Movie Night

I saw a french movie called "Ensemble, C'est Tout" with my classmate Michelle, she's from Saudi Arabia. Unforfunately, the movie was horrible. Another friend of mine had told me that the movie was good and that it was an AMERICAN movie. I don't know what she was talking about because it was VERY much french. They spoke FRENCH. It starred the girl from Amelie, I should have caught on that it was going to be a french film from that.. silly me...and even though the girl was as cute as ever the movie was still bad. I think I'll stick to my American movies with french subtitles... I'm not ready for these french movies... although I understood what was going on... anyone could have done that. It was a typical chick-flick. If ever I want to see a french film I'll remember to watch an action packed one. After the movie we went to a cafe and I ordered an espresso, Michelle ordered a hot chocolate.. that's where the pictures were taken.

I'm airing out my clothes in the kitchen right now because they smell of smoke from the cafe. Yuck.

Good night!

Rennes and Bretagne here I come!!!

I'm officially going to Rennes and Brittany (Bretagne)!!!! Those are my train tickets to go and come back from Rennes. Rennes is about a 2 hour train ride from Paris, and from Rennes it only takes about another 2 hours to drive over to Brittany. YAY!! Claire and I walked to Montparnasse ogether to buy my train tickets at the train station and she also managed to get me a 25% discount on my tickets because I'm younger than 25. That's a big discount on train tickets!! I told my friends about the discount and they all had bought their tickets to whereever they're going this spring break but they didn't even know that a discount existed. I love Claire. I told her to come to Hawaii, heck bring a friend, and she can stay at my house :) heh. I owe that girl BIG TIME, her family too.

So the official plans are.... April 6th, we meet at the house and walk down to the train station together.. our train leaves at 3:00pm so we should arrive in Rennes around 5:00pm. We stay in Rennes for the Easter weekend and probably Monday her family and I will drive down to Brittany and stay there until Saturday. On Saturday we drive back to Rennes, and from there I have my return ticket back to Paris from Rennes. Claire is staying in Rennes with her family for a few more days so I'll be returning alone. It's wonderful!! Or as Claire always says it "It's perfect yes?! If you are happy, I am happy. Will be perfect." She's the sweetest thang.

So...after the trip I'll have a couple days to myself and I'll prepare for my families arrival. I am going to make an itinerary or all the restraunts we need to go to.. all the museums and gardens... all the special cafes, especially the one that specializes in hot chocolate... all the shopping places... the antique flea market... the open markets... oh, so much. Can't wait.

Claire and I passed by the Hotel Littre on our way home the other day. It looks very nice and it's a good location. You can definately walk to where you need to meet the bus... it's not far... perhaps a 20 minute walk.

Musee d'Orsay again

Today I went with my a fellow Hawaiian, Matt, to the Musee d'Orsay. For my religion class we need to find a non-religious painting but right about it's religious implications... (?) eh. So here's some more Musee d'Orsay photos.

As for my 10 minute french presentation on Hawaii, it went well. I'm just happy that it's over with. Some of the girls in my class (one from Egypt, the other from Saudi Arabia) went to McDonalds and had lunch. I absolutely LOVE the McDonalds in france. It's so good! ha. Of course, only at the French McDonalds can you find on the menu of drinks Coca-cola, coffee or beer. Good gosh. I had an espresso with a chocolate muffin. Don't worry.

I was so relieved to be finished with the presentation that I decided to treat myself to every dessert I could find. After having my chocolate muffin, I went to a patisserie and ordered 4 different macaroons. Maracoons in france are not the coconut like cookies, they're more like these circle brownies with a cracker like crust. They are extremely popular in France and they come in every color and... oh gosh, I'm forgetting the word in english! well, anyways they come in every color and (?). I bought the 1 pistachio macaroon, 2 chocolate macaroons and 1 strawberry macaroon. They were absolutely delcious. I gave a chocolate and strawberry Macaroon to Claire, the granddaughter of my Madame who "sort of " lives here with me. She comes and goes as she pleases. :) I like claire :) After finished my two macaroons, I decided to go to another Patisserie (they're all over the place! I swear they follow me) and I bought a petit pain au fromage. Very good. After eating the petit pain au fromage.. and to top it all off, I had a coffee :) For dinner I made myself a chicken salade AND I used extra virgin olive oil as my dressing (I usually do that with a little balsamic vinegar). I figured I need to eat at least one piece of green today. heh.

