Arrival in Paris

 I have been in Paris now for 3 full days, and they've been fabulous! I guess I'll start with the host family and work from there. I'm living in a 2-parent home with 5 kids; 4 boys and 1 girl. They are between the ages of 14-22. The two oldest, the girl and boy #1 don't live in the house full time, but they come for dinner or something sometimes. But the family is also playing host to another young boy, about 12 or 13 who's living with them for the year so he can go to the private middle school (collège) that he wants to. This isn't that uncommon, as I understand it. So the apartment is HUGE for
Paris standards. There are 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, dining room and large foyer. In the building, there is one apartment on each floor. It's a really nice area of Paris and generally pretty quiet at night which is good. To get a feeling of where it is on the map, you can go to google maps and search for "Place de Clichy, Paris France" I'm very close to there. My host mom is very much like my real mom, only tall and French-speaking. She's drinking hot tea all the time, is very soft-spoken and sweet, and she's all health-nutty like my Mom. It's pretty adorable. Still trying to get used to living in a house with so many men though. It's really weird. My host family also seems to think my Dad's profession is really unusual; the parents tried to get all the kids to guess what my dad does at dinner the other night, sorta like 20 questions.

 So this is my bed. I've got like a bunk-bed sort of deal with a really nice desk and bookshelf underneath the bed. The room is actually pretty big, with a window and a closet, etc.

I got to Paris on Friday night, then spent most of Saturday just getting settled with the family and stuff. I did go over to the Tuileries (the extensive gardens in front of the Louvre) and just sorta chilled and people-watched. Then on Sunday, we did a little sight-seeing. We started out with a picnic in a pretty park not far from my apartment. The whole gang eventually showed up, so that was Rouge, Sheila, Sandra, Claire, Kyle, and Joan. So after all the picnicing and stuff was done, we walked down to the Arc de Triomphe and took some pictures and walked around, but we didn't go up in it just yet. Rouge and I tried to give Joan the whole Napoleon story (She's not a history person like we are). Then we took the Metro over to Notre Dame and just sorta walked around, stopped for a drink/ice cream, then went home.

 So this is Kyle and Rouge at the park on Sunday. It was a really big park with lots of joggers and picnicers, even has a place to buy food and a carousel for the kids. It was really nice outside on Sunday, so there were tons of people who had the same idea we did.

 This is from left to right Sheila, Claire, and Joan. Just chillin' and eating some lunch.

 Sheila being hilarious without meaning to, as usual :D

 So after we finished lunch, we walked over to the Arc de Triomphe because it was only like 4 blocks away. It's just so enormous! I don't think I'll ever get over just seeing it. It's a serious statement.

 So here is the whole gang, sans moi, sitting under the arc on a little bench, just kinda taking a break and hanging out. From left to right Rouge, Kyle, Sandra, Claire, Sheila, Joan.

And the final leg of our trip on Sunday. Notre Dame. It's pretty impressive. We didn't get to go in, because it was pretty crowded and late, but we'll get a chance to do that another time.


A little word on the Metro: there's a reason that the Paris Metro is known as the best Metro system in the Western world. The trains run every 2-3 minutes throughout the day and on weekends. You can get pretty much anywhere in Paris on the Metro without changing trains more than once. Above ground, you can count on being able to find a Metro stop within a ten-minute walk of wherever you are. So if you wander around after you get off the train, you'll be able to find another train wherever you end up. Rouge, who is from L.A., had never been on any sort of metro system before yesterday. So I showed her how to figure it all out, and by the end of today, she said she felt very confident about her ability to use the Metro by herself. In other words, she rocked it!

So today Rouge and I went around to a couple different gardens in Paris. The Luxembourg Gardens are right next to Alliance Francaise, where our Sweet Briar orientation classes and stuff are. So we met up this morning and went over to those Gardens and sat and chatted etc. Then we took the Metro over to the Tuileries again and had lunch and stuff there in front of the Louvre. After that, we headed back over to Alliance Francaise for a little orientation stuff and to pick up our big suitcases (which we hadn't seen since we got off of the plane).

So up next I think I'll be seeing Sacre Coeur and actually going inside the Louvre. Rouge and I want to go at night cause it'll be less crowded and the Pyramid will be all lit up! Maybe a trip to the Eiffel Tower as well. Who knows? I'm a rolling stone this week...