Home again home again jigity jig.

Hey I haven't really had time to update in the past few week because of tests and other events were going on. mass chaos and cold cold rainy weather.

But I made it back-barely I was THE last person on the plane they literally closed the door behind me and the guy I sat next to had the nerve to mention a rude comment that he had been sitting on the plane for a long time. Yeah I got to the airport 3 hours before the flight left too mister. I think with the strike the day before a lot of people had missed their original flight and opted to leave on mine-but I made it. 

I home. I've had some Zaxby's and Waffle House already! Life is good.

I'll try to post some pictures of our disney trip when I find the time...

prayerage

If you could spare a few prayers. I would appreciate some being thrown my way! I am trying to conquer the overwhelming homesickness as I get closer to being able to return home/holiday season-ness PLUS I have a couple papers and projects due the last week of school that I need to not procrastinate on doing- I have a plan, now I just have to stick to it! And on top of the work I want to go experience french christmas time. 

so recap:

-that I can overcome my growing homesickness for the next two weeks

-that I can efficiently get my work done- no procrastinating and doing it well!

-That on top of that I can find time to sleep-and actually fall asleep.

What's the good word?

Sporting our team colors and being optimistic before the game.
Us with our american Cheeeezebergurs. 
yum! the burger was enormous.
sad matt stafford.
(there was some confusion on the score)
TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!

Who knew that you could watch the Tech vs uGA game in Paris? Not me until this weekend! But I got to watch the whole game live! (horay for it being an afternoon game!) I witnessed every amazing moment of it! Unfortunately there was no sound so we made our own amusing commentary... such as they cover the sad faces of the georgia fans and the cheerleader desperately holding up her defense sign.

PETA, PARIS, and Pterodactyls

Les Champs lit up for christmas and emily taking a picture of it. 

PETA ads in the metro station- and I thought they didn't exist in france. But this one is shaky it is supposed to be a row of les lapins (bunnies) hanging up.
And the girl is saying I am a victime of fashion just like You! (to the bunnies) while holding a Knife. (makes perfect sense- that vest is ugly) and then 1 vest= 25 bunnies and 1 sac/purse is another amount of bunnies- I cut it off.
Then after saying that they don't allow ugly things inside the middle of Paris I see this! At St. Michel (right next to the Jardin du Luxembourg aka seat of french parliment or something like that and a very pretty park that was in a much older post) 
Then on my way to class I saw this cafe that was celebrating the arrival of this season's wines by blowing up balloons in the shape of grapes ad hanging them on the roof. I thought it was cool. 

C'est hyper mega super cool! 
This is a video of the bears in one of the shops along the champs. They sell everything from touristy trash to salami and instead of hot chocolate they sell hot wine (vin chaude)- because they're french. This clip is not THAT interesting but it comes from one of the bigger little houses built along the street. They even set up an impromptu Bar complete with ridiculous (ridic) high prices commonly found along the champs- even temporary bars for spreading christmas cheer won't pass up the chance to rip you off. Buddy the Elf would NOT approve.

Banking!

I went to the bank today with Samantha and we were going to be all like Look we need to get this money to our landlord! (plan b involved tears.) After we realized that we actually banked at two different BNP locations we first went into mine and we found that instead of the really mean lady that usually works behind the desk there was a really nice one and there was not a long line of customers waiting to be helped- we entered bank heaven- or the twilight zone. 

But within a mere minute of walking in the front door she gave me my debit card! Like simple as that- why had it been so difficult before- no one knows. But this lady is the angel of the bank. She then helped us get the correct form for doing transfers to italy for paying our landlord. She explained everything as best she could so we could understand it- while this sounds like regular service- this is EXEMPLIARY customer service in France. So we try to fill out the form only to discover that we do not have our landlord's bank's address but Samantha remembers that he sent it to us in one of his earlier e-mails. Sciences-po is just down the road about 5 minutes so we decide to stop in there and use the computers so that we could get this all out of the way today. On the way there we run into 5 different people who we stop and talk to because we haven't seen them in a while. Eventually we manage to get the address and get out of sciences-po meanwhile however, the nice lady has gone off duty for lunch and the mean one is back. Dang it. Fortunately we don't have to ask the mean one any questions because the nice one explained it to us- we simply have to hand her the form right?

