This is kind of embarrassing, but it had to be posted:
Yes, that is us during Tecktonik class. It's harder than it looks!
EDIT- Here is the link to the site. Both Mom and Dad seemed to have trouble watching the embedded version, so if you can't watch it, you can go to this link and maybe then it will work (just copy and paste):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSqLjaa0Hgg
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
dancing and traveling
Exciting things to look forward to:
-Sunday I'm taking a tecktonik class with a bunch of people from the Sweet Briar program, and we're all pretty excited about it.
Tecktonik is a type of dance that is a huge deal here... here is a fantastic example of what it is:
YES that is going to be me soon. Hahahaha.
(I love walking around the Eiffel Tower and seeing the people doing this by the Trocadero Theater. My friend Amanda keeps saying we need to go out shopping for our "Tecktonik clothes".)
-A week from friday a friend and I are going to take a bus to the country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter and David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that.
In other words, we'll be in London for the first part of winter break! We'll be there four nights, and then we're flying to Barcelona (!) for two nights, and we'll be back in Paris for the weekend.
-After I get back from my exciting British and Spanish adventures, it will be almost time for Rachel (my Wooster roommate and fellow French major) to fly here for a visit!
Life is pretty good.
-Sunday I'm taking a tecktonik class with a bunch of people from the Sweet Briar program, and we're all pretty excited about it.
Tecktonik is a type of dance that is a huge deal here... here is a fantastic example of what it is:
YES that is going to be me soon. Hahahaha.
(I love walking around the Eiffel Tower and seeing the people doing this by the Trocadero Theater. My friend Amanda keeps saying we need to go out shopping for our "Tecktonik clothes".)
-A week from friday a friend and I are going to take a bus to the country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter and David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that.
In other words, we'll be in London for the first part of winter break! We'll be there four nights, and then we're flying to Barcelona (!) for two nights, and we'll be back in Paris for the weekend.
-After I get back from my exciting British and Spanish adventures, it will be almost time for Rachel (my Wooster roommate and fellow French major) to fly here for a visit!
Life is pretty good.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
a note on french baking.
In terms of baking, the French do some things pretty darn well. Their baguettes are delicious, and their croissants and pain au chocolats are heavenly. And they're really good at just making things look pretty.
But when it cames to cookies... Americans soooooo win. Their [the French's] idea of a cookie is something like if you made a cracker a little bit sweeter and put a little bit of chocolate or jam on it. Which is tasty... but compared to a soft chocolate chip cookie or peanut butter cookie- it's a great big fail.
So basically, if I decide to live in Paris later in life, here is how I'm going to make my livelihood:
An American cookie shop. Giant chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, molasses cookies, sugar cookies- basically all the cookies that the French are severely lacking.
One last thing about French baking: they can make decent pies. (For example, my host mom made a delightful pie this evening, with caramelized banana and a chocolate sauce).
BUT I'm still convinced that there's nobody in the world who can make a pie crust as well as my own mother.
But when it cames to cookies... Americans soooooo win. Their [the French's] idea of a cookie is something like if you made a cracker a little bit sweeter and put a little bit of chocolate or jam on it. Which is tasty... but compared to a soft chocolate chip cookie or peanut butter cookie- it's a great big fail.
So basically, if I decide to live in Paris later in life, here is how I'm going to make my livelihood:
An American cookie shop. Giant chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, molasses cookies, sugar cookies- basically all the cookies that the French are severely lacking.
One last thing about French baking: they can make decent pies. (For example, my host mom made a delightful pie this evening, with caramelized banana and a chocolate sauce).
BUT I'm still convinced that there's nobody in the world who can make a pie crust as well as my own mother.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
winter's on the wing
The last few days have been GORGEOUS here! It's been a perfect weekend for being outside. Friday for lunch two friends and I bought baguettes, cheese, and cookies at the grocery and had a picnic in Jardin des Plantes, and it was so lovely. All weekend I've been spending a lot of time outdoors, either in parks, walking around, or outside in cafes.
A Sweet Briar friend and I are about to buy tickets to see "Le Roi Lion" (The Lion King) on stage and I'm really excited about that! It's not until May, but we found out that you can get tickets for 25 euros. They're not prime seats, but it's still The Lion King on stage AND in French. So cool.
