Vive la liberté!

i haven't updated since i got really sick. really really sick. really. disgustingly. sick. at 3 in the morning. all alone. in my single.

anyway, that week sucked. i have put in a request for a double with lena. we'll see!
i also requested to have my heater in my room fixed. it pumps massive amounts of hot air in all day and all night, and it's warm outside now so basically i melt when i walk in. and keeping the window open is so annoying because it's a CITY and it's stupidly NOISY. i hate big cities. buttttttt that can't be fixed. woohoo. guess i'm buying a fan.

still LOVE my course à la Sorbonne. my prof caught me sleeping yesterday- but i swear it's the FIRST time i've slept in this class. good eh? i'm doing really well on the quizes and assignements and what not. he's good about making sure we absolutely understand the grammar to the point where we can do advanced work (we are an intermediate course) but then the tests are always much much easier which makes a lot of sense to me. so you push yourself to learn it so the classwork makes sense, but by the time the grade really counts you've definitely at least got the basic concept down. there's hardly any hw which is lovely. i have a good time with haley in this class, and the rest of the students are ADORABLE. it's all international students just trying to learn french. really, just some of the cutest people ever. so friendly too :)

paris-france-paris is ok. sort of interesting. hard to pay attention while he's talking during class... but the ballades are kind of neat. we go to the place we just talked about, which is always a good thing for me. yesterday we went to Hôtel de Ville which is very important because it represents the difference between central power and local power/power of the people. WOW GO NINA! (i have to do a project on it, i payed attention haha). and last week it was various statues that represented the republic and its values in some way. woot. it amuses me slash the 4 of us how multiple professors or people that are teaching us talk about something french- like hotel de ville- notice our blank stares- ask if we know what it is (we say no)- they ask what's near it (why would we know?!)- and wait for us to answer WE HAVE NO ANSWER WE ARE NOT FRENCH!! umm.... why would we know which direction the seine flows?! geez. funny

i still don't sleep ever. so that's great. good thing i function very well on a lot or a little sleep.

my internship is ok. today was a touch more exciting. the past few days i had been creating a list of theatres in north west europe, us, canada, etc. with contact info... SO boring. it's great when the german sites aren't translated into english too... so that was making my brain melt. today i finally finished up with that as much as i could do. i'll probably have to go back and contact them or something which is scary but we'll see. THEN she gave me a letter to translate which i think was a spontaneous thing because i know they had a translator but i think they're either in the process of finding a new one or they can't get the one they use right this second. so i got to translate a little letter into english and that was actually really fun. had to really think about it. which is also neat because i understood almost all of it, but finding a way to say it in english was hard- meaning i have a good grasp on the way french phrases are put together, etc. like the signature was "Bonne lecteur" like "happy reading, love, us." butttt you wouldn't sing a letter happy reading in english. but i knew what it was saying regardless.

marzipan is yummy. but makes my mouth feel gross after.

apparently i love canned corn. and i made the PERFECT BURGER yesterday and even had a tomato to put on it :D and i also found the perfect DIY crêpe... it's a bit more expensive but still a thousand times cheaper than buying them on the street as often as i want to eat them. unfortunately the apples i like are the most expensive anywhere. bananas ripen way faster here.

also, my nails are perfect here. perhaps the climate...

on the metro this morning, there was a big class of 4ish year olds. the 4 girls nearest me kept pointing at me and whispering to themselves. finally i realized they liked my tattoo :P then they noticed i drew more on my wrist hahah

so they were really excited about it and it was adorable






LOVE phonetics with Isabelle- she will also be the one helping us write our papers about our internships. she is SO excited about phonetics and is just really fun to listen to. makes up for the fact that my thursdays don't end until 745ish.

other phonetics- funny but time consuming. the teacher amuses me.

went to the museum of natural history with lena, her friend brian, becca's friend sara, and her friend margie on saturday YYYAYYY!!! SO MUCH FUN. i can't wait to go back there :) it's so different from the one at home- you could easily touch slash break anything here.

see how the people are basically a part of this stampede? cool. it was in gorgeous old building- lena took pics haha... they'll be on my facebook.

that's all for now.

<3

be jealous....