Nope she demands an explination for why we're paying this much money if it is our rent and it was difficult for Samantha to explain what she was trying to ask about in french so we get frustrated and the lady gets frustrated and gives us that I wish I could kill you now look and she says alright I'm filing this away to be sent out today. Great right? 

Then we decide to head over to Samantha's bank in order to do the same thing with her account but for whatever reason her bank is never open on mondays- go figure.

So later this afternoon I received a phone call and a lady at the bank (I think it was the nice one) said that I needed to come to the bank tomorrow for some reason concerning my account transfer- great. I hope this doesn't turn into another daily visit to the bank thing like getting my debit card was.

a somewhat successful day.

School drools. Especially when they schedule an 8am class. There's reasons why I don't sign up for those!

Saturday- Fanksgiving. Thanksgiving à la France- we're doing it Saturday because we still have to go to class on Thursday : (

Una Ciccolata Calda

Hey! I've been having some trouble updating my blog-not sure what the problem is but my pictures from turin with some captions are what not are posted on picasa here's the link

http:/picasaweb.google.com/slindsey711/Torino#

The French Election.

Today's Newspaper.

Barack Obama- The American Dream

Yesterday's news paper.

The night that could change america.

Celebration of a Nation. Not only is Kenya declaring a national holiday- yes that's true, but many french people are celebrating as well. I have seen numerous stickers and t-shirts and buttons both today and yesterday in support of the new president-elect around the city. A little bizarre considering they have no opinion on the matter nor could they influence any americans that they might come in contact with to vote seeing as it is France! I know of at least one Barack Obama party that happened last night that featured Obamagles (Bagles with red with and blue toppings). Sciences-Po even decorated the main hall in preparation for the big day.  The small Japanese town of Obama is dancing in victory-  obama chopsticks and kimonos etc. are flying off the shelf.

Everyone in my french class is pro-Obama. However, when my french teacher went around the room today asking what Obama as president would mean to each individual's country most of the people said that nothing really would change and some said that it might be bad for their country (New NAFTA agreement might be bad for Mexico and Canada, South Korea and Japan might have some strained relations- not entirely sure why, Russia might not like him if he chooses to focus on their war with Georgia over the war in Iraq) but other countries, Tiwan, Ireland, Germany said that most of the stuff wouldn't really change for them. "C'est Bizarre!" my teacher said, "Obama's campaign slogan is Change, n'est pas?"

quick post- more later

I've noticed recently that if I bump into people or have to use some form of excuse me it used to come out as the french Pardon/excusez moi or english sorry/excuse me. But especially when I am at the sciences po with the question of is the person next to me speaking english or a french speaker I have started to say pardy-moi or said party because I accidentally combined french pardon with sorry and threw in me to make sure people knew who I was talking about.

So pardy moi, I have to go get stuff done.

Victime(s) de la Mode tel est son nom de code?

So it has been an uneventful week here in the land of wine and cheese. But instead of dwelling on the negative I choose to show you some strange aspects of french fashion.

1.) High fashion is not limited only to adults there are MANY fashion stores dedicated to le BÉBÉ.

This particular one sells both. But along Boulevard St. Germain there are at least 4 kid clothing boutiques. I'll try to get a picture some day...

oh and the prices for these outfits? Each one is over 300 euros if you get the whole outfit.

<-- That's Anne-Laure my french "buddy" or mentor who is supposed to help me figure out Sciences-Po. However, I've decided to figure out Sciences-Po you must first remove your brain and put it into a jar labelled abby something...but she tries.

2.) This lovely mannequin decided the perfect accent to her outfit today would be a lovely rug. Unfortunately that outfit is somewhere in the 400s. 

another unfortunate thing is this is supposedly in style and variations on this look are found in windows across the city... and on a very unfortunate old lady who ended up looking like an oversized chia pet. 

Keyboard fun

Here's a photo of a french keyboard! I found 27 differences- can you find them all? 

Partying Portuguese style-Mariana's Birthday

It was my friend Mariana's birthday and being portuguese she invited us out to a Portuguese restaurant for her birthday dinner. Typical dishes include a lot of Cod and a lot of Pork. (And also other seafood seeing as it is a coastal country). 

Despite the fact that portuguese people can understand spanish almost perfectly I can not understand a single thing that is said in portuguese. It is much more closely related (at least in sound) to Romanian! The first picture is everyone at the restaurant. Including 6 Portuguese, 2 Greeks, 2 Americans,  1 Taiwanese, and 1 japanese! Fairly Diverse crowd. Unfortunately I was sitting on the portuguese side of the table so they were constantly having to translate what they were saying for me! 

