bienvenue!

Salut!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, it’s not that I’m a bad correspondent, it’s that I’m too busy!! I’ll try to go briefly through each day so far.

Wednesday, May 21

ORIENTATION – big orientation session in the morning. This is the metro, these are your fellow program members, use a condom, etc... Pretty standard stuff (clearly, some more useful to me than the rest... haha). Lunch (sandwiches on baguettes) on the Champs du Mars, the park with the Eiffel Tower, which is about 2 blocks from the Boston University center.
So in case you didn't believe me that I am here...

In the afternoon we went on a boat tour of the Seine. It started at the Tour Eiffel, went east down the Seine, around the Ile de la Cite and back. I took a tonnn of pictures, but I think it will be easier to try to post them all together soon rather than on here. Dinner was a quick baguette, du fromage et de la confiture.
I could get used to this.

Thursday, May 22

Joyeux anniversaire à moi! I went for a run around my quartier in the morning. A great way to see the city! At the BU center, we finished orientation, did lunch again on the champs du mars, and then a walk across the Pont d'Iena, a stroll along rive gauche (left side of river), and walking back across the Plle Debilly. When we crossed back au rive droit (the "right" side of the river - really, the south side) we found ourselves at the Musee d'art de Polynesie et Afrique - so-called "primative art." And here is one part of the building. The architecture in Paris is magnificent, but this may be my favorite yet - I have never seen anything like it.

Those are plants growing directly out of the side of the building!

In the evening we went to see the film Paris je t’aime and then went to a creperie for dinner and dessert. They made my dessert (crepe avec nutella, bien sur) with a HUGE sparkler stuck in a lemon – it was adorable. Not to mention delicious, evidement.
These men kept coming around into the Creperie selling roses, and a friend in the program bought one for me - voila

I spent the evening on the Champs du Mars with a few friends. You have to wait a long time to see the sunset here - it's almost 10 when it really gets dark!

But if you can see the Eiffel tower at night, do! it lights up every hour - beautiful.

Friday, May 23

Entretien (interview) for mon stage (my internship) at Galerie Eric Mircher. Eric was to interview me, but he arrived 40 minutes en retard (late)... So at least I got a chance to look around the galerie. But, it's a very small galerie, and there isn't really enough to see for 40 mintues... But anyway, the interview itself was maybe 5 minutes and entirely painless... He just wanted to see my level of French. I start Tuesday, because the galerie is open tues-sat. I will be working those days, 11-6 or 7.. But Eric is tres gentil, and he told me I can take off any Saturddays if there are activities I want to do with the program, which is incredibly nice of him. I think the entirety of the staff is Eric, moi, and his assistante, Lou. I w

ill tell more after I start.

Afterwards, I rushed back to the BU center for the end of the degustation demonstration, where they brought a ton of cheeses and sausages and spreads and pastries to try... I missed a lot of the information but I still got to taste everything which was fabulous. In the afternoon, I visited a cafe and had an espresso with a couple friends in the Place Pablo Picasso. It's cute, ALL the chairs in a cafe are turned out towards the street, to facilitate people watching :)

In the afternoon, I visited the Tuileries, the gardens right outside the Louvre, where unfortunately my camera batteries died before I could take nearly all the pictures I would have liked... But here probably my favorite from the day:

In the evening, I cooked dinner with friends Killian and Ian at their apt. They are also in the program, and live in a homestay the 7e with a view from their apt of the tour Eiffel. (my view from my window is just of a little Italian shop... I think they sell gelato there, I will have to investigate soon.)

I will catch you up with yesterday (when we went to Versailles) soon hopefully, now I am late for a rendez-vous avec Killian (on va faire un jogging ensemble - we're going for a run) and then we have an assignment to "discover" the quartier La Butte Aux Cailles.

A bientot!