Sunday night was super fab i slept for a whole ten-ish minutes.
and i'm pretty i have figured out one of the grand sources of my sleeplessness: i am in a single. i truly truly truly do not like being alone and it has become more and more apparent over the last couple years of my life. not entirely sure why i wasn't allowed to have a double... whatevs i suppose i'll survive.

monday we had our first conjugation quiz in the language class at the Sorbonne. i still love my professor :) (sidenote i burned my thumb on the toaster... just to add to my list of injuries) and we talked about some grammar rules. i had absotively nothing else going on that day so i tried REALLY hard to take a nap- something i'm very bad at doing slash hate doing. i like the idea of a nap. but it never turns out well so i try to avoid them. i turned on the little mermaid 2 and got abotu 1.5 hours worth in. time well spent :) i enjoyed a nice dinner with lena that we concluded with some more of my diy crêpes- this time only with nutella because i had finished the bananas, but ce n'est pas grave- j'en ai plus maintenant! yay! :-D
i somehow forced myself to go to bed at a slightly more decent hour than usual (which i will not disclose here) and was pleased to find that i was able to sleep last night. without any help from wine- the thought had crossed my mind, then i remembered it was nina we were talking about and the thought made it to the other side and continued in it's merry way.

today we got our tests back... he began by saying something like "ok there was ONE perfect quiz! excellent. a good number of a's with des petites fautes, some c's and d's tsk tsk." then he walks around and starts to hand them back one by one and talks to each individual student (25 ish students) about what she did right or wrong vERy loudly- nice and embarassing for everyone. finally the last one is mine "and the whole class will be very jealous of nina's test! pas de fautes!" well.... i got the 100! anddddd everyone knew... :P c'est la vie haha.

this afternoon we had our first Paris-France-Paris class with Thierry Bonzon. It's 3 hours once a week, which sometimes includes an excursion to a certain part of Paris. it seems like it will be much more interesting than i thought- i was nervous it would be all history and i told him this... and i told him i hate history. i probably should have mentioned econ and politics too because he emphasized that. oh well. basically, we'll learn about paris and it's relationship with the rest of france and how it got that way and stuff like that. so we'll learn about the banlieus, it's relation to province, its geography and the sociology related to that, etc. etc. (another sidenote: red robin is currently teasing me and sending me emails about delicious burgers. so not cool, red.)
i made myself a cheeseburger tonight- i overcooked it but it was good nonetheless :) now i just have to make it over to that smoooooothie place please and thank you YUM. soon!

i get to see an old friend this weekend - SO excited - and we start our internships next monday. things to look forward to :)

stay classy kids.

Hey there stranger...

Hello, it's been a while. how are you?
i'm doing alright thanks for asking.

So... the past week. here goes

let's start by saying we no longer are going by the schedule on a sheet of paper that's been guiding us around for the past two weeks. kind of a cool milestone- done with orientation!

Monday
fridge works!! and they changed the angle a touch so now i REALLY like the setup of my room. those fixit guys must be interior decorators in their spare time
we took a lovely ride on a batobus (and by lovely i mean i slept the whole time). i knew i would, moving vehicles and sitting too long in one place does this to me. so i just shifted to a seat where i could lean on something and enjoyed the relaxing feeling of being on the water
that afternoon we learned about how to write disseratations for our classes- which is basically the same as an "Essay" or a "paper" at home, but the format is fairly specific. so that's good to know. we won't have to write very many though YAY

We had a family dinner monday night :) lena, samantha, sam's boy person, neta, and myself. it was nice :) as we all know, i LOVE my crepes. so in an effort to be economical, i bought a pack of 12 premade crepes, some fake nutella (better than the real stuff i promise), and some bananasssss and made me own!!! i'm sure there are better ways to make them because they're crazy crunchy when i do it but they taste yummy and it keeps me from spending 3 euros everytime i want one :) yay me!

