D'accord then

So I've been in Paris for awhile now, but I decided to start this blog just now, to make it easier to tell people what's going on here.

So, here's a quick entry to get you guys up-to-date:

First of all, I'm living with a family in an appt in the 8th Arrondissement [district of Paris], which is the same one that has the Champs-Élysées and Arc de Triomphe, but I'm further up in the Arrondissment, by the Gare Saint-Lazare. My family is super nice, the dad is an amazing Cellist in an orchestra. I saw him perform once in a small concert, and it was really awesome. The mom doesn't speak English, but she loves to chat.

They have four children, but I've only met three. The youngest is Grégoire, he's 25 and a med student, so I never see him because he's either at the hospital or studying. Then there's Charlotte, who is 27 and I've only met her once. I don't know what she does, she doesn't live in the appt., but she's getting married soon (in March), so there are a lot of preparations going on for that. Pauline lives in her own appt in Paris, she's 30, but she's always here practicing the Violin, which she is super awesome at. And the oldest is Antoine, he's doing chemistry research somewhere, and I haven't met him.

As far as school goes, there are two weeks of orientation, and we're in our second week so I haven't even started classes yet. I'll let you know how those go when I do.
Orientation is ok. We have to take this methodologie classes where they tell us how the french universities work and how they're different from american ones. And there are a couple classes about contemporary France, like how our politics differ. And there are a bunch of outings around Paris. They've taken us to Notre Dame and the Palais de Justice, Montmartre, the Bibliothèque [Library] National, and on a boat tour. Tomorrow we're going to Versailles.

We also saw a ballet. It was at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, which is right by the Eiffel Tower. So a bunch of us went out to dinner before hand to this café where you could see it all lit up. The ballet itself was kind of modern, it was called Métamorphoses, and it was pretty strange. But it was still cool.

On free time I'm seeing stuff on my own with a few other students. On saturday I went to Père Lachaise with a few people to see the graves of Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison. That was pretty cool. We also go out to cafés and bars.

So that's all I can really think of to put in here for right now.

My room in Paris:


Guardian of the Dead at Père Lachaise:


Typical: