SPRING BREAK: London

For the last leg of my break, I went to London on a 12 € flight from Basel. My friend Meredith, who's also studying in Paris, was going to be there anyway and wanted someone to see the sights with, so I figured at that price, why not? I was able to sleep on the floor in a friend's dorm room, too, so it was a good, not-too-expensive, trip to see another European city while I had the chance.

SPRING BREAK: Basel

After Geneva, I headed to Basel to spend a little over a week with Patsy and Paul (and Meg, Andie, Kaj, and Kiri). Ironically, though, even though it's where I spent over half my vacation, I have zero pictures from the visit. We did take a day trip to Lausanne where I took a bunch, but from actual Basel, none.

SPRING BREAK: Geneva

I've been on Spring Break for the past two weeks, and it has been great. I did a little bit of traveling, but decided to forego a big Eurotrip in favor of a couple smaller trips staying with friends and relatives (which ended up being a great idea since not only did it save me a lot of money, but the volcano probably would have foiled any other plans). My first stop was Geneva for the weekend to see my friend Mo from high school.

Catch-Up: Birthday Festivities

My 21st birthday was a few weeks ago, but I had some visitors and a few fun events, so I figure it's worth a mention. Maya came from Sevilla to visit some other Tufts friends in Paris, but we were able to do a cruise on the Seine and walk around the Tuileries Gardens and the Latin Quarter together. Maha was also there from Tübingen, Germany, and I hadn't seen her in about a year, so it was fun to go out to both dinner and brunch with her.

Catch-Up: Easter Weekend at the Cannetière

In France, Easter Monday is a holiday and a day off from work, school, etc., so many families take a long weekend and get out of Paris. Mine did the same, spending the three days at their country house in the Loire Valley, and they invited me to come along with them. It was relaxing and full of great food, and was nice to get out of the city for a few days.

Catch-Up: Eiffel Tower

View of the Trocadéro from the top floor

A few weeks ago, my friend Nicole from high school came to Paris as part of her spring break Eurotrip. I met up with her and her friend to finally do one of the key Paris sight-seeing activities: go up the Eiffel Tower. While we were waiting in line, one of the other elevators stopped working, so all the people in that line came into ours, and it ended up taking about 2 1/2 hours to get through the line and to the top, but it was worth the wait, if only because now I can say I have done it.

Catch-Up: Day Trip to Reims

Notre-Dame de Reims, not Paris

I know I said I'd try to update the blog more frequently, but once again, time got away from me and the school work just kept piling on. Then I had a 2-week spring break, which I used to travel, relax, and not blog. Before school starts back up on Monday, though, I figured I'd do some catch up on some overdue posts.

Sorry, It's Been A While

Yikes, it's been two weeks since I've posted anything here, and it had been nearly a week between that post and the previous one. In case you were worried, everything has been fine; I've just been pretty busy with school work, which has left me little time to (a) do anything blog-worthy, or (b) blog about the little I have done. But here's a quick update of what I've been up to, with more to come soon, I hope.

Vive le Resto U!

I have now been in Paris for about two months, but from this point forward, I am making a vow to eat at the student cafeterias (or "Resto U," for restaurant universitaire) that are scattered around the city as often as possible. It is at these dining facilities, very similar to a traditional school cafeteria, that one can get a complete meal for only €2.90, so not only is it filling and (usually) nutritious, but it is also cheaper than pretty much anything else available.

The Normal-Postured Guy of Notre Dame

The nice weather continued today, and that meant another day of walking around and exploring Paris. On this fine Thursday, that plan included meeting Meredith in the Latin Quarter to get a cheap panini (3€ for a sandwich and drink!) and then walking over to Notre Dame Cathedral. We first went inside the church, admiring the stained glass windows and sheer size of the interior, then ascended the left tower all the way to the top, and from there descended on the right. I took a lot of the gratuitous tourist pictures, but it's so big and pretty inside, and the view is so spectacular from the top, that it's hard not to.

À quels points les français sont-ils fous?

Can you spot the cultural difference in the photo above?

A Stroll Down the Seine

Yesterday afternoon, since we are currently on a one-week winter vacation, a few friends and I decided to go to the movies. When we all got there, though, we realized it was way too nice out to go sit inside for 2 hours, and we instead decided to walk along the Seine and take in some of the first sunshine and warm(er) weather we had had since the semester started. I didn't take that picture above, since I figured I didn't need a camera to go to the movies, but that's pretty much what it looked like, except with fewer clouds. We started at Notre-Dame and walked all the way down the river to the Eiffel Tower; by the time we got there it was almost dark, so we were able to watch it light up from the Trocadéro, about as perfect a vantage point as you can have. Great day.

Madrid, Here I Am... and Now I'm Gone

After some uncertainty last week about whether my flight to Madrid would actually be able to take off, everything went smoothly and I made it there Friday evening. We were delayed half an hour at Charles de Gaulle, but since everyone was in Alcalá (the suburb of Madrid where Bobby, Royi, and Austin are actually studying) having dinner when I arrived in Madrid, the wait was negligible. Once everyone got back, though, we started a fun-filled weekend complete with -- as expected -- bars, clubs, the Royal Palace, and some other museums thrown in there.

Madrid, Here I Come... I Hope

Tomorrow afternoon, after my first art history exam, I'm heading to Madrid for the weekend! Well, that's the plan at least. In a very French fashion, air traffic controllers have gone on strike this week, causing a lot of flight delays and cancellations across the country. As of right now, my flight is still scheduled, so I'm just hoping nothing changes.

