Jean Paul's Sculptures

Alright, here are some pics of Jean Paul's awesome, endearing, and very weird sculptures, assembled out of found objects.





In other news, I made more potential French friends today, AND I'm officially going to Amsterdam in February, and to Prague and Budapest in April! I'm too tired to write more blogworthy news, but I will soon, and in the meantime just gchat me or something. Overall things continue to be awesome. Miss you all back in the US!

Progress

I may or may not have made my first French friend today.

Will elaborate further if this turns out to be true.

Le premier cours

Today was my first French class at Paris VII (the class on Jean Renoir). My professor looks like Benicio del Toro. The most stressful part of the class was when he took attendance by having everyone go around and say their names, and I had to explain in my best French that I was not on his attendance list, since I am a study abroad student. Luckily, he understood me. Whew!

Afterward, I understood most of his lecture, and I'm pretty excited about the class. I do need to figure out a better means of taking notes though, because right now, they are an incomprehensible mixture of Franglais and jibberish.

Also, I am fast becoming friends with Jean-Paul's cat Fifi, who is currently sitting on my lap and reading this blog post while I type it.

A bientot!

Cultural Differences 101

SUBWAY SYSTEMS
New York: Crowded. Dirty. Slow.
Paris: Crowded. Clean. Fast.

BATHROOMS
New York: Shower and toilet are in the same room. Shower head is on the wall.
Paris: Shower and toilet are in separate rooms. Shower head is not mounted. Awkward on all counts.

PROCRASTINATION
New York: Sporcle, or Huggles common room.
Paris: Go out to a bar called, "The Cube," where the bar table is made of ice. And update this blog.

CARNIVORE STATUS
New York: I eat meat, usually chicken, rarely red.
Paris: Jean Paul serves me plates upon plates of red meat. Yesterday's lunch was five different kinds of sausages. Today was leftovers, plus bacon.

PEDESTRIAN TACTICS
New York: Keep walking until the red hand stops flashing. Even then, you can attempt to run.
Paris: ONLY walk when the green man is flashing AND when you ADDITIONALLY see other people walking. Otherwise, you WILL be run over by cars coming out of nowhere.

MOVIES
New York: The best theaters are filled with old European art-house films.
Paris: The best theaters are filled with old American Hollywood films.

POLITICS
New York: People like Barack Obama.
Paris: People like Barack Obama.

Crisis Averted!

Had my first scary incident on Thursday when I broke my key in the lock to my apartment. It's one of those huge, old-fashioned keys, and it was impossible to use, so I ended up pushing it too much. It was about 1am, and my host dad was asleep, so I was stuck with no way inside, in a city I still barely know at all! I called him/knocked on the door about a million times, but he didn't wake up. I ended up staying overnight with a friend in an international students dorm. When I got back in the morning, Jean Paul STILL didn't answer, but I knocked hard enough that the door sort of magically opened on its own. When Jean Paul finally woke up, he was totally cool with it and got the lock fixed. Now I have to be extra delicate so it never happens again!!!

In other news, I went out last night for the first time in my own backyard, on Rue Oberkampf. It has only been one week, and I'm already getting to know the different areas of Paris better than I know the different areas of NYC.

Last piece of news is that classes start for real next week. I have to take French Practicum, but I'm also shopping the following classes: Study of a Director: Jean Renoir, French Cinema in the 1970s, and the Presence of Myth in Cinema. Eek!

Des photos!

The one big item I forgot to pack is my chord for uploading pictures. BUTTT, when other people post them, I will steal them for my own blogging purposes. Here's the first round.

This is St. Germain des Prés, where we went to dinner and then to a bar:

Here are some of us at the bar:

Not the best pictures, but hopefully I can mooch some more soon!

Lots of updates:

1) First two days of orientation. Met lots of Americans. We're going to French bars tonight.

2) Yesterday and today, we explored the Marais and Tuileries, respectively.

3) Went to Musée Jeu de Paume and saw an awesome exhibit on Fellini.

4) FIRST FRENCH CELEBRITY SIGHTING: Was with two other girls in a bookstore and we saw KARL LAGERFELD walk in and start looking around. He had a small posse with him. When we went outside, we saw his pimped out Hummer. Day #4, not bad, eh?

5) Found out there's a class offered on my favorite French director, Jean Renoir.

Good news all around.

FIRST UPDATE FROM PARIS!

Hooray, I'm here! And totally exhausted and overwhelmed.

Got settled into my homestay apartment--these are seriously the sweetest diggs imaginable. It's a 7-room apartment, I kid you not, and entirely decked out in Parisian decor. My room alone has a fireplace (reminds me of Huggles!), a giant mirror, a desk, and windows that span from floor to ceiling. Jean-Paul (my host dad) even has a cat and piano!

Jean-Paul is extremely sweet and helpful. The hardest part so far is, uh, speaking French. It gets awkward when I ask him to repeat himself a million times and still don't understand. But whatever, it's all part of the experience!

Will be fun to see Reid Hall and American kids, so we can actually start going out and everything. Alright, a demain!

24 hours

Packing mania here in Albany! At this time tomorrow, my plane will be taking off.

At this time on Saturday, I'll be in Paris, and I will supposedly be at my first French party.

At this time on Sunday, I'll be done with my first day of orientation.

Ça déchire!

OK

4 days till I fly out. I need one more fix of the following American addictions:

-Netflix
-Lil Wayne
-NY Times crosswords
-PB&Js
-Hitchcock movies
-Sporcle
-NBC Thursday night line-up
-wine that isn't French
-American scandal!

Packing Dilemma!

What, exactly, constitutes Parisian fashion? This is coming from the girl whose favorite article of clothing is a bright red sweatshirt. I am hoping to cover my bases by filling my precious suitcase space with lots and lots of scarves. They're into that, right? Très tricky!