Tuesday
We had class with Ioulia again oh my fucking god. sooooo boring i can't take it. but she's nice :) i wrote letters while she talked to stay awake. i have nothing more to say on the subject- except according to the schedule she talked about the EU. great
that afternoon we took a trip to see les passages couverts. which are like small side streets of stores that have a roof- like a tiny tiny mall with 10ish stores and cafes each. sometimes they're pretty expensive stores but they're fun to check out
we went into this one and after a second i realized I HAD BEEN THERE BEFORE! that was really fun :) i found this awesome adorable store there where i bought my mom a bag and my brother a toothbrush holder over the summer. it had the coolest cutest strangest most useless yet useful things :) so that was fun
it snowed :P
that night we had a special dinner with the 4 of us and hélène- we chose mexican YYAYYY!! i had fajitas and my first alcoholic pina colada- i prefer it without hahah. then the waiter brought us a tray of tequila shots on the house :) before this trip i could not physically take shots... this particular one was a touch difficult, i got 3/4 down the first try and the rest the second try haha. they invited us to a special party on saturday but no one went. but maybe another time :)
and i got to do sam's and lena's nails that night!! i loveeeee doing nails haahahah duh.

Wednesday
We went to this dumb thing at the regional conseil place. i played a smoothie game on my ipod. it was like "paris is great! this is what we do for it". and so boring. don't care. but i got a reusable grocery bag out of it.
that afternoon we had nothing to do. so it was a weird time, i tried to nap and i felt kind of upset so i didn't want ot go downstairs. so i got lonely upstairs. and i couldn't nap but i was tired. i watched lost. anddddd i didn't sleep well that night. c'est la vie

Thursday
First day of classssss!!!!! this is the 2 hours a day 5 days a week uber grammar and language class. we all were placed in the same level and i'm in the same class as haley janne. we loveeeee our professor he's this adorable man who makes really silly jokes but i can tell he'll make sure we learn and will be available and stuff so that's cool. i'm really excited :) i just have to work really hard to keep myself awake. the best news: 5th floor, no elevator. FML. ughhhh it's awful but whatevs ill survive. the bathroom is ALLL the way downstairs too so it sucks if you have to go. i may make a point of getting up after an hour each class. we'll see.
i found out the word laminate is plastifier in french. i have to laminate my valentine's day gift :) so that'll be fun i think- laminating in paris :) how exciting!! it's the little things really...

Friday
class again :) that afternoon we went with hélène to take a phonetics placement exam- the lady said i have an american accent. no SHIT sherlock. she was nice though :) we talked about my italian last name and how it cracks me up that here im "nee-nAh sheel-bare" etc. :)
i had an interviewish thing with the theatre i'm supposed to work at for my internship. i said a whole two sentences, otherwise she mostly just talked to Thomas who accompanied me from IFE. it's a very small franco-italian theatre that focuses on contemporary stuff that shows the power of words- basically. so they do poetry and art and things also. pretty interesting
and that nighttttttt.... drumroll..... DINNER WITH LISEEEEE!!!
lise used to live in marseille, and was one of the hosting students from the theatre conservatory. her best friend julien as my host and lise was laura's host this past summer and laura's here right now too so we wanted to meet up with her since lise lives in paris. so we went out to chinese and we got to meet her friend and cousin who were hysterical. it was so cool to get to see her :) and i got my juju's number!! so i can make plans to go to marseille and visit himm. she's so sweet and funny and i can't wait to see her again!!

Saturday
grocery shopping to the max. i stocked up on snacks and stuff so i have things to bring to eat for lunch and i bought MEAT for a CHEESEBURGER OMG. one of my favorite things. so i made that for dinner last night with potatoes. it was AMAZINGGG i love meat. can't wait to do that again :) hung out with lena for the better part of the afternoon and evening then went upstairs and videochatted like usual for hours <3

and now it is Sunday WHOA.
we are halfway through february. pretty cool :)
i watched cloudy with a chance of meatballs today. best movie.
"YOU SEE THIS CONTACT FLINT?! THAT REPRESENTS YOU. AND YOU SEE MY EYE? THAT REPRESENTS MY EYE.
AND I'VE GOT MY EYE
ON YOU." Hhahaahahahahahhaha

"we've got carpe to diem!"

i cut my thumb really badly while eating an avocado the other day. i dropped my computer on my foot. my leg is cut in multiple places from my new boots. and the list goes onnnnnnn so all is normal with me :) and i knocked over an eggroll and two chopsticks during chinese the other night.

