You want me to enjoy Paris, right? You want me to explore the intricacies of the city and appreciate its cultural value, correct? And overall, you want me to remain healthy, sane, and happy, of course? Then please explain to me why, for the past two weeks, have I been positively steeped in school assignments and feel as though (mostly) unnecessary knowledge is being regularly and forcefully extruded from every orifice in my body as per your dictatorial syllabi. Please.
Sincerely,
Liz Furze
These week, I have two exposés (which are in-class presentations about assigned subjects), reading, one essay, an essay correction, a crapload of grammar exercises, and a test. Last week, I had two essays (one of them was LONG and the other involved interviewing a French person), a test, more reading, an essay correction, and a private exposé. I'm tired. I don't want to do work. I understand this program is "intensive", which is the nice way of saying "difficult", and it's for my own good, and we're essentially compressing an entire semester into 8 weeks, but really! This is a bit absurd. And by a bit absurd, I mean it makes me want to die a little. In fact, my roommate, Meredith, is sick to the point of being bed-ridden, which I am sure (Italics cue sarcasm) has nothing to do with stress.
Other than the mass amounts of travail, Paris itself continues to be lovely. The weather is finally starting to pick up, and it's supposed to be in the 50's this week, which makes me feel fantastic. I'm pretty sure I have SAD tendencies (Seasonal Affected Disorder...not just "sad" in all caps), and when the weather is nice, I am always filled with these beautiful waves of happiness and nostalgia. For some reason, I have been thinking about summer in New England a lot lately and how I miss summery Rhode Island and Cape Cod. I really want to live in Boston this summer, but I'm not sure how to accomplish that without having to work 60 hours a week. Rent is expensive. And working 60 hours a week means no days off, which means no beach, unless you're talking about the BU beach, which is a plot of grass next to Storrow Drive, which is not a real beach, which makes me sad.
On a different and less tangental note, my friend Lori, who's studying in Madrid, came to Paris for the weekend! I met up with her on Friday afternoon at the Louvre, where we looked at the Egyptian stuff, which was pretty interesting, and then the Italian and French painters (essentially, the Mona Lisa). The Louvre is not my favorite, but you have to go when you come to Paris. This was my third time...and I have a feeling I will go several more times before I leave Paris, if not because I have more people coming to visit and I will have to take them.
After the Louvre, we went to Notre Dame, which is always awesome. Lots of Quasimodo jokes were made, don't you worry. The inside of the church is breathtaking, as is the outside, but those stained glass windows get me every time. They're just freakin' awesome, to put it eloquently. I must go to mass at Notre Dame some time, as I have a feeling it will be incredible.
After Notre Dame, we met our mutual friend Jill, who is also on the PIP (despisèd acroynm for Paris Internet Program), at the Eiffel Tower, and then walked over to the Palais de Chaillot for the lovely view. Afterwards, we walk to the Champs-Elysées where we enjoyed coffee at the House of Ridiculously Overpriced Ice Cream, aka Häagen-Dazs (which is a made-up name, did you know? [also, I use too many parantheses. I constantly interrupt myself. Damn.]), and then went to the Arc de Triomphe. They charge you money to go inside it and climb to the top, to which we said "Eff No", so we just stood under it. They were actually re-lighting the flame for the tomb of the unknown soldier, which burns constantly beneath the Arc, so we watched the ceremony and then peaced.
Afterwards, Meredith and I had a small dinner gathering with our friend Erin. Our host mom is currently on vacation for three weeks at her house in Marseille, so we have the house all to ourselves, which obviously means PARTAYYY. Not. We ate pasta, drank too much wine, and didn't do too much else for the rest of the night.
The next day, I met Jill and Lori for the lunch in the Marais, which is an older area of Paris where a lot of Jewish/Israeli restaurants and bakeries set up shop. We had some absolutely amazing falafel and got gelato afterwards in the shape of a rose. Don't believe me? Photographic evidence (promise not to judge my psychotic face):
We went to Les Invalides, the gorgeous building/series of buildings where Napoleon is buried, but it was closed, so we just admired the architecture and took pictures. I went back home afterwards because we had another little dinner party ; Erin and our friend Trevor came over to eat and watch Paris, a movie we have to write about for one of our classes (which I am supposed to be doing right now but clearly am not). Meredith made the most BEAUTIFUL quiche all from scratch, dough and everything, with spinach, haricots verts, and two types of cheese. It was marvelous. Then we watched the movie, which was not quite so marvelous.
So that's quoi de neuf with me. I need to stop writing such novella-length blog entries ; it's the reason they happen so infrequently.
In summation, I've been extremely busy, but love Paris.
I miss singing.
And I have decided I someday want to be Janis Joplin, minus the rampant drug use and early death.
I miss singing with you.
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