More from Paris...

Well the past five days have just flown by! I've been busy catching up on sleep, touring around, and getting to know the wonderful ladies I'm here with. Don't worry, there's been some studying in there too. I take my placement test this coming Wednesday and classes don't start until February 12. But let's not think about school yet. I wanted to take some time to share with you all what I've been doing these past few days, because it's all been pretty cool :)

As you may have guessed based on my Facebook profile pic., I've been to the Louvre! The building was breathtaking (I think I might have liked it better than the art being displayed). It was a fortress, royal residence, and now is a museum (apparently the largest in the world). Olivia, you asked for a picture of the outside, so here are a couple. This place is massive!

This is one of the sides of the building. You can see the overall shape better based on the map, but there are a bunch of archways for traffic and pedestrians.

One of the side doors.

The main pyramid is on the far left of this picture, so this is one corner of the courtyard.

I had no idea where I was in the museum or where we came in until I saw this section of the museum handout. I just thought it would give a better idea of the overall size of the Louvre :)

Going through my pictures now I realize I took a lot of pictures of the ceilings. They were all so elaborate! I personally get tired of looking at photos of artwork, so I didn't take many.

On Thursday it was raining again, so we took a day to stay around the residence and get some studying in. We went to bible study at a Baptist church not too far from our residence, and it was great to meet so many friendly people! Never mind we showed up exactly half way through because we misunderstood the pamphlet. Canadians, eh? But the people there were really welcoming and I am looking forward to going there on Sundays as well J As a side note, I bought a French language bible today, so I’m also looking forward to using it too.

Today was gorgeous outside! We packed lunches and met Tiff and Mindy to eat in the Luxembourg Gardens. There was grass in most of the main areas and the flowers were starting to come up! It made me so happy to see flowers and sunshine! So here’s some for everyone freezing in Canada to see…

The ducks in the fountain were so friendly!

Me in front of what I think are present day government buildings/offices. 

Flowers :)

The gardens were full of statues, mostly of different kings and queens. This statue had some more flowers in front of it, so I had to take a picture :)

This is one of several fountains around the gardens (this was the only one with this much water, besides the main one).

These trees were so cool. The bark was three colors (beige, purple, and green) which is apparently due to how long the bark has been off the trees. They're quite old, and during each of the world wars they would have been exposed to quite different types of chemicals in the air which is part of what causes them to be colored this way. I'll go back and take a picture once the leaves are out for sure!

Another cool thing about today was that I got to sample some fresh pastries. We got pain du chocolat for breakfast (which was a croissant-type pastry with chocolate in the middle). The bakery is just around the corner, so it was still a bit warm when we ate it. And then Rachelle bought us some macaroons to try for dessert tonight, which were also delicious!

Well, that's it for now. Have a good night everyone!

Day two!

Well some pretty exciting things happened today. First off, I met one of my roommates, Fleur, who is from Madrid, Spain. She's super nice and I'm sure we'll have a great semester together. Our other roommate has moved back home (somewhere about an hour away from here) while she's taking tests of some sort, and she'll probably move back in a month or so. So I haven't met her yet.

Today we slept in and then hung out at the residence for a while before meeting up with Tiff and Mindy for some sightseeing.

This is the view from my window. The buildings here seem to be mostly triangular or square/rectangular so that on the inside people overlook a courtyard. It's kind of nice because then everyone can have windows. The circle column of the building is one of the staircases. I'm guessing it's to save on space, but it also seems that the staircases are spiral, which so far has proven to be a bit dizzying!

We met at one of the nearby churches, and since the door was open we went in to take a look around.

The windows were beautiful! Unfortunately it wasn't bright enough to get really good photos.

This is the door where we came in, and there's an organ up on the balcony/

There's a large dome at the front of the church with stained glass windows all around.

Looking up at the dome and ceiling.

We went to see l'Arc de Triomphe to start out our afternoon. It was huge! I didn't know you could go up inside it until we got there, and then we got in for free because we have student visas :)

Yours truly :)

The view from the top was amazing! Notice the Eiffel Tower?

This gives a good idea of the way the streets work in Paris. They seem to just go wherever was easiest to put them, but a general pattern is the triangle streets. There are a whole bunch of roads that connect to this huge roundabout (which has NO lines painted to say where the lanes are!) and from the top of the arch it kind of looks like the spokes of a wheel going out into the city. It was pretty cool!

And then our third stop of the day was at another church, Sacré Coeur, which also gives a good view of the city. Once again, there were a lot of stairs to get to the top, but it was so nice to be out walking in relatively warm weather! It was starting to get darker at this point, so we didn't stay for too long. Mass was also about to start so the dome and crypt were both closed to visitors. I plan on going back for sure though--it was beautiful :)

Walking up the stairs to the church.

This is the view from in front of the church. I read somewhere that the view from the dome is the second best view in Paris, so I'll definitely have to go back!

And a close up of the church. As you might expect it was beautiful inside, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. Guess you'll have to come visit and I can take you there :P

Also, today we bought crepes as a snack. There's vendors all over the place who make them while you wait. I got mine with Nutella and banana, and it was one of the best decisions I've made so far in Paris! Delicious!

If anyone would like to send me letters (and I hope you do!) here's my address:

22 rue de Naples
75008, Paris
FRANCE

That's it for today!

My first day here...

Well today has been full of a lot of firsts for me, and it's been pretty sweet. The first big deal was going on a plane for the first time. I didn't really know what to expect but I just hoped that I wouldn't feel sick the whole time (and I wasn't, so one of my biggest worries was taken care of!). The plane had a lot of extra seats so I asked to move to the middle row where there were 3 open seats in a row and later on Erin joined me, so we had lots of space to stretch out. I managed probably close to 5 hours of sleep out of the 7.5 hours in total we were on the plane, so that certainly passed the time quickly :P Also, the Canadian synchronized skating team was on the plane too on their way to the Olympics.

Funny story time. After a while of watching people walk past me to the back of the plane and having quenched my thirst with all the water I had brought with me, I went on an adventure to find the bathroom. Not too hard you'd think, but think again. Luckily the stewardess noticed my looking around in the back area of the plane and she kindly pointed out that the itsy bitsy closet doors I was standing next to and hadn't noticed actually led to the bathroom. Silly me, looking for a room. Who ever knew a bathroom could be so tiny as the ones on the plane? It was crazy.

When we got to the airport Rachelle and Dr. Rusthoven met us to take us back to the residences. Rachelle, Erin and I are all staying in the same residence and it seems pretty nice so far! I'll be sharing my room with two other girls (who I still haven't met).

My bed and desk area

View from my bed

These are the sinks that are through the door on the right of the picture above. We each have our own sink and wardrobe :)

Erin and Rachelle

This was one of the Metro stations that reminded us of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Kinda hard to see now, but it was pretty neat looking!

After we took some time to get unpacked, Rachelle took us out to buy phone cards, groceries, and cookware. Let me tell you, grocery shopping is going to take some getting used to! There's so many new things to look at and trying to figure out what some of the things are isn't that easy. But I did end up getting a fresh baguette and some Nutella, so it's all good :)

We all met and had diner together and after being ready to fall asleep at the table I think it's time I go to bed. So that's it for now. I'm so tired! We'll see what tomorrow brings :)