Marvelous Monday and Terrific Tuesday

Yesterday started out rocky. I was woken up by an unpleasant message. Long story...not going into details. Because I couldn't fall back asleep, I left for school an hour early. I walked around down by Cupa until school started. It was nice to walk and clear my head.
School was dull, no news to report on that front. After class we toured an Opera House. That particular Opera House was the one The Phantom of The Opera was modeled after. I've never seen the Phantom of the Opera, but the Opera house was very cool. Our tour guide was American, so our tour was in English. What a difference that made! I really enjoyed her commentary throughout our tour. She would say things like, "Imagine you are royalty and you are going for an evening out with your husband. You'd take his left arm and walk up this staircase, stopping at the top to strike a pose for all to see". She really made the tour fun and interesting. Probably one of my favorite tours we've had so far! After seeing the Opera house, we walked a few blocks over to Le Gallerie de Lafayette. It was a huge department store, similar to Harrods in London. I found tons of things I wanted there. Unfortunately, I didn't buy anything because everything was so expensive.

Upon returning from shopping, I set out to work on my homework. I had a take home test, an oral presentation to prepare for, and a quiz to study for. Crazy! Even crazier? Last night was La Fete de La Musique, which is a huge musical festival all over Paris. Everyone was rushing to finish up all the homework we were assigned, because we were told by our French families La fete de la musique was something we just couldn't miss. Somehow, I managed to finish all of my homework 30 minutes after dinner. I headed out to meet up with some friends at the nearest metro as soon as I'd finished my homework.

The closer I got to the metro, the crazier it got! There were people EVERYWHERE! The metros were packed! It was the craziest thing I've seen my entire time here! We took the metro the Latin Quarter and began to walk around. There were pretty much bands on every corner downtown. It was so cool! There was all types of music: rock, rap, jazz, you name it, we heard it! We stopped for a while and listened to some rock band play, then spent some time listening to a little rap. We even stopped and danced to some techno music! haha Good times, good times.

We were told the metros would be open all night, so we were really in no hurry to get home. That was, until my roommate called and informed me it took her 2 hrs to get home due to random metros being closed. The random metros happened to be the exact 2 I needed to take to get home. Awesome. Pam helped me navigate my way home, though. We had to take a very round about route home, but got there eventually. I got back pretty late and had to get up for school super early the next day, so I was absolutely exhausted.

At school the next morning I felt dead. It was awful. Even worse? I had an oral presentation to give. The assignment was to talk 3-4 minutes about anything French. Not big on monuments and museums, and not wanting to be cliche and talk about he Eiffel Tower, I choose to talk about French pastries. Yes, that's right, I talked for about 3 minutes about pastries. Speaking in front of people is just so not my thing. I was so nervous about the presentation all morning. When I got up there, my heart was beating so fast. It was awful. After I got over my initial fear I think I did a pretty good job, though. My presentation wasn't stiff and serious like the others before mine and I think the class really appreciated that. I got lots of laughs. Especially when I started with "Don't worry, I did a lot of research on this topic. I eat pastries everyday. Trust me, I'm an expert". hahaha It doesn't help that everyone says I speak "valley girl" French. I think I sound completely normal, but apparently I sound like I'm about to break into "like so totally" and "ew like gag me with a spoon". You know, classic valley girl sayings. Ha! Anyways, I felt good about it and that's all that matters! :]

After class yesterday, I ate lunch and headed straight home. A lot of people went to the Musee D'Orsay, but I didn't. I wasn't feeling well and I was so tired. I spent pretty much the entire afternoon asleep in my bed. I wish I could say it was nice, but I felt so sick the whole time it wasn't like I was enjoying myself. The only semi interesting thing I did yesterday was walk to the Eiffel Tower after dinner. It is so pretty at night! I just can't get over it!

Today, we're going to Chartres. We leave in about 45 min to meet the CUPA group at the train station. We should get to Chartres around 10:45. We'll be back around 4:30. This is very upsetting news for the die-hard USA fans, because we play at 4. Yes, this will be the first time we will most likely not get to watch the game. Of course, there is a plan in place to try and get to watch the end of the game. The plan is to run to a cafe right by the train station that will be showing the game. The only problem with this plan? The cafe will be so crowded I'm sure we won't all be able to go in. Ah well, whatcha gonna do, right!? Sooo not gonna lose sleep over that one! haha

Say CHEESE!
The cheese saga continues, folks. The games during the cheese course have become tiresome for my host parents, so they've decided that I need something else to do while everyone eats their cheese. I don't see why watching the t.v. that is ALWAYS on in the kitchen isn't sufficient, but whatever. My madame has decided my not eating cheese is keeping me from getting enough dairy. The solution? I now have to eat yogurt during the cheese course. Super weird. I love yogurt, just not between my meal and dessert. She seemed pleased that I've been eating it willingly, though, so I guess I'll suck it up and eat it.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...
There are going to be protests in Paris. They're protesting the retirement age, or something like that. Apparently, we may not be able to get to class, because the buses and metros may be closed down. Great. Gotta admit, I'm totally fine with hanging at the house all day tomorrow. Oh, no worries, though. The protest is going to be peaceful. I won't be any danger, guys! :]