i'm sure i'm forgetting something, but here goes anyway...

So Nick's friend's have all left, and as of today, Nick too. We went out to a bunch of places for everyone's last night, Chez Janou for Vanessa, a really small and packed but really good restaurant. Nick ordereda chocolate mousse to which the restaurant makes a huge bowl of it and you can scoop out as much as you want. A fondue place for Jane's almost going away. You dip pieces of bread and potato and other random salami type stuff into the cheese, and you cook raw meat in the oil and dip that into good mustard sauces. It was OK- not that tasty. It also came with unlimited wine, yay! For Ksusha's last night we went to George's Cafe, not bad. And then last night Stella came to visit so Nick Stella and I went to my new roommate Gersende's favorite cafe down the street. I will recommend this place to anyone, and if you come visit me i will probably be taking you here! Small portions but the duck I ordered was delicious; it came with apples underneath and this yellow stuff I forgot what it's called... (side note, it's 2am and i'm having a hard time remembering things). Just trust me, this dinner was Good.

My first two weeks of class started off really great, and then trickled off to a why am I coming because i"m not learning anything. It is a total immersion class, 4 hours a day of listening and speaking French. But it is really just listening for the first two weeks I was there. I just started another two weeks and it's going a LOT better... I'm learning a lot more grammar and for me it's really helpful because seeing things on paper makes it easier for me to understand what people are saying because in French as I am sure you know, everyone slurs and abbreviates all their words together (which makes it sounds really cool) but terribly hard to understand if you don't know the vocabulary, like me.
This picture is of the kids, well, people who were in my first two week session. My teacher is in the middle. doesn't she remind you of A. Mei-Ling? A little bit?


I've been hanging out with Nada, Nina, Gustav, and Ana Luisa the most here. Nada is from Canada, Nina is from pretty much all over the world, Gustav and Analuisa are from Brazil. We all speak english, but sometimes French. As you can see in the picture I have a beer in my hand. It cost something like 5€ which is about $7. But in the bars and clubs at night time, drinks go upwards of 10-12€ which is about $15. Consequently i don't drink enough and I have not gotten drunk yet. My time here has been pretty sober. A good thing? Who knows. I went to Amsterdam with Gustav and Ana Luisa last weekend. We stayed at Bob's Youth Hostel about 5 minutes from Amsterdam CS and the red light. There were 16 bbeds in the room... nucking futs. this dude who slept above me was snoring for 4 hours non stop from 7am to 11am. he didn't even wake up when the girl next to him kept tapping him, his friend jumping down and shouting at him, or me punching his mattress hard from below. anyway amsterdam has a lot more history than i ever thought. There's anne frank's house, rembrandt's house, van gogh museum, etc... pretty intereseting stuff there. it almost makes me want to take a class in art history... and just for me to remember, some memorable and really funny quotes by gustav "coo-ar-ter pounder met bacon", "way-fle", "white widow" 10x fast... This is a pic of us at our first coffee shop where we met this really weird couple who met in a coffee shop.

My new roommate is pretty cool, her name is Gersende and shes French. She admittedly has a quirky sense of humor, speaks really good english, and likes "nouvelle star" which is the french american idol. I'm having a good time here at this new apartment. It's really nice to have someone to talk to and get the scoop on paris. Here are some pics of my new shnazzy pad. The ceilings are 6'3" high, and I have about 2" between my head and the ceiling. I even have to duck a little bit to get from the kitchen to the living room ha! And apparently I am cursed with bad showers and Neal said. Since the ceiling is so low, and the bath tub is about 5" above the ground, my head hits the ceiling when if i stand up... so when I shower i have to kneel or sit... it's not too bad but man, when will i ever get a good shower?


I'm having some people over for dinner tomorrow and celebrating the first day of the cup du monde. HMM me cooking? I'll let you know how it goes.