McDonalds

Haven't been up to much lately - mostly just school things. We saw where our classes will be taking place for the first time (Raspail) and had our placement exam, as I alluded in my last post. It consisted of a fill-in-the-blank section of 50 questions or so, a comprehension section, an oral comprehension section, and a written section. Then after that was complete, we sat down with someone and had a brief conversation for our oral exam. I will actually find out which level I'm in on Monday... not the 9th.

We didn't get much sleep last night. There was an absolutely insane thunderstorm here - without a doubt the absolute loudest thunder I've ever heard... And Delph's upstairs neighbors never sleep. Unfortunately the floors in 18th century buildings aren't quite as silent as the one's we're used to at home, so we can hear every single move they make. However, the fact that I got to take a half-hot shower this morning made up for any lack of sleep. We went to class, and afterwords Audrey and I decided to check out the metro station that we think we want to take during our move from Delph's to the apartment. We walked around our new neighborhood for a bit (there's a pizza hut nearby!!) and then just wandered down Rue de Rivoli. We decided we wanted to check out the macarons from McDonald's (they may be a franchise food, but they certainly look just as good as any other macarons I've seen). So we wandered in there and found something much more interesting. They have ordering machines.

Yes, that is ALL McDonald's. It all tastes much less greasy as well. Overall, we have had a pleasing experience there (though in the future I would prefer to avoid it - there are cheaper, healthier, fresher options by just picking things up from a local boulangerie, marché, brioche dorée, etc).

After McDonald's we came home to rest and contact people from home, since we hadn't been able to since before the thunderstorm took out the wifi. I started my two hour venture to compile a list of Paris free wifi spots, arranged by arrondissement, into an excel file. Delph came home and talked to us for about two hours about various things, and then went out to meet some friends for dinner. We ate chicken nuggets for dinner with barbecue sauce/Frank's combo, and now I am blogging while Audrey watches the finale of breaking bad. Like I said, our life hasn't been that interesting these past few days, but it will certainly begin to pick up this weekend and the following week with some unusual activities coming up (nuit blanche, free horse races for girls wearing hats, our big move, the beginning of classes). We're also looking into going to Disneyland Paris for our long weekend - it's about 55€/$75 per ticket and we can get there for free with our metro pass on weekends! Anywho, I'll write again tomorrow or the next day. 

À bientôt!

We had our placement tests today.
It went okay. Difficult in some parts, easier in others. I'll find out where I end up on October 9th!

Photos by request

My sister has requested I take pictures of the grocery store for her, which is how this photoset has come about. The first two photos are unrelated - one being Delph's house rules, the second being the magnets I bought for everyone today. The following three are all random grocery store snaps. The picture quality is poor and blurry, however the final picture should make up for it, since it is a cat in a grocery store and all.

[edit - removed the house rules, as it had a phone number on it]

Brief day

We only had class from 9H30 to 11H30 today, and Delph wasn't at the apartment when we got home so we're staying here for a bit, and reheating our pasta with Bolognese sauce for lunch. I talked to my dad on the phone for about half an hour, and will now take this opportunity to upload some photos from my good camera! (The first three are Centre Pompidou, last two l'Hotel de Ville)

Some iPhone pictures

The top of the hostel where our classes are held - 93 bd. St-Michel

The pizza(s) we ate on Rue Lafayette

 My sandwich au poulet from Brioche Dorée (chicken)

 My brioche!

 The fountain outside of Centre Pompidou

 La Tour Eiffel in the evening

 La Tour Eiffel with the wine we bargained for :)

La Tour Eiffel around 8:30 ish!

Il y a deux jours depuis j'avais posté

It's been a busy two days...

Yesterday

I had class from 9H30 to 11H30, and then had our entrevues with Céline (where we tell her which classes we're interested in taking once the lectures begin on October 21st). I will be taking l'Histoire d'art and some sort of Cinéma class. I'm sure both of these classes will be extremely difficult, but everything is difficult when you're studying abroad! Why not make it interesting.

After class we had about 4 hours to kill before we met again for a guided tour of l'Hotel de Ville ("city hall"). In the mean time, we found our new favorite restaurant - Brioche Dorée. It's 5€50 for a bottle of pop, a sandwich, and your choice of dessert. We took our cheap lunch on over to the Luxembourg gardens and ate there before walking north to Notre Dame in search of an Orange store. We didn't find one right away - however, we did see a scam in action... I'm not sure if I've blogged about it before, but it truly makes me angry that it exists so I will now culture everyone who reads this blog on the lowliest of crimes:

Near tourist hot spots, it's really common to see groups of younger, foreign girls (oftentimes arab-looking, I'm not great with ethnicities, I apologize) holding clipboards. There are two approaches that I've seen for this scam: 1) they approach you, ask you if you speak english, and then ask you to sign their petition. They're pretty insistent. When this happened to me, I repeatedly said "no, thank you" at least 10 times before she finally went away. If they manage to finagle you into signing something (which is pretty much a no-no whenever you're in a foreign country, not just Paris), the other girls will steal your things while you're hands and eyes are distracted! The other approach - 2) a group of young girls holding clip boards come up to you, motioning for you to sign. They also motion to their ears and their mouth to show you that they are deaf and mute. You sign their clip board after they follow you around shoving it in your face, and then suddenly they surround you, walking in circles and asking for donation. You pull your wallet out, and they all begin to grab from it right in front of you. It's so fast that you don't really have an option, and they're not about to give it back. It's a "donation", after all. I saw this one happen to someone near Notre Dame. The point is, never sign anything. Always say no to petitions in tourist locations. Maybe even just in general. 

Anyways, back to my day recap... We did some shopping on Rue de Rivoli and found our first Lush store. We found an H&M and both invested in new, bigger purses - pretty much an essential. We found multiple french thrift shops and visited the outside of Centre Pompidou. We saw a real french bulldog. We bought our monthly métro pass - Navigo Découverte, which will allow us to take the subway and the bus freely throughout Paris any time. We then went on a tour of l'Hotel de Ville - which was beautiful and grandiose but ultimately not the most interesting way to spend a day. And we retourned. 

Today

We had class 9H30 - 11H30, ate free bread from the building our classes our in, Audrey got more Brioche Dorée, and we ate again in the Luxembourg gardens. Then we went to a mandatory slideshow about Paris which put us all to sleep, and took a quick stroll through Galeries Lafayette - one of the "grand magasins" of Paris, where you'll find Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, etc. We kept wandering up Rue Lafayette and found a grocery store called Carrefour, which we quickly discovered carries Oreos, Reese's, Ben & Jerry's, along with 2€50 sandwiches and plenty of other good prices on good items. Luckily, it's not even a 5 minute walk from our new apartment! We took the subway back to Delph's place and made ourselves some quick pasta before heading out again for the night... we primarily left because we thought Delph was mad at us again, but I'm very glad we did leave! 

We took a trip to the Eiffel tower and walked around it's gardens and parks. Audrey wanted to see it sparkle - which it only does for 5 minutes on the hour every hour past 8... so we hung around for a while. A man came by offering wine and champagne. At first we said no, but then on his way back we politely asked how much ("combien coûte le vin?"). 20€! We said no, and he continued to talk himself down all the way to 5€ at which point we felt we had achieved a great feat and deserved the wine. He even asked if we were French.. I guess speaking french does help in tourist situations. We drank our wine and watched the Eiffel tower sparkle, and then slowly made our way back to the RER station. On the way, we grabbed a crêpe au nutella banane avec crème - and it was to die for. 

Now we are back at Delph's. While it doesn't seem like much (or maybe it does), I would say today was one of our best days yet!