Endings

Wow, yesterday was a long day.
(the flowers I gave my host mom)

But, before that was dinner with my host parents one last time. They brought out some champagne and my host mom made what I believe is a more traditional French dinner...it was rabbit in mustard sauce, salad, red wine, a variety of good cheese, baguette of course, and then crepes for dessert. Very tasty. Then I had to say goodbye, because I was leaving before anyone would be awake in the morning. That was a little weird, and sad. I'm going to miss them.
Then, I didn't get too much sleep...and I woke up a little bit before my alarm was going to go off at 4:40am, left the house at 5:20, and took the metro to meet Becky and Kay. Wow, having a giant heavy bag in the metro and another duffel sucks. I'm pretty sure every random stranger who offered to help and helped me down or up stairs regretted it the second they picked up one end of my bag because it was crazy heavy. Still, we made it to the airport all in one piece. So that was nice. Waited around at the airport, took my flight to Toronto (It was a really long somewhat boring flight and I couldn't sleep that much.) Then went through customs and took my flight into Minneapolis where it was stormy so we had to circle above Minneapolis for a while.
(Some building near Notre Dame)

And now I'm at Carleton. It's wonderful to see everyone again, but really bizarre as well. It should be a fun few days, and I don't think missing Paris will really hit me until I get home to Davis. It was really weird taking the metro that morning, and realizing it was the last time I would take it for a very long time. It was so familiar, and I am going to miss all the little things that to most people are so boring and day-to-day, but I love. It's going to be bizarre not having the language barrier...I'll still probably formulate questions and things in French before going to order something or talk to strangers, which will be funny. And I'm sure phrases will come out in French. It's just all a sort of odd situation. And to top that off, I don't feel that jetlagged at all. Weird.
(last time in the Jardin de Luxembourg.)

All in all, I think that my speaking skills didn't improve as much as I would have liked (I did improve, of course), but my comprehension skills got a million times better. So that's neat. I would love to stay in contact with my host parents, and some day go back, see how the kids grew up, and see my host parents again.

Allez les bleus!

I had to write my artist paper and prepare my presentation on Monday, which is all I really did until dinner time, where we had a group dinner at a restaurant with all of the professors. It was a lot of fun, and the last time the entirety of the group was together. That night I also saw Katie's host family's home (who were out of town) and I ended up missing the last metro so I stayed the night and we made crepes. The next morning I came home, finished up and emailed my paper, practiced my presentation, took a shower, and met Anna and then wandered around for a while until class. Both classes were all presentations. I had trouble concentrating throughout all the presentations...Before I had to give mine I was super nervous, and then afterwards (it turned out well) I just sort of checked out, and was just relieved to be absolutely done with work.
That evening I went to a football game!!!! (soccer, that is). It was France vs. Columbia and WAY exciting. We ended up sitting in a high concentration of Columbian fans, but it was all good. France won, one-zero. I also felt pretty good about being able to sing along with the French national anthem when it played before the game. Everyone was so high energy, and it was just amazing to be there. I'm not sure I can really express how cool it was. Cool in two ways actually. It was cold and I was wearing shorts. whoops. Oh well.
Today we technically had class. We were out in the Jardin de Luxmbourg (where it got really cold) and a comedian came and answered questions and told us a couple of jokes. He was pretty good. And pretty provocative/not politically correct. Plus, he was really willing to answer our questions, and gave good, thoughtful answers. So that was neat. Then we had a "picnic" at Cathy's apartment where it was bread and cheese and cookies and juice and we just chilled. That's when we did most of our goodbyes. It doesn't seem real that I'm leaving. It was so strange to realize that we all were leaving, and saying goodbye.
Then me and Becky wandered around for quite a while. She found something for her dad, and then we went in search of a flower shop so I could bring flowers home to my host family as a last day sort of thanks thing. Well, flower shops are hard to come by, but I finally found one and got sunflowers. And now I need to pack pack pack. And then I'll be leaving at like 5:30am tomorrow to meet Kay and Becky at a metro station and then we're going to the airport together. And then on to Carleton. I can't believe it. This term was great, but passed by way too fast! But I can't really think about that right now...I haven't started packing yet, so I'm going to get on that right now. (And the picture below is the doorway to CUPA. it's right in between a kids clothing shop called Lapin Bleu and a store called Jeans Paradis. It's kind of a random location...some food places and clothing stores. and then this nondescript door.)

What you've been waiting for

Well, Friday was half boring (just classes as usual, where we got our tests back and I gave a 5 minute presentation on my 10 page paper. It started off a little rocky, because I really hadn't prepared at all, but then got better). Then I went home, relaxed a bit and that night was a Jazz Concert. Well, Cathy had told us it was an MC Solaar (famous French rapper who's kind of older now, or a has-been according to my host parents) concert. But it was a jazz concert featuring MC Solaar. But I thought it was really good. There was this amazing bassist. Also, the lyrics were pretty funny to this one song..."Your love is two for one, it's sweet and kind of fun, it's like staying up past midnight when you're still a kid"...and in english too. Which meant all of us started laughing and most of the audience didn't get it. The other good line was "I've got the munchies for your love". There was also this crazy part where the guy would just make some noises (ie singing without actual words) and the audience would repeat it back. It was really strange and entertaining. All in all a good concert.
But, before the concert we got dinner at this supermarket. And some crazy drunk/high guy walked in, shouted something, got a beer and tried to cut in line. So the manager came out and tried to get him to either wait in line or leave. I was in the line he was trying to cut, and it was a little scary when I was paying for my stuff and he spit almost on my shoe. And kept shouting something about "on his mother's life" only it was in french, so I wasn't quite sure what he was getting at. But, it gets better. We go out and wait across the street for the rest of our group. And some guy comes outside yelling at the crazy guy. So the crazy guy punches him! (I'd never really seen anyone actually punch someone like that in real life) and then the other guy kicks him, and someone came and broke them up and the crazy guy wandered away. It was kind of exciting and scary at the same time.
(this bar had weird signs out front, and this is one of them dis'nae? what?)

Saturday wasn't all too exciting. I went running in the morning with Becky and almost got us lost in the Bois de Vincennes. However, because I'd gotten lost before, I had a much better sense of where we were and got us out alright. So then I chilled in my room trying to get homework done until I met Becky for dinner. After dinner we went to a bar with a bunch of other people on the program for the night as a sort of last weekend in France shindig/it had been Masha's 21st birthday last week. So that was a lot of fun, and I caught the dead last metro home. If I'd left just 2 minutes later, I would have missed it. So I lucked out.

Today I had the longest brunch ever with my host parents and Lorraine's sister and her husband. We had a barbecue, which we would have had a month ago, had the weather permitted. I found our aperitif kind of random-white rum and pineapple juice. And then I worked on homework until dinner. And here's what you've been waiting for: me and the family! (Calixte wouldn't look at the camera)