looking forward to class next week.

looking forward to june 1st.

but i'm ok for now :)

Black Russian

It's been a rough couple of days emotionally... but I'm good :) sometimes the little things get to me...

as far as francey things, yesterday we met up with other kids from the bigger IFE program and a tour guide professorish person that they know and took the train and a bus to Fontainbleu- a pretty and huge castle that a whole bunch of famous and royal people stayed and built upon and such.

here are some things i learned (i tried SO hard to pay attention):
whereas many other old castles like this represent one or two specific time periods, this one has so many different architectural styles mixed into it from all of the kings and such that worked on it. and it doesn't go in chronological order from hall to hall. so you'd have a simple dark ceiling in one room, and fancy cherub paintings and letters hidden in the flowers in the next room. so it is unique in this manner
also, they chose this location because it was right near and mostly surrounded by a forest- so for practical reasons, they had a means to get food now whenever they needed. there's also a canal so they could get fish. smarty pants.
in one room on the ceiling you had an h for probably henry, then an h joined with a c for i think catherine, and also an h joined with 2 c's for catherine and his mistress. so that was kind of cool.
but it was a LONGGGGG walk through it and it was COLD.  but it was also nice to be around some new people. we were all exhausted afterwards

last night i attempted to make steak and failed miserably. it was so depressing. but i had some pasta.

then Neta and i went to a gay bar... i really didn't want to go (kind of like that ridiculous damn club), buti had promised her so i figured i'd get it over with.

there was no one there at first. then a few guys who all were weird in their own way. and this lady who was singing in russian while a young boy played the guitar. eventually neta started talking to one guy, who was very nice but just kept talking. i spent the entire time sitting on my bar stool and not moving. i asked her to put kahlua with whatever so she made a black russian at first. then one of the guys bought the musicians and the two of us another drink so since i had finished her kahlua, she gave me bailey's. both of which were enjoyable.

 we left way later than i would have wanted to, but neta was having fun.
until we got to the metro. which is a story i can share with you if you choose to ask me.

but we got home eventually and i stayed up until 5 am and did my official first load of laundry.

today i got up at 1 still feeling yucky from last night and the dreary weekend in general, but i had my heart set on buying boots today. thinking something might be open. i was wrong, but i took a nice walk all the up my street to the metro stop that i hadn't been to yet. i discovered another outdoor market but it was shutting down because it was 2 by then. i got a baguette though.

which WOULD be nice if my fucking refridgerator was working. i think i saved my cheese and milk and butter in time but i don't know. so now all my stuff is lock away in the staff fridge or something and someone should come fix it tomorrow i hope. the nighttime front desk guy was very helpful though :) and now i think he officially knows my name because he had to write it down a few times. so assuming it's fixed by the evening, i just go get my stuff and i'm all set :)

in the meantime i rearranged my room AGAIN. i really like it now.

ANDDDD I GOT INTERNET IN MY ROOOOMMM!!! so i just have to be careful not to spend too much time there. but right now i'm in the common room so- so far so good :)

missing everyone at home <3

OWWWW

I just dropped my computer on my foot. Ouch a lot

And then I went to Roberta's goodbye party in the game room attached to the common room and played foosball with some Italians and had a beer :)

now i am back to writing...

today we had class again with Ioulia about politics- we talked about Sarkozy's position on stuff by reading paragraph by paragraph a speech he made i think before or after being elected. i used my fantastic listening skills and circled key words and then was able to answer everytime she asked about the main idea of each paragraph slash i was doing it so i wouldn't fall asleep. but i might have actually learned something :)

then we met up with hélène outside one of the bigger prettier older pieces of the Sorbonne in an adorable area. we played a scavenger hunt that IFE made for us where we had to ask people on the street or vendors or look at signs with info on them to learn about the area and the history and various different important streets. did you know victor hugo went to the sorbonne? and other very famous people?! crazy right?! :) so that was pretty cool. we all had fun going to various boulangeries and old men to figure out the answers

I FOUND A SMOOTHIE PLACE :D so i will return to moufftard very soon :) perhaps my class will be near there?

