Sunday was hanging out with my family day. Which is typically French/European because EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays. I mean everything. It was great, my host mother's mother came over for lunch and then we went to le Marais. It is one of the oldest areas in Paris, and is also known as the Jewish quarter, thus everything there is open on Sundays. It is the only place in Paris that has its shops, restaurants, cafés, and so on open. The quarter itself is also gorgeous with a lot of nooks and crannies. It is not just Jewish stuff at all, most of the stores are cute little clothing boutiques. Albane, my "sister," and I wandered into a few shops. I fell in love with many things, but resisted. Some of the shops could probably fit about 12 people maximum and had a few racks of clothing and maybe one wall. I think shops such as these were the best to browse. After milling about we went to the musée Carnavalet, which is a museum dedicated to the history of Paris. It was really interesting to see paintings, scultures, architectural replicas, etc from different periods. But everything had to do with Paris. Another thing I learned about Paris that day was the difficulty, rather impossibility to park in the city. Bertrand, a friend of the mother's, drove us in and we had different experiences parking the car. First he parked us in a spot that probably had 8 inches total of space bigger than the car itself. After a lot of bumping and wiggling we managed to get in the spot, but then the police came by and said it was illegal to park there on Sundays. However, I learned that a lot of people just park illegally in the streets because a parking ticket for "poor parking" is just 11 Euro. On the other hand, any of the meters can get up to about 6 Euro or way more each hour, and the public parking is even worse. Therefore many Parisians park illegally instead (on sidewalks, in make believe spaces, in front of entrances or little crosswalks, etc.) Therefore, if one has to pay such 11 Euro, they can park all day and make their own spot as convenient as possible. However, this is still a really hard feat.
My feet hurt. Walking ten million miles today is tiring. At least I will have killer calves when I get back. I am on the hunt for riding boots, so my feet don't die just wearing converse everywhere. I am still in the orientation phase of my program. Themes being things such as: safety, how to meet French people, extracurriculars, coping with culture shock, and the like. Yesterday after orientation some friends and I decided to go to a random place in Paris, so we hopped on the metro and found Place de la Bastille. Basically another phallic symbol commemorating something...Anyhoo it's a big monument in the middle of a wicked big "roundabout," as we say in Boston. It looks like a big free for all. Because that is how Parisians drive after all.
Today, after our information session on volunteering opportunities (not a big thing in France as of yet) and some other activities some friends and I headed to an area known as les Grands Magasins (ie Galerie Lafayette). We only made it to Zara, which is much better in Europe. Mainly good for staples (I got two sweaters for 20 Euro.)
Tomorrow we start language groups, I guess it's like pre-class intensive language study. We had to take a test to place us in a level. It was just grammar stuff. Aka stuff I haven't looked at in who knows how long. I made it into the highest level. wahoo, should be good stuff.
Oh and I have been watching "Are You Afraid of the Dark" episodes sometimes. It's pretty old school but awesome.
Ok so there wasn't much to report, more to come.
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