GREAT NEWS! Claire invited me to spend my first week of spring break vacation with her and her family in Brittany!!! So that'll be from the April 6th (friday) until April 14th or 15th.. I'll come back to Paris just in time for my family :) It works out all TOO well. I'm buyin my train tickets on-line tomorrow, Claire's going to help me. She said we'll be taking the train next week friday after we're both done with school (April 6th).. take the train to Rennes, where she and her family lives. We'll be spending the Easter weekend in Rennes, and then perhaps Monday, Claire, her mom, four sisters and I will be driving to Brittany where a family friend of them owns a house on the coast of Brittany.. very close to the beach :) !!!!!! I believe it's more in Southern Brittany... so I won't be seeing Mont- St. Michel again. I'm so excited!!! All my friends were going to travel to Italy, Amsterdam, Spain, etc... and I thought they had such awesome vacation plans while I was going to be all by myself in Paris counting down the days for my family to arrive... but NOW, I have the best vacation plans! No one can beat going to Brittany, staying in a big house close to the sea.. WITH A REAL FRENCH FAMILY!!! wooo hooooo!!!

Beat that!!! No one can!! yes!!!

I'm so excited!... I'm going to go buy her some more macaroons now.

aurevoir!!!!

Religion class held at Musee de Cluny today

Bonjour bonjour! Today my religion class was held at Musee de Cluny. It's a small museum, but very popular and well known because that's where the famous tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn are displayed. In France the tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn are just as famous as the Mona Lisa. Once again, the Musee was within walking distance from my house.. I busted out my paris map and it's just down the street from the Notre Dame... so, I walked.

After class we all just chit-chatted in the little garden and playground outside of the Musee de Cluny. My religion Professor is hilarious, he has such passion for religion and he's been one of the best professors I've had yet in any class I've taken. There's a perfect picture of him sitting on one of the childrens seats in the small park outside of the Museum while he talked to us.

It was a nice day in Paris today.. in the later afternoon it got a little cloudy but for the most part it was a beautiful day :) You really need to take advantage of these sunny days because you NEVER know when your next one will be. The weather is so off here. One minute it's sunny, and the next it's hailing..?!?!?! I thought it's SPRING! Well yesterday was a beautiful day too so I bought a sandwich and ate it in the Luxembourg Garden as I bathed in the sun. I just sat there enjoying every moment... I finished all my homework in the park... I must say I have never enjoyed writing a 3 page essay as much as I did yesterday in the Luxembourg Garden, bathing in the sun and eating my ham, cheese, and butter sandwich. Yum. The weather forecast (which has yet to be wrong) predicts ugly ugly cloudy cloudy rainy rainy weather pretty much until Sunday. Sad. I miss the sun SOOO much. I'm SOOO white right now... but I thought it was funny yesterday as I was doing my homework and tanning in the sun I over heard the girls say I was tanned. Ha. Yes, I was eavesdropping <-- BAD. but I understood what they said in french about me <-- GOOD! As for the rest of what they said.. I have no idea. That's when I decided to leave.. plus I had been sitting in the same place for over two hours anyways. heh.

Here are some pictures of our class at the Musee de Cluny. I thought the silhouette picture with my professor and classmates standing infront of the big cross, looking over a balcony to the museum was an awesome picture of just what our class is all about ;-) I think I should submit that to the UH study abroad center so they can put that in their catalogues next semester. heh.

WELL, I better get studying because I have a lot of homework AND I have a presentation to give infront of my class tomorrow. YIKES. I hate talking infront of people, I tend to st..st...st.. stutter. YIKES YIKES. I have to talk about Hawaii for 10 minutes in french!!!!!!! Great Zeus that's heard enough in english, nonetheless in another language! I plan on drawing a Spam Musubi on the chalk board and explaining all the ingredients :) I plan on drawing a lot actually, it'll take up some time.

Wish me luck... or as the french say it "bonne chance!" or "bon courage!" (I hope I spelt those right) heh. <-- That's why you paid for me to go to the sorbonne mom and dad! see how much i'm learning!!! ;-)

Bonne journee!