we also went near the museum of natural history which i didn't even think about before so now i'm really psyched to head over there sometime.

and this evening i went out with laura (who came with me to france this summer) we went to a ridiculous place that we tried to eat at this summer that didn't actually have anything. we got paninis :) and it was really nice to catch up with her. and then i tried a crêpe with applesauce :) not bad...  but no bananas and nutella

looking forward to tomorrow... and eventually to planning a trip to marseille and the museum and the science place and whatnot :)

goodnight!! <3

Au Bonheur Des Dames

Alrighty 3 days to catch up on...

tuesday we had class in the morning with this lady who has fantastic red hair that we all KNOW is curly but she weirdly straightens it- drives me nuts. (fake red, but i love it nonetheless)
she could be fun, except her job is to teach us about politics in france... YAY not :/

the chicago girls are still super fun to be around :) we're all officially facebook friends so techncially we're all officially real friends too. i'm really fond of my foyer for the most part. the guy who sits at the front desk at night is super sweet and is new and i love to ask him questions. making pasta and sandwiches is my new favorite pasttime. everyone says hello and goodbye on the elevators which is really nice :) and hopefully i'll pop into the directrice's office soon and meet her, she seems fun. today she came into the common room with another guy that works here and showed him how to turn on the fun colored lights in there (the kind you'd use at a batmitzvah) and then sat at a table and announced each color that she saw with a big smile. my kind of gal :)

after that class on tuesday (i tried SO hard not to sleep- i was mostly successful) we went out with hélène who is just so adorable it's ridiculous. she'll pop in english words and try to make fun of us by exagerrating the way we say them- and it's always hysterical.

at this point i can't remember where she took us on what days- but today was my FAVORITE little spot so far. so i'll talk about that:

Cité des sciences et de l'industrie
AMAZING <--- check out the site
it's basically like a big interactive science museum for kids and adults- but not only that. it's surrounded by an uber industrial area so there are these awesome big buidlings and cool bridges and it's right next to a nice canal and basically i could see myself living in that huge play area created just for me. hélène told us how in the spring and summer the grassy areas are covered with people tanning and enjoying the weather. so much more my idea of fun than bars and clubs like everyone else wants to do...

we also enjoyed du café right on the canal at a cute little bar place. it was so nice- the first day with legitimately nice weather. the area surrounding apparently is full of illegal immigrants or something and isn't quite safe but i wouldn't ever want to venture out of the gorgeous science building so no worries

wednesday we took out placement exams for the language class we will take at the Sorbonne. it was really quick and i have no way of knowing where i'll be placed- just not beginner i suppose. and then we sat with a professor for 2 minutes and talked to be placed in the speaking part of the class also. so i'll find out about that soon.

that afternoon we walked around (in the freezing cold rain) with Jerome, who taught a class earlier about french culture. it was his first day in 3 months walking without any help because he broke his leg so we moved slow and didn't stay out too long. even so, it was SO boring for me so i people watched most of the time. i honestly don't even really know what we saw or what he talked about- we were right around the louvre though. woopdeedooda.

and finally, ce soir (after much deliberation and convincing and guilt tripping) i decided to go out with haley and neta to a club to this Au Bonheur Des Dames party that hélène told us about and apparently put us on a list for. we did everything we were supposed to - got there early, dressed appropriatly, etc. and still the bouncer said after a second "no." so we stood there next to the line for another half hour or so (my feet WERE DEAD I WAS SO ANGRY) and finally figured out that hélène couldn't get us in and wouldn't arrive for a while. so we went to a café and had delicious salmon instead. i would have been content with just the salmon and i am reminded why i don't go to places like clubs. not my scene- i didn't want to go, but i figured new experiences YAY. well, new experience had. not again thanks. and the heel grip fell out of one of my shoes :(

i don't remember at the moment what we saw or did tuesday and thursday afternoons, but perhaps i will remember and update about it later.

it is extremely late now- and i'm finally starting to be able to sleep for more than an hour. so i will go to sleep :)

à bientôt!