2.)This is mariana and Mika and YiChun. (They were in my welcome program group)  

3.)Mika is sad in the picture because she is always the last person to get her meal!

4.) Why not get a picture with the Arc and the birthday girl! She is very pro-european union and she was happy to see that the french had not only an enormous french flag but also an enormous EU flag hung under the arc. But unfortunately my camera wasn't behaving so you can't really tell and it gave everyone red eye!

5.) horay for the two americans!

6.)Mariana and for lack of greek spelling Jennifer.

7.) 2 portuguese and 2 greeks Joel, Joanna, Mariana, and Jennifer

8.) Mariana, Me, Diogo, and Joel (#2) 

sorry the pictures got all mixed up and the captions don't exactly line up... but I'm sure you can figure it out!

Exams

Today I was e-mailed my schedule of exams. I have two 2 hour exams one at 8 am and the other at 2pm, and then I have a 4 hour exam from 8:30 until 12:30 (I think-the title of the class was the closest to mine so perhaps I don't have an exam in that class.)
But I was completely shocked to see that people had 7 hour exams. In these exams you are expected to write a dissertation from you head that is more than likely supposed to be longer than 10 pages-I zould like to stress the lack of additional materials for research. I think that some teachers do allow for books but not all of them! thank goodness I'm not in any of their classes!

Whitwhicky's Back!

 Where Did we go today?

Chartres!

of course we have to pull out the good ole Rick Steve's book to see where to go!

 While on the train from Paris to Chartres we did our homework...

The train station! Mom had fall break and so she and dad (although the pictures with him were on their camera-but I promise he's there)

came to visit and see what it is to be parisian. 

This is the giant cathedral that pretty much dominates all the surrounding countryside.

Rue Sainte Meme. * So the french pronunciation might be a little different but it is SAINTE with an e making it feminine MEME! So Meme this picture is for you. However your street is very short... sorry! And I didn't get the chance to take the picture of the Sainte Meme mannequin.

The lovely front of the cathedral... and it's scaffolding. Yay!

Pretty candles.

The cathedral is famous for it's stained glass windows. They were pretty impressive.

We climbed the 300 Stairs to see the view up top. 

It unfortunately didn't include quasimodo 

Funky looking building, I think it might be an art museum

Kids playing duck duck goose.

View of the countryside.

Gargoyle

Gargoyle- little kids ran away.

Going down the 300 stairs makes one dizzy.

Goodbye Chartes, it was a lovely day.

The guardian angel looking over the city.

Friday Night-not at the Louvre

Tonight we went to go see a movie and we also got some sushi! Very exciting night. The movies here cost about the sameish as not paying the student price at the Very expensive movie theaters back in the States- 7 euro and with the current exchange rate (horay for it dropping) it cost me about $9.45.  French theaters play a lot of movies in V.O. or version orginale meaning it will be in a foreign language with french subtitles and that works out well for me because the movie we saw was in english! (Vicky and Christina in Barcelona-very different movie but funny)

Then we went on a little walk around paris and just seeing what was going on around town. 

Photos: 1.) Samantha, Ashley and a little bit of Emily as we stand on the bridge discussing where to go. It's a little shaky because I wanted to capture the building in the background more and it was lost when I used the flash. 

2.) Left bank of Paris along the Seine all illuminated.

3.) A Bateau Mouche glides down the Seine.

Apparently yesterday someone caught a 2 1/2 foot salmon in the Seine. 

It was a pretty night and it was fairly warm outside. I'm excited because it is supposed to be in the 70's all this week and sunny after being pretty cold.

Jealous?

Just because we are college students poor and living in Paris doesn't mean that we have to starve! Hitting up the markets for fresh food can save a lot of money and in the end is a lot better food than in some of the super markets!

I made the Tech girls in Paris a delicious salmon in beurre rouge and with mashed potatoes and haricots verts (green beans). 

So again I have to remind everyone to learn how to make at least one meal brilliantly and then when you have the chance to make it you can really impress some people!

There are plenty of websites out there with recipes so just google your favorite dish and perhaps add simple on the end or quick and easy and you will find a recipe that will be amazing!

Friday Night Lights

I went to the louvre on friday night because it is free for students-but for some reason I'm not able to load pictures from that so... I'm lacking stuff to write about.

Sorry.

 batdog