Study Study Study

It is midterms week.  I have been trying to study for the past few days.  It is crazy how much I have to finish before Halloween.  So to catch you up on the past...

This week we had repairmen in our apartment.  Two were totally redoing the electrical work and the other was working on our water heater.  For the most part they are both fixed, except every once in awhile water will shoot out from the bottom of the heater all over our kitchen.  The man said it is because the water pressure in the building is too high, so those people need to fix it.  I don't know.

Last Saturday I went with CEA to Fontainebleau castle, known for its hunting forests back in the day and home to royalty before Versailles and the Louvre.  It was very pretty though and Versailles-esque.  On Sunday I went with a few friends to Mont Saint-Michel, which is located on this chunk of land like an island.  I think this place was more about hype, I wasn't too impressed.  I did try the famous Normandy cider though- delish.  Ooh I also went out to this bar which was supposed to be like coyote ugly, so I was excited I thought maybe they would play country music.  No, it was basically just a club with some ugly women singing cheesy songs in bedazzled bras.  Needless to say I left early that night. 

I have started cooking some really good meals!  I made chicken pot pie, shepherds pie, and crepes all in the same week.  Who needs Le Cordon Bleu haha.  The weather has been getting colder.  Yesterday I broke out my pea coat.  I almost feel like we skipped the nice October fall weather to the wet and cold November fall weather.

My Haute Couture class went to the Carnavalet museum again.  This time we had to go searching by ourselves for paintings we want to write a paper about.  I hope I do good on this one and my test next week...I have a reputation to withhold now! ;)  We walked around near Tuileries and Place de Vendome which are high fashion areas for an excursion, and I saw the first Chanel shop in Paris- the one with the curved staircase.

So for another project I have to do for that class, I am researching about the Burberry trench coat.  I emailed the IFM (Institut Francais de la Mode, french fashion institute) to see if I could use their library.  It said on the website you had to make an appointment and pay 5 euro to do it, but when they emailed me back the email just said the hours and gave a telephone number.  When I got there the librarian woman kind of chewed me out because I did not have an appointment, but she was like you emailed me in French (I had the student servies lady help me with that one haha) so I emailed you back in french, you must've not understood me.  Since I was a confused American she let me use the library anyways.  It was pretty cool sitting next to french fashion students and luckily they had a few books about my topic in english.  I probably won't be going back there since I had to pay money, but it was a interesting experience.

My roommate Rachel's parents arrived here this weekend.  They took us out for dinner, and paid for my meal.  It was so nice of them, and since her dad is from New Jersey I had a great time just listening to him talk.  I have kind of noticed a lot of people's family are visiting them here.  It's crazy, like how can people afford that.  There were more strikes this week too.  The french are very serious about this retirement age, and they want to be heard.  I haven't heard much more about the terrorist stuff, so I hope that threat level is going down.

Jean-Claude and the fat stub cat are doing great.  Still give their momma regular visits. ;)


From Paris with Love,
L