Appreciate Your (Host) Mother

Lucille, my host mother, is away for the week visiting family (I think). I usually do my own thing in the morning and then head out to school, so I don't really notice her absence during the day. Come dinner time, though, there's quite a big difference. Normally our dinner starts with soup, followed by a main course with meat, vegetables, and some sort of starch, then cheese and bread if we want it, and finally a dessert.

This week, though...

Nouveaux Amis

Last Saturday night, in lieu of going out with Tufts friends to some club, I spent the evening at home with Etienne and his friends. It was a low-key night, with a lot less going on than there probably was at Showcase, but I can pretty certainly say I had a better time simply hanging out with a bunch of French kids.

More about my night coming up!

Attention!

 

In French, "attention" means "caution," and I just wanted to put a little disclaimer on my "À quels points les français sont-ils fous?" posts.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Tonight, my host family had some friends from Ireland over for dinner. I'm not exactly sure how they know each other, but they were already visiting in Paris and accepted the invitation to come to the apartment for tonight's meal.

The food itself was great (although even some of the Irish guests commented that "the French like their meat rare"), but the best part about the night was hearing the Irish accent. They all spoke English with a heavy Irish brogue, but they also spoke French and it was really interesting to hear such a distinct, familiar accent in another language. I spoke both French and English with them and got along fine, but I really enjoyed just sitting back and listening.

They were very nice and also had four young kids running around, so it was a lively evening. And I think hearing an Irish-French was helpful in that it made me realize that, even if I never got the real French accent down, I could eventually speak the language as naturally and technically perfect as them. That's the goal, at least!

Awesome Day

 

So this doesn't really have much to do with Paris or abroad (although I did just sit through two straight hours of lecture about communism, socialism, and Soviet Russia), but I thought I'd use this space to share about my great news today anyway.

À quels points les français sont-ils fous?

 

Can you spot a cultural difference in the photo above?

Izis Photo Exhibit - Waking Up Before Noon

I only have one class on Mondays, from 3-6 pm, so I usually use the morning to sleep in and lounge around until I finally have to leave to get lunch and head to school. Today, though, I got up early (well, 10:30, but still earlier than usual) and went to a photography exhibit at the Hôtel de Ville with my friends Mo and Maddy.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Paris Edition

 Photographic proof she was really here!

This weekend, Maya came to visit from Spain, where she's studying abroad in Sevilla. (You can read about it at her blog here!) She got in on Thursday night and then we spent the whole day Friday sight-seeing and just walking the Champs-Elysées. We hit some of the most iconic and touristy spots, including the Eiffel Tower, as you can see above, and the Arc de Triomphe, and everything was going great. But then she woke up Saturday morning and was very sick...

À quels points les français sont-ils fous?

Can you spot a cultural difference in the photo above?

Weekend in the Val de Loire - Châteaux Galore

To cap off our first week in Paris and of orientation, the whole group of semester students went on a weekend trip to the Loire Valley (Val de Loire). It was a nice way to spend the weekend together, even if it was tiring and rainy. The rest of this long-overdue post coming up!

It's Snowing

I guess not everything is that different in Paris right now, seeing as the U.S. East Coast is currently getting hammered with snow. I'm starting to regret not bringing a real winter coat, though...

"Le Quatuor" - Encore!

I just got back a couple hours ago from seeing a performance of "Le Quatuor," a very funny and entertaining musical play of sorts, at the Théâtre des Variétés. It's getting late and I still have a little homework to do, but just wanted to jot down some thoughts quickly before bed.

À quels points les français sont-ils fous?

Can you spot a cultural difference in the photo above?

Le Louvre - Not Just Hype

On our first Friday in Paris, all of the semester students went on a tour of the Louvre with Mme Bruneau (also our Art History professor). It's a huge, huge museum and we only had a couple of hours, so needless to say we didn't see everything. There were some highlights, though, which can probably best be shown through photos.

First Week of Classes - So Far, So Good

As I wrote in my first post, I'll be doing some catch-up blogging this week (I hope) about orientation and my early thoughts on Paris. For now though, I just wanted to do a quick rundown of my classes now that I've had at least one meeting for all of them.

Ma Famille d'Accueil - Home Away from Home

The view from my balcony

All TIP students are required to have homestays, i.e., live with a family in their home instead of in a student dorm or apartment. Although I'm sure it can be awkward and uncomfortable for some, I think it's a great requirement and really lets us see some French culture up-close, speak a lot more French with our families, and potentially make some friends through host brothers and/or sisters.

À quels points les français sont-ils fous?

Can you spot a cultural difference in the photo above?

A Belated Bienvenue

I wasn't really planning on running a blog this semester since I figured I would be too busy with school, sight-seeing, traveling, etc. It turned out that my expectations were met during the first three weeks: we had orientation meetings and trips, preliminary language classes, and, starting last week, "real" classes at Tufts-in-Paris (TIP) and the Paris universities (for me, l'Institut Catholique de Paris and Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne).

This weekend, though, I felt like I finally had some free time and since I had been looking at some other friends' travel blogs, I decided to start up one of my own. I juggled with the title, not wanting to make it specifically about Paris or France since I plan on doing some traveling elsewhere in Europe, and finally settled on "Cultural Thoughts" ("Cultural Learnings," a favorite TV blog of mine, was already taken).

So, in this space I hope to share some of my experiences, thoughts, pictures -- pretty much whatever I feel is worth posting. I doubt I'll be posting every day (it took me three weeks just to get this up) but I hope to do some catch-up and then start getting stuff up on a semi-regular basis. Hope you enjoy!