This evening Pauline (host sister) invited me into the other room to listen to the violin pieces that she's been working on. Her dad was there taking notes, and Gregoire (host brother) was recording everything, so it was pretty intense. She's really amazing.
Mmmmk I'm about to eat dinner, so I'll leave it at that for now.
A plus tard
A Sweet Briar friend and I are about to buy tickets to see "Le Roi Lion" (The Lion King) on stage and I'm really excited about that! It's not until May, but we found out that you can get tickets for 25 euros. They're not prime seats, but it's still The Lion King on stage AND in French. So cool.
This evening Pauline (host sister) invited me into the other room to listen to the violin pieces that she's been working on. Her dad was there taking notes, and Gregoire (host brother) was recording everything, so it was pretty intense. She's really amazing.
Mmmmk I'm about to eat dinner, so I'll leave it at that for now.
A plus tard
Monday, February 4, 2008
metro adventure of the day
So today I had a 1:00, and I met Rujuta downstairs so that we could take the Metro to Sweet Briar together.
Usually I walk down to St. Lazare and take line 12, which means I walk a tad further to the metro station but I don't have to change lines. So today, Rujuta said, "Hey, we should take Europe (line 3) to line 4 and take that to Sweet Briar. It will be faster that way!"
Right. Famous last words.
We switched over to line 4 and didn't even get to the next stop before the lights in the Metro train went out, then the train stopped. Some emergency lights came on, and the intercom says something along the lines of, "we had to make a stop, thank you for your patience". It was static-y, so I didn't understand all of it. Anyway, we sat like that for about 15 minutes. Then the intercom comes on to tell us that we're evacuating the metro, starting with the back of the train. That's when I called Jessica to tell her I wouldn't make it to class on time that day, and to ask her to tell the Prof (See mom? Cell phones=useful!).
So I go to the back, and comment to Ruju about how this is kind of exciting, when this girl who's standing there goes, "OH you speak English! What's going on??" It was a girl about our age who's from Australia and was just touring all over. So I told her that I pretty much just knew that we were evacuating, so we exit the metro via a little ladder, and got to walk along the metro tunnel to the next station.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but there were paramedics so someone might have gotten hurt? :/
Anyway, after we exited we were still a tad too far to walk (although it would be do-able, we were still on the wrong side of the Seine) so we walked with the Australian girl (whose name was Mel) to Centre Pompidou and took a bus from there. Mel got off at Cite since she was heading to Notre Dame, and we got off at Jardin du Luxembourg which is right by Sweet Briar.
Whew. Well, we made it eventually.
Usually I walk down to St. Lazare and take line 12, which means I walk a tad further to the metro station but I don't have to change lines. So today, Rujuta said, "Hey, we should take Europe (line 3) to line 4 and take that to Sweet Briar. It will be faster that way!"
Right. Famous last words.
We switched over to line 4 and didn't even get to the next stop before the lights in the Metro train went out, then the train stopped. Some emergency lights came on, and the intercom says something along the lines of, "we had to make a stop, thank you for your patience". It was static-y, so I didn't understand all of it. Anyway, we sat like that for about 15 minutes. Then the intercom comes on to tell us that we're evacuating the metro, starting with the back of the train. That's when I called Jessica to tell her I wouldn't make it to class on time that day, and to ask her to tell the Prof (See mom? Cell phones=useful!).
So I go to the back, and comment to Ruju about how this is kind of exciting, when this girl who's standing there goes, "OH you speak English! What's going on??" It was a girl about our age who's from Australia and was just touring all over. So I told her that I pretty much just knew that we were evacuating, so we exit the metro via a little ladder, and got to walk along the metro tunnel to the next station.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but there were paramedics so someone might have gotten hurt? :/
Anyway, after we exited we were still a tad too far to walk (although it would be do-able, we were still on the wrong side of the Seine) so we walked with the Australian girl (whose name was Mel) to Centre Pompidou and took a bus from there. Mel got off at Cite since she was heading to Notre Dame, and we got off at Jardin du Luxembourg which is right by Sweet Briar.
Whew. Well, we made it eventually.
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