OH AND LISE EMAILED ME!!! lise is one of the conservatory students from marseille that hosted laura (who is also in paris doing IFE) last summer on our theatre trip- maintenant, elle habite à paris!!! so hopefully i will see her soon. and my cousin. and becca's friend. soon :)

<3

and pictures eventually, i promise

Crêpe :D

Finally had me crêpe today :) although i didn't have it this morning like i wanted because the place was still CLOSED. but i asked him this afternoon when he was open sooooo now i know :D

we sat through a 3 hour class about French culture today... not very interesting :/ but with a really nice guy! and he's going to take us around the louvre on wednesday which is great because he has a broken leg so he'll walk slow :) butttttttt i am so not excited to walk around the art museummmmmm. whatevs i'll deal.

i finally bought some legit food. so now i have lots of pasta :) and my pb&j sandwichs taste SO good. i think because they're familiar :) and i have some cereal and milk for the mornings which is good because i have to eattttt.

and my ipod works wonderfully :) there's a teensy bit of wifi by the elevator on my floor so i can now text people goodnight and go straight to bed instead of saying goodnight downstairs and then travelling alllll the way upstairs to get ready for bed. may seem like no biggy but it was important to me so i'm happy about that :)

after the class today we walked around place d'italie and bercy which are both areas near my foyer. they were both adorable and had lots of neat things to see so i'm pretty psyched to explore them more on my own time.

i slept for 25 minutes total last night so i'm having un peu de vin so perhaps i will sleep more ce soir? j'espère!

i am going to go hang out with my very chic new friends :)

à bientôt!
<3

ipad?

I GOT AN iPOD TOUCH TODAY YAY

i asked the guy at the store when i walked in if i could have it and he said not. not until march. but he looked serious and i was so confused and got seriously sad.
and then realized he thought i meant iPAD. HA. no thank you. iPOD please :)

so i have to set that up

i went by myself :) my first excursion tout seul

the apple store in paris is AMAZINGGGG take the time to look it up on apple's site :)
it's in this crazy fancy mall by the louvre underground. it was really exciting just to be there :)

there was a man playing the guitar on the metro and he must have been placed there for me
firstly he had a really relaxing deep voice and he was singing in english
and hearing english always feels nice

then the second song he sang was *lean on me*. so that was sort of significant... i think

and i finally met some people in my foyer :) neta met them first and introduced me when i got back.
they are from Chicago and both have spectacular accents and are both also in IFE. so new friends YAY. they are a lot of fun :)

sad news: crepe place was closed today :( as is everything else in france on sundays.

so perhaps tomorrow i will have my first beautiful banana nutella crepe???? YUMMMMM

tomorrow is quite an early day. but i look forward to having something to do and somewhere to be.
later gators :)
<3

OH SUSHI

ok so i'm thinking this will end up being updated in pieces...

so for the moment

i'm eating SUSHI
sort of like philly rolls. except it's saumon fromage so cheese instead of cream cheese... i haven't actually seen cream cheese here at all exactly like we have it. but this is close :)

the place is called OH sushi. CUTE! and the frequent buyer card: they stamp it with "OH" LOVE IT.

and i found sirop, which i had a lot of in the south of France this summer. so i'm enjoying that with my sushi. andddd the soy sauce to go is in this adorable little bottle.
so that's all good :)

i'm going to vintage stores i guess with Neta today and then perhaps the Apple store...

au revoir <3

I made a blog?

Ok so I made this blog... I don't like to write out daily events and thoughts but people keep asking and are going to ask me about France and what's going on so hopefully I'll actually put some stuff on here and then everyone can be udated at once. Right now I'm tired though...
So to start: time difference is six hours until daylight savings. So it is midnight ici.
I probably will throw in random French words. I'll put a translator link on the sidebar.
I don't have plans for Saturday except a Skype date so I imagine I will attempt to write out what I've done so far.
Except I intend to get a crêpe. Yum :) Nutella banana. There is a little stand right outside my metro stop (Glacière on line 6)
I'm hungry and I'm going to sleep.
Oh and also, I'm upset because we were outside in the rain ALL DAY and my hair didn't curl at all it just became a mess. :(
Andddddd I'm crazy homesick. But everyone knows that already.
À demain-