Fin de Février

I can’t believe I’ve already been here for a month!

Luxembourg Gardens

On Friday after class, I visited the Luxembourg Gardens with Kaitlyn for a little while. It was a beautiful day—no gray skies; only blue and movie-perfect clouds! The gardens were created in 1617 to comfort Henry IV’s widow, who was missing her native Florence. They are absolutely enormous! We walked through the maze of trees (which were pretty bare but still lovely—can’t wait till things are in bloom!) and then stopped by a pond where kids were pushing around toy sailboats and couples sat on benches enjoying the sun.

 

Luxembourg Gardens

After the gardens, I went on yet another Elvis quest… This time, it was to find a store called Elvis My Happiness, located in the 2^nd Arrondissement. Lo and behold, the place no longer exists. (Fun fact: While Elvis was stationed in Germany during his army years, he visited Paris three times.) I still have a few “Elvis sites” I want to see while I’m over here, but it’s too bad that store was closed!

Sacré-Coeur

On Saturday, I went with a group to Montmartre (Sacré-Coeur). We met at Saint-Michel and witnessed some sort of Muslim/religious tolerance demonstration. There were hordes of police officers at every corner surrounding the square, and we left before it may have turned into anything but the mood of everyone in the area was a little off-putting.

Sacré-Coeur is a gorgeous cathedral on a hill with an expansive view of Paris from the top. We took the stairs to the very top, went through the cathedral and then walked around in the small shopping center behind Montmartre. I got a Stracciatella-flavored gelato cone (to die for) and Charlie (a fellow Sun Devil!) and I walked around the cobblestone square to look at artwork.

Moulin Rouge

The group met up again at the bottom of the hill and we decided to walk over to the famous Moulin Rouge. As we got closer and closer, the shops started to really remind me of the Vegas sleaze… and Moulin Rouge itself was a little underwhelming. I guess I expected a much bigger, livelier building!

Next trip: the Galeries Lafayette. This is the most elegant mall in the world—with a stained glass ceiling, the most expensive brands in the world and the most extensive shoe department I’ve ever seen. There are separate buildings for men’s and women’s clothes, even! Naturally, the best way to enter the building is with wide eyes and the best way to leave is empty-handed.

Galeries Lafayette

We then took the metro to an Indian food place that was a total of 19 metro stops from where I live—but it was actually pretty good food. I had a sort of lentil/tomato/kidney bean/etc. stew with spices mixed in and rice on the side. Not bad for a vegetarian place!

In the evening, I relaxed after a long day of Parisian-style speed-walking and then saw “Birdman” with my host family. When we sat down, I was trying to explain to my host mom that movie theaters in the U.S. are bigger than they are here—and I was reminded to say “cinéma” instead of “théatre” when referring to seeing a movie because those are two different concepts here!

This morning, my host mom was asking about certain English words and looking them up in her pocket dictionary. We were explaining that there can be a “traffic jam” and also “strawberry jam.”

“Quelle langue idiote!” was her response…!

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A funny thing I’ve noticed here is that my name is misspelled at Starbucks. That hasn’t ever happened to me before!

When I say “Emily,” they hear “Emmeline.” If I were to say it with the French spelling (Emilie—or “Emmeelee”), they’d get the name down!

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I have a busy week ahead—a few tests, phonetics class, my conference classes and applying for housing for next year at ASU (always a mess, but fingers are crossed!). Next Saturday, the ISA group is traveling to Normandy overnight, which will be an exciting excursion!

À bientôt!

-E