sick on a Saturday in Paris

Saturday I woke up with no voice. Not sure why, or how, but I lost my voice. My throat is scratchy, but doesn't hurt. I think I have a cold or allergies. (Mom, don't worry! I'll be okay :] ) I pretty much laid in bed all morning Saturday, because madame was worried I was too sick to go anywhere. I finally convinced her to let me leave for lunch and to go to the Arc de Triomph with my friends. 

L'arc de Triomph is so beautiful! We climbed all the way to the top. I'd done it before, but conveniently forgot how long the walk up was! I belive there were well over 200 steps. Crazy!! Once we made it to the top, though, the climb was well worth it. The view from the top is incredibly breath-taking. You can see everything! We took tons of pictures! Can't wait to show them all to you guys!

I headed back to my house with Shae shortly after we made it back to the bottom of the Arc, because I was tired and had some homework to work on. We had dinner with the Egnells, as always. We had chicken and pasta, delicious! She's yet to try and feed me anything weird, thank goodness!! At dinner I talked to Monsieur Egnell about the French Open. He's been watching everyday. He's a diehard tennis fan. Not only that, but a diehard Nadal fan. (He'll be rooting for Nadal today in the finals) 

The Egnells left early this morning for their country home in Normandy. They'll be there until Tuesday afternoon. We are to eat dinner with Madame Gauchet (Caroline and Shae's host mother) tonight. She's responsible for us until we leave for Loire Valley tomorrow morning, though we will continue to stay at the Egnell house. Madame Gauchet speaks no English and has a very harsh manner. I must admit I'm a bit afraid of her. Shae and Caroline think she hates them, because she complains about them all the time. She's called them lazy, accused them of eating too much bread, and said they make too much noise. Needless to say, I'm not so much looking forward to tonight's dinner. I know she's a nice woman, she just isn't the warm, grandmotherly type of madame we have become used to at our house. 

Today (Sunday) we woke up to a house without any electricity. Cool, huh? The bonus: the Egnell's had already left, so we had to get Madame Gauchet to help us. She wasn't too happy about having to come over, but thank goodness she did anyways! There was a big storm last night and we think that might have had something to do with it. 

We spent most of our day today walking around the city. We've been doing a lot of walking. Boy is that an understatement! There hasn't been a day yet that I haven't had sore legs and feet when I get back. My leg muscles are going to be insane after this month! ha ha! 

So since I don't have any interesting stories from today, here are some short little anecdotes:

-A few nights ago we watched t.v. while eating dinner. What did we watch? WHEEL-OF-FORTUNE! My Gran-C would be so proud!! It's pretty complicated in French, though! The French host hold his lap dog the whole time and the French Vana (sp?) is much younger than her American counterpart! haha! 

-In all the stores we go into they have American music playing. At one, I heard a girl singing along to The Black Eyed Pea's "My humps" and couldn't help but giggle. She spoke English and explained that she was sure the words were "racey", but she just liked the beat. She says most of the French love American music, the only problem is they don't understand it, so they don't know which songs are inappropriate and which aren't. Interesting, no?