The French Drink Horrible Beer.

UGH, the beer here is gross.  That's just been on my mind today, it's really unfortunate that they have such great wines and such terrible beers.  Oh well, the French can't be good at everything (especially being polite).

So I am really mad at this blog website right now because it is not letting me upload ANY photos, which makes posts really boring and basically unreadable because they're so long.  So, I apologize for that, this would be a whole lot more interesting if there were pictures, I know.  Also, it's been a few days since I updated so this might be a long one.  Just use your imagination or something.  EDIT! The pictures work they just take for-ev-er to upload, so I'll try my best!

Monday was our oral placement testing at the Catho, which was nerve wracking & I completely bombed it, but at least I was placed in the applicable class level!  That day was really relaxed, everybody at the Sorbonne had their first day of classes so the four of us at the Catho just took our quick oral test then went on a search for some sort of birthday cake/celebratory item for our friend on the trip, Holly, whose 24th birthday was Monday.  After a few hours of searching we didn't end up finding a cake, or cake mix, or anything even remotely close to it really.  So we bought a cute strawberry tart for Holly and stuck a sparkler in it, plus macarons for the rest of the group, and met at the API center to sing Holly happy birthday and just hang out with everyone.  We got happy hour drinks at this cute/strange bar beneath the API center for a few hours, then everybody went home because we were exhausted and had plans to go to the Notre Dame that night.

Front entrance to the Catho

Hahahaa, Abby, Sara & Carey on the first day of school/testing!

This is my campus, noooo bigggg.

Our birthday celebration for Holly!

So we heard that there was Gregorian monk chanting going on at Notre Dame at 20h00 that night, so we decided to go and strangely enough my friend from home, Andy, was in Paris that night too and ended up coming with us.  The "monks" turned out to be a 5 person choir, and the chanting was really just singing, but it was nice (albeit a bit long).  It was really great to see Andy again too, I think it had been almost three years since I last saw him!  Our little group went out to dinner at this strange pseudo-Italian place across from the Seine after the concert, then headed to our respective "homes."

Oh just hanging out with friends from back home, in Paris, obviously.

Tuesday (yesterday) was by far the most frustrating day of the trip so far.  Our classes at the Catho started, and we had to show up half an hour early (8h30) to make sure we had our classes and schedules.  It was a complete mess, from the people all speaking broken French & different languages to the way they organized the papers with our classes on them (which they basically just didn't).  We all ended up finding our classes (which were all separate), or so we thought!  I actually sat through 3 hours of a class that wasn't even my class, and was incredibly infuriated because I couldn't understand over half of what was going on and what the people in the class were saying.  I was a raging beeyotch for the two hours following that class, probably made every single person on this trip scared of me, then I realized I went to the wrong class and felt like a moron.  I guess I should feel thankful, at least I didn't have Abby's instructor, who makes fun of Japanese people's accents.  The rest of the day basically followed suit until my afternoon oral workshop class, which was really great mostly due to my awesome instructor, plus there's a real life nun in my class - fabulous.

After the day from HELL we all went home frustrated and tired, tried to nap but then just decided to buy some wine and go do something.  So 6 or 7 of us had a little pseudo dorm party (which was hilarious) in my bedroom with our cheap champagne - Tom even popped one of the tops off onto the balcony of the building next to us, pretty impressive.  Around 20h00 we left for the Latin Quarter and met up with some other API kids to watch the Germany/Uruguay game at an Egyptian hookah bar, which was great (except for the fact that Germany won and we were there with a kid from South America).  We smoked some hookah and had some really good Turkish coffee, then had kebabs down the street.  NOT your regular kebab, wish my pictures would upload so I could better explain it.  It was basically a "wrap" sandwich (think schwarma from Kebaba) with lamb, tomatoes, lettuce, and garlic sauce.  So delicious.  

Umm pseudo dorm party.  This is just great.

Inside of the Egyptian hookah bar/cafe place.  L'Egyptien in French.  Awesome, learning so much here.

We ate at the kebab place, but then we decided our night wasn't quite over, seeing as it was still early, so we traipsed down to the foot of the Seine to drink some more wine and watch the city all lit up.  It was really great, the people on this trip are so fun and this city is so awesome despite it's rude and pushy people.  I think we're all getting a bit fed up with the general rudeness of the French, but we're dealing because it's so fun and beautiful here!  The Metro is just absolutely horrible lately, crowded and everybody is so damn pushy, makes me nuts!

Paris from the foot of the Seine at night!

Me & Cara, my P.I.C. of the evening.,,

Today I went to the correct French language class and love-love-loved it.  My teacher, Dominique, is great.  She kind of reminds me of my high school English teacher, Mrs. McCormick.  She's super witty and sarcastic, but in a nice way that makes you want to be her when you grow up.  Also, she kind of ripped this idiotic blond girl from Florida a new one when she wouldn't stop speaking English in the class, so her cool points are nearly through the roof.  And I think she likes me best, because she used my homework paper as a demonstration for what she considers parfait, or, perfect.  Yayer, take that four years without French practice.  After class we were all exhausted, imagine that.  It takes a lot out of you to listen to French and ONLY French for 3-6 hours a day, I'm tellin' ya!  We got lunch at the horrible cafeteria where we have 60E credits from API (thanks for nothing), and then came back home to relax.  It's just after 16h00 here, and we're going to watch the Germany/Spain game at the Trocadero field (the one below the Eiffel Tower, where we watched the Spain/Portugal game) in a few hours, so I'm going to nap before then.

Thanks for reading about my life :) miss & love you all

<3