Hey everyone, I know it's been a while, so this might be long.
Today I went to the Musée d'Orsay with Olivia and Kathleen. It was really nice, although the three of us were unbelievably tired by the end of it. We actually went to the Louvre first, but didn't end up going inside. We have these cards that say that we are History of Art students that way we can get into museums for free, however, the Louvre has their own free student card, so we had to take our passports and sign up for it. Today there was only one person working and we stood in line for about 20 minutes with no movement before giving up and deciding to return during the week.
Yesterday we went to Saint-Denis, which is one of the more beautiful Gothic churches I've ever seen, even considering the fact that you are surrounded by dead people. All/ most of the old French kings are buried there and the chapel is also home to their mausoleums. We had a great tour guide who used to go to our school apparently, and was nerdy enough that that wasn't surprising. It's very far north of Paris, and Olivia has decided that she is getting married there, no matter what. Patrick has a friend in town from Holland (apparently they went to high school together in Houston) so we all went out with them last night. It was pretty uneventful, mainly since we kept getting rejected from bars because our shoes weren't nice enough.
My daily life is pretty uninteresting, we have class Mon-Thurs, until sometime in the afternoon, then we have enough homework to keep us busy most of the night, so we don't do a ton. Mainly, I walk down to the small grocery store nearby and buy odds and ends. The kitchen isn't fully equipped, nor do I have enough room to buy real groceries, so I mainly subsist on pasta, sandwiches, and individual pizzas. Today, however, I think I will try the chicken nuggets. There's a cafeteria next door that has pretty cheap meals for students on the weekends. The formule blue (the blue meal) some with chicken, fish, or cheeseburger, plus fries, a salad, and yogurt. When you add in a coke it comes in just under 4 euro, which is about 6 dollars. The fish is actually one giant fish stick, but it's decent. I'm pretty sick of french fries though, that seems to be the most common side dish, even in nicer restaurants.
On Thursdays we have mandatory friendship hours. I have decided I hate mine. The university knows that it would be difficult for most of us to meet real French students, so they hired some to hang out with us every week in small groups. The kids in beginning French have it pretty good, their friend just speaks English and helps them learn how to order food from menus. The kids in the advanced French class can hold a decent conversation and tend to have a good time as well. I, however, am in the intermediate class. We can understand most of what Geoffrey says, but can't seem to express any of our ideas or opinions well enough to carry our end of the conversation. Geoffrey is a chill, almost hippie, i-dont-care-how-i-look-in-your-fashion-obsessed-Parisian-society kind of guy. Last week, we met at the Center and ended up in a British pub because it was cold and rainy. We got past the introductions and found out a little about his life. We have basically the same hair, so we talked aout that for about two minutes...
This week, however, he sent us on a wild goose chase in an unfamiliar neighborhood. He wanted us to meet him at a bar called "Tribal." We get off the metro on the north side of town and we are surrounded by african hair salons. One kid in our group had told us that he had directions, but in fact he only had the address of the bar. So we just start walking in a direction, which turned out to be the wrong one. Eventually, the two guys I'm with decided that we needed to ask for directions. Steven is from Hong-Kong and is apparently slightly uneasy around black people. When we got off the metro he said something like "It looks like a lot of our friends from Chicago are up here." I chose to let that go. Then he starts telling me, since my French is better than his, and the other guy, Ezra, is sick, I should ask for directions. That's fair, I'm not afraid of black people, but I also do not really want to approach some Algerian immigrant looking for a bar called Tribal. Eventually, I do, but I'm told that the bar is no longer open. Yippee. About half an hour and four more directions later, we find the place. It's in an alley behind a semi-major road. I'm pretty sure they were getting ready for a dog fight across the street. An old man with a feather in his hat kept walking past blowing a police whistle. Apparently, according to Geoffrey, this is the cool place. This neighborhood hasn't become hip (pronounced 'eep') yet, so only the really cool people come here. Apparently, the cool people include his girlfriend, whom he brought along. I guess I should say he brought us along... on his date... when he gets paid to hang out with us. So basically, it was an hour of discomfort. His girlfriend is from Tokyo, Steven has been to Tokyo once, and she has been to Hong Kong, so they talked about Asian stuff for a while. During a lull I told her where I had been in Japan, but she had never heard of it. Ezra was sick so he mostly kept to himself, except for when he asked Geoffrey where to buy hashish. Geoffrey told him "don't buy it on the street, you'll get ripped off. and don't buy any in a club, because it will probably be laced with coke. just ask your friends where to get it." Isn't he being paid to be our friend? Clearly Ezra's friends include those of us in the program, and we have no idea where he can buy some hashish in Paris. Really Geoffrey? Really?