Jeune pariesienne.

I am quickly finding out that it is good to be young and to be in Paris. The past few days have been pretty routine. My future roommate and I have been running back and forth to our future apartment for meetings with our landlord. Along the road there are many shops with displays such as this:

Uhh, that might be problem. If I wasn't a fat American when I arrived, I may be one when I leave. Friday night, a friend of mine here told me about a swimming pool that was available to the public. But this wasn't any ordinary pool! It was a pool on a boat, on the Seine river. Of course, I had to accompany him.

So this pool was interesting in many ways. First of all I was required to wear a swim cap, which I don't own so we had to borrow from the front desk. To swim was 5 Euros but, when I get my residency I will be able to get the discounted rate of 2,6 euros. After payment, we had to take off our shoes and cross this ankle high pool to get to the locker room. It was basically a moat! And then we were able to swim. Now, I may be weary of my skills with speaking French here but after seeing the swimmers at the pool, I know I could dominate when it comes to swimming laps. It was a nice confidence booster.

After that I headed to the Lourve, I'm not sure if it's all the time or if it was just a special deal that night but if you showed that you are under 26 you got in for free!

Met up with a friend and we explored, unfortunately we hit up the spots I had actually already been to before but I lived. Came across the Winged Victory:

This is just a ceiling in one of the rooms:

Pictures on this blog can be clicked for a bigger viewing. Tomorrow I commence my Preparatory Language Program which is essentially a month long intensive French refresher course. Je suis prête! I'm ready!

Le musique et le falafel

Bonjour mes amis!

A short blog today with a small video; the subway music here is unparalleled. Although I'm sure these people were more than just you're average squatter (A woman was even selling their CDs ;) ):

Also, I ended up in the Jewish Quarter today and was surrounded by Falafel stands. I ended up grabbing one to go!

Eggplant, carrots, salad, and there was some sort of marinara at the bottom along with a nice glop of hummus! Miam! (French for Yum!)

Ciao!
Michael

Allo?

Bonjour tout-le-monde!

Today we had our French Placement Exam which I tried not to worry about too much but probably should have. It was a little rough but if I need work, then I need work! The cool thing was that we took the test at the Sorbonne University. This is somewhat of an equivalent to Yale University, so it was pretty sweet! After that test a bunch of us headed back to our Hostel and hit up some shops.

Here are some French Comic books:

After that I was able to get a French Cellphone which was nice because I thought the plan would include unlimited international texting but of course, it was too good to be true. C'est la vie! We hit up a grocery store here called MONOP' which was pretty fun. As you can see in this pic the price tags are all electronic.

And then tonight we had our first field trip! We took a tour on the Seine River and were able to see a lot of Paris hot spots from there.

I'm pretty sure I've done this boat tour before so I wasn't really paying attention to anything the tour guide was saying so unfortunately I will not be able to inform you guys on what you are seeing. Of course, everyone knows the Eiffel Tower though!

I would like to think that my French is improving, I am definitely more immersed in it than I ever was before. And even though I may not be speaking too much yet, I am hearing it a lot and translating everything mentally. Tomorrow, I'm going to go check out a place and hopefully I will have found a place to live for the year! French Cellphone, Check! French Bank Account, Check! Now all that's left is le Maison. Wish me luck with that. :)

Oh and this was a nice sight on the way back to the hostel after the boat tour...

Bonne nuit!
Michael

Le premiere jour!

Today we had our first orientation of the program. Woke up at 7 and headed down to breakfast which was unfortunately very French. Baguettes a'plenty, along with jus d'orange (orange juice), chocolate chaud (hot chocolate), and of course cafe. I wasn't too bothered by it but it would have been nice to have some oeufs (eggs) at least! Orientation took about 3 hours. We went over how to find a place to live here, what we should do about money/bank accounts, cellphones, etc. And overall rules and guidelines of our programs. There's definitely a lot on our plate but it definitely seems doable!

After the orientation I went for a walk with a couple of friends.

Our hostel is located on St. Michell Boulevard and thaaat's him. We eventually made our way down a very heavy populated street and right after I took the picture below, a pigeon crash landed into the back of my head. Thankfully, there was no poop involved.

This road became quite tourist-y because we were making our way closer and closer to the Notre Dame.

This is the right bank of La Seine, the river that flows through Paris and on either side of the Notre Dame.

Aaand here is Notre Dame! C'est super, non? Very crowded with people. After walking around here and finding an H&M (sadly with no male section) we headed back for our "Welcome Group" dinner at Crepe's a Go Go! Nothing too fancy but I got to meet more people so that's always nice. We made our way back up to the terrace after dinner and had a small gathering up there with other students staying in the hostel and after we were yelled at for being too loud by the French Directress of the building I decided to call it a night.

Tomorrow Day 2 of Orientation and the hunt for housing begins!

A bientôt,
Michael

Bonjour et Bienvenue!

Hello everyone!

I'm going to attempt to write about my life here in Paris so that everyone can stay up to date with what I've been doing. Arrived in Paris around 12 noon and had to figure out the underground public transportation system all on my lonesome. Thankfully, I had three big bags stuffed with a year's worth of clothes to make things less stressful, not! Eventually I figured out where I was supposed to go and how I was supposed to get there. Sweaty, and twitching from my bags I sprawled myself onto the RER (similar to the Bay area's BART) and was welcomed by the smell of sweat, B.O., and piss. My stop was only three away though so I was able to endure.

Just a short walk from the station was my hostel, my new home for the next two weeks. Checked in at the front desk and went up to my room in the most claustrophobic friendly elevator I've ever seen!

--Not too bad for a hostel, I'd say! But what really got me was the view from the terrace on the Fifth floor I happened to stumble upon while in search of internet.

Yeah, that pretty much took my breath away and made the sweaty journey and stressful traveling all worth while. A little while after this I took a short walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg.

C'est beau, non? After a while I could feel my feet begin to crumble beneath me so I decided to head back to my room and just give myself time to relax. Eventually met up with some other students from SFSU and we headed off to dinner. Something I've found I am going to have to get used to is eating everything with my silverware. Including the sandwich I ordered! Tomorrow is our first orientation, we have a written exam on Wednesday and an oral interview on Thursday. Wish me luck! Also, wish me good luck on sleeping tonight not only is it midnight here and I am wide awake but the humidity has got me feeling super sticky!

A plus tard,
Michael.