1 septembre 2014

It is actually Wednesday, September 3, 12:18AM right now (basically Tuesday night) but I am writing about what happened on Monday. I woke up and left for our ACCENT orientation. It was pretty pointless; a waste of time. Afterwards, we had about 2.5-3 hours to kill so we went to the 4th arr. and got some sushi. It was decent and, since we ate family style, it only came out to 7€/person. It was my first time having rice since leaving the States so that was nice. The best part, though, was when I looked through the menu and saw a picture of dumplings/gyoza labeled "ravioli japonais." HAHAHA They call dumplings ravioli. Isn't that so weird? But when I think about it, it totally makes sense. Ah, so strange. Afterwards, we went back to ACCENT and had an "intensive" French lesson. It was completely pointless; a waste of time. We were going over conjugating basic verbs and turning singular forms into plural forms. Ugh. Basically the second week of French I all over again.

THEN, Justine and I went to la Place des Vosges (again, for me). When we first sat down, there was a kid, maybe around 10 years old (give or take a year) doing some cool aerials and flips and stuff with his dad filming him. Soon after, a group of high schoolers came and this super arrogant, cocky-looking guy struts over and starts to try and shop up this 10 year old kid. Mind you, this high schooler is probably like 17 or 18 and almost twice the kid's height. It was cute later though because he started giving the kid advice and showing him how to do something else. But his cockiness was super annoying. When he sat back down with his friends, the little kid went to him, tapped his shoulder, and asked to play some more. So cute! But the cutest part was when this nanny showed up with like 5 enfants (ranging from babies to toddlers) and we watched them play. First there was this super derpy looking kid:

Seriously, though. Just look at his face. I probably captured his face at the least derpiest moment and voilà. He didn't really play with us but after a while, this happened:

They just started looking through my bag, playing with my phone, etc. etc. This girl:

When she first came up to us, she just kept saying "Ça va?" "Ça va?" "Ça va." "Ça va!" (How are you doing? How are you? Doing well. Doing well!) So cute. I kept asking her what her name was and how old she was but she would either reply with "Ça va" or point at things and name them (ex: she pointed at the fountain and said "l'eau" (water)). She also spoke jibberish. At first I thought I just couldn't understand French, but alas, she was speaking jibberish. When I spoke back, she got really excited and started jibber jabbering and it was très mignonne. When she got my phone she would hold it against her ear and say "Allo? Allo? AlloOOOOoooOOOo~?"Eventually, I learned to try and converse with her by pretending I was on the other line. Unfortunately our conversation never really got past ça va... Later, the nanny started drumming a beat on a pail she had (you can see it in the background), this little girl and I started dancing. It was pretty fun. And if you know me, I never ever dance so it was quite special ^_^ The boy was cute but it was really difficult to get Justine's phone back from him:

Je ne l'aimais pas parce qu'il était trop difficile (même pour moi qui travaille avec beaucoup d'enfants chaque été!).

My family eats super late so I decided to get a crêpe -- my first one since coming to Paris, actually:

It's not a very good picture and I mean, it was pretty simple; it only had Nutella. But it cost 3.5€!! Can you believe it? Tellement cher. But it tasted really good and I had a pretty fun conversation with the lady working the stand (albeit in English).

Then I went home and met la tante de Jacqueline, ses fils (Olivier et Bertrand), et la fille de Bertrand. At this point, though, I was exhausted. I actually fell asleep on the Metro coming home which never happens to me. In the beginning, I listened and added a little bit to the conversation, but as dinner wore on, I got so tired my brain couldn't even process what they were saying. Pas du tout! Eventually, Claude caught on and he excused me from the table. I said merci et bonne nuit before stumbling into my room and passing out on my bed. I was going to just close my eyes for a few minutes before washing up, doing my homework, and then going to bed but alas. I did not wake up until 2:45AM at which point I washed up and went straight back to bed. Despite my grogginess, I did notice that someone came in my room and turned off the lights for me -- merci beaucoup to the kind soul (not sure if it was Jacqueline or Marianique(?)).

*Side note: I forgot if I mentioned this, but on my first night (Sunday), I tried champagne for the first time! It was absolutely disgusting. Then, on Monday, I tried wine for the first time. Again, so gross. But Claude is an excellent cook and I eat like a king every day! I am basically the only one in the group who really looks forward to dinner with my host family. More stories to come later, but my host family LOVES dinner parties (we had one every dinner so far) -- and I love how full and jolly and diverse the dinners are (both in terms of food and people and conversation)! J'aime ma vie à Paris!