Never Too Late

Well, I guess it has been a while, but not too much has happened… OK, well a lot has happened, but nothing too surprising.

First, I have a home. After being kicked out of the temporary housing, I was forced to stay at a friend’s chambre de bonne (maid’s room directly translated, but currently a popular housing option for students.) I decided to become a “demi jeune fille au pair,” or part time nanny. This is a good way to get free housing. Well, free for my parents, but about 15 hours a week of my time. I went on quite a few interviews and finally found a match. I only had to stay at Kristin’s (thanks Kristin) for one night. I am now living in the 16^th arrondissement of Paris. You may be thinking, why have I never heard of the 16^th? And the answer is because nothing happens here. It is primarily residential, but nonetheless has some pretty cool things. In the northern part of the arrondissement there are quite a few embassies and a horse racing track. Also, the stadium for the French National Football (soccer) team is not too far away. Hopefully I will be able to see a match one day. Other than that, the 16^th is pretty dull and I like it that way. As usual, I don’t have any pictures up yet, but I will get them up soon. I am going to try and post some of other things this afternoon. Who knows, by the time you all wake up, I might have them posted.

The second important thing that happened is my education. Yep, I am getting schooled here in Paris. I had a preparatory language class for four weeks, which started and ended between blogs, my bad. It was pretty good. The best part was definitely the field trips; we got to go to Fountainebleau (on left), a castle not too far from Paris. In this picture it seems to me like Fountanebleau should be floating on clouds. We also got to see a really cool museum about the history of Paris, the musée Carnavalet. We also got to see one of the opera houses (on right) and it was amazingly detailed. Frankly, I prefer the simplicity of design, but I guess when it comes to décor, “if you got it flaunt it.” Anyhow, I have pictures of all this and will try and get them up if I can win the battle of man (or woman) vs. machine.

Also, I had my first real class today at my university… which if you were all wondering is l’Institut Catholique de Paris (The Catholic Institute of Paris). Yeah, I am going to spend the year chillin’ with the priests-to-be. But I want to finish this week before I start ranting about how hard my classes are, so more to come. So yeah, that is about it for now and I hope you are all well!

-Kathy