and learned where to get really good travel deals. We broke into small groups and my group had a talk about homesickness and adjusting to life in Paris. Tomorrow my group is going to le Tour Eiffle.
Today I went to the grocery store & Mon prix (my price in English). Mon Prix is like a Target with a grocery store so that was really good. It's nice because it's close to us. It seems like everything is though. At the grocery store, I was looking for some cheese and crackers and I saw that they sold Laughing Cow Cheese in bulk! It made me think of my sister who is obsessed with it! It made me smile so naturally I bought some for a euro. There is a nice little flower market less then a block away so I'm hoping that I can get some fresh flowers every now and then.
At the American Business School (ABS) there are about 3,000 students. 150 of them are international (mainly all American) students so it is a smaller school and campus. Everyone so far seems really nice for the most part but I expected this. I'm looking forward to the weekend because by then we should all be a bit more settled and time adjusted.
Our apartment is pretty nice. There are three bedrooms for 4 girls but my room is one with two beds. I'm okay with this because its a big room. All three of the rooms have there own balconies which is just beautiful! Such a nice luxury!
FUN PARIS FACT: Prostitution is legal but pimping is not. Apparently on the French taxes, you can declare prostitution as your official job. We learned this today during orientation along with the main locations of where the prostitutes hang out.
I'll try and keep this updated often. More so for my own sake so I can keep track of all the things I do and how I change.
Love-
ABN
After a long flight and being up for 30 hours, I finally made it. When I got to the airport I was really grateful to see that both of my massively, overstuffed bags made it to France. Sadly though, my adventure started off with the bad news of the Packer's loss. Great season though. Soon after getting to the airport, I met Dainelle, the program manager for KEI. She is just shy of 50 and beyond adorable. She greeted me with two bisus (the French style of kisses) and a "large" espresso. We soon met one of my other roommates/my only other program mate. Danielle arranged for travel to our apartment and we all took off. Danielle has already set up a dinner date so we can go over to her apartment and have dinner and wine. It's so nice to be able to have home cooked meals while I'm here. She said she has a twin brother who lives in Strausburg, Germany and said we would go to his house this semester and tour the town! I'm really excited for that since Germany was on my "must see" list. She also offered to take me to the ballet and American films
So far we've just had orientation and learned to use the metro (way easy)! :D Today in orientation we had a group meeting where we talk about some of the basic and learned where to get really good travel deals. We broke into small groups and my group had a talk about homesickness and adjusting to life in Paris. Tomorrow my group is going to le Tour Eiffle.
Today I went to the grocery store & Mon prix (my price in English). Mon Prix is like a Target with a grocery store so that was really good. It's nice because it's close to us. It seems like everything is though. At the grocery store, I was looking for some cheese and crackers and I saw that they sold Laughing Cow Cheese in bulk! It made me think of my sister who is obsessed with it! It made me smile so naturally I bought some for a euro. There is a nice little flower market less then a block away so I'm hoping that I can get some fresh flowers every now and then.
At the American Business School (ABS) there are about 3,000 students. 150 of them are international (mainly all American) students so it is a smaller school and campus. Everyone so far seems really nice for the most part but I expected this. I'm looking forward to the weekend because by then we should all be a bit more settled and time adjusted.
Our apartment is pretty nice. There are three bedrooms for 4 girls but my room is one with two beds. I'm okay with this because its a big room. All three of the rooms have there own balconies which is just beautiful! Such a nice luxury!
FUN PARIS FACT: Prostitution is legal but pimping is not. Apparently on the French taxes, you can declare prostitution as your official job. We learned this today during orientation along with the main locations of where the prostitutes hang out.
I'll try and keep this updated often. More so for my own sake so I can keep track of all the things I do and how I change.
Love-
ABN
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