Saint-Chapelle and Centre Pompidou

Bonjour bonjour! Adrienne and I decided to bust out her Paris Tourist Book which has just about all the things you can do in Paris. SO we decided to go to Saint-Chapelle first. I always wondered what that big church and monument was when I would pass it while walking around the Notre Dame area. heh. It's quite near to the Notre Dame. It's a smaller Chappelle. Accent, the agency I'm studying abroad with, gave all it's students an ID that says we're Art History Majors at the Sorbonne.. (ha!) so we pretty much just flash that and we get in free :) Best thing that Accent has done for us, really! To go into Saint-Chappelle is 8 Euros but Adrienne and I got in free :) One more thing. The pictures I took of Saint-Chappelle look very nice and luminated.. but it's because I put my camera on night vision and those pictures are very misleading. The chappelle was actually dark with only a few candles lit... but for some (but nice) reason my camera took it like that. Looks nice though!

The large building with the flags is.. I have no idea. It looks like it's connected to the chappelle because the chappelle is just to the left of it. Anyways, can you see me on the steps with my arms wailing?!

We then decided to have lunch at Le Creperie des Arts just around the corner. Sounds delicious doesn't it? Yes, because it was. It was absolutely ADORABLE inside, it had this greek theme to it.. very very cute. Adrienne and I both ordered the Galette Complete (a galette with cheese, ham, egg inside, with salade and tomatoes on top)--- as you can see. Very good.

After our huge lunch we went to the Centre Pompidou.. which we again got into free :) Yay. Saved another 10 euros! I love that Art History ID that we have.. I can go into just about any museum, church, etc... 9 our of 10 times free. So family, when you guys come down... while you guys wait in line to buy your tickets.. I'll see myself in ;-)

The art in Centre Pompidou was really neat, very abstract of course, but I liked it. We plan on going back because we didn't get to see the whole are, only a small section of it.

As for tonight, I'm meeting some friends at a theater (more on the outskirts of paris) but it's like the American theaters.... nice and BIG. The typical french theaters are tiny. Jaewan and I really want to go see the movie 300 so we're all going :) Got to get ready now... it should probably take me about 30 minutes by metro to get there. BLAH.

One more thing. Cec, I went to the Invalides already :) So you can check that off my list. I actually posted some pictures of it.. I think they're along with my Eiffel Tower pictures. I passed the Invalides on my way to the Eiffel Tower, but at the time I didn't know what the big monument was... but apparently it's where Napoleons Tomb is. Right on, Napoleons tomb is but 2 miles away from my house! ha.

Good Dinner in the Dorm

Wednesday after our religion class with Lee we all went to Britney's (girl in the gray turtle neck)dorm room and had dinner there. Britney's boyfriend, Matt, is visiting Paris until Tuesday and he's a chef :-) He's not in any culinary school but he works as a chef at a restraunt. He's a real sweet guy and he offered to cook everyone dinner. He made chicken, potatoes and zucchini, c'etais tres bien! Nothing beats home cooked meals. Plus, that was probably the healthiest I've eaten since I've been here. We actually requested him to keep it on the Light-buttery side... but still a little butter please. Good gosh, we love our butter now. It was a really fun night because we don't usually get to all hang out since we all have different class schedules and what not.

As for this weekend.. all I know is that I'm going to go with some friends to see the movie 300. Other than that, I'm not sure. Probably just the usual.. ya know.. go to a cafe along the Seine River and sip on a nice cup of cafe noire (espresso). Yeah... and then take a walk down those cobble stone streets... see a few chateaus here, a few cathedrals there.. nothing out of the ordinary.. just another day in paris. ;-) I love how I can say that and it's all TOOO true.

ciao!

Mont Saint Michel

Early Sunday morning we left Saint Malo for the Mont Saint Michel. We visited the Abbey and then later had free time for lunch. Mont Saint Michel was very spectacular.. but it was SOOO cold and SOOO windy that everyone just wanted to get back on the bus... or at least into some restraunt instead of walking around the Abbey. I was expecting the inside to look like Versaille, or every other place I've seen since I've been to Paris.. but the Abbey was very bare. Just rock walls with a little garden in the center. I didn't get the chance to walk around Mont Saint Michel much because we took the tour of the Abbey, ate lunch and then had to head back to Paris. Luckily I'll be going back with my family so I can see more of it.. and hopefully the weather will be better by then.... because those were some BLISTERING winds. We left Mont Saint Michel at around 1pm and arrived back in paris at around 7pm. It was a very long bus ride.. but we made a few stops on the way for bathroom breaks and what not.. but also one of the girls got very sick on the bus (she's allergic to wheat.. but maybe there was wheat in her lunch?). I hope she didn't eat a galette or something because that's made out of buckwheat. I felt for the girl, poor thing.