Last night in Paris

So I am finally packed! Wish me luck because either I've gotten weaker in France or my suitcases are heavier than 50 lbs each. I have no clue why... oh wait, it's probably got a lot to do with the 25 lbs of paper in the form of books, homework, tests, and course packets I have to bring back in case IU decides I wasted a semester doing nothing. Then I can whip those babies out and yell, "Au contraire! I did ALL THIS!" Of course, IU will still get the last laugh if I get charged for overweight bags. I really wish I had that little hand scale thing to at least get a ballpark figure for my bags because then maybe I could throw out the souvenirs I bought for people.

So I have really bad news (other than the fact I'm leaving Paris, of course)... IES had a farewell luncheon for us today, and guess who didn't come? MARC!! Our whole poli sci class was looking for him and everyone was terribly disappointed. We asked the dean and she had no idea where he was; apparently he "always" comes to the farewell luncheon. I got a picture with our dean/my grammar professor Jeanne though.

For some reason people thought I was a yearlong student. Even Jeanne, who actually knows me, told me that. She also told me, get ready for it... that I LOOK FRENCH. This means maybe French people think I am French! I have finally achieved my goal. Hope you guys recognize my Frenchy self back home in the States.

After the luncheon some of my friends and I went to the Eiffel Tower to see it one last time... Then I went home and worked on packing again, but instead spent most of that time talking to my lovely mom on the phone!! I can't remember if I've already said so, but my host brother from the last time I was in France is here in Paris, so I met him around 6:15 to get a coffee. It was so hard to say goodbye again! The last time was worse though because I had to say goodbye to my whole host family (aka, his real family). Before we went into the metro I told him I wanted a picture of the two of us, so could he ask someone to take it? You should have seen his face! He's so French... aka, too cool for school, and definitely too cool to ask passerby to take a TOURISTY PICTURE, heaven forbid. "Can't we just take it ourselves? If it's bad THEN we'll ask someone..." So we took it ourselves and at first it was horrible because the flash was off, so you can see the Tour Montparnasse (second tallest building in Paris, I believe.. it also houses the train station Gare Montparnasse, or something like that) which is cool, but our faces were really dark. So we tried it with the flash and our faces were really bright, but no Tour Montparnasse. Fortunately, I was able to fiddle with it on my Microsoft Office Picture Manager, and here is the lovely result of my technological genius!

After coffee we split up and I went to meet my friends for dinner. It was delicious and we tried to keep the mood light by remembering all the fun/funny things we've done, but it was so sad... goodbyes always are.

Strike!

By the way, I forgot to mention that I was considering taking public transportation in the form of the RER B to the airport to save money. Unfortunately, the conductors went on strike as of today, so who knows when they will start working again. This is not the metro; rather, it is a train. Also, apparently there was a bomb threat in a department store in Paris today. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure the situation was resolved and I don't live near any large department stores/don't frequent them either. But I thought I'd let you all know all is well. I'm still packing and I can't tell if it's going well or not, mostly because it will depend on how heavy my suitcases are. Everything is fitting so far, but I don't know how much they weigh. Guess I'd better put the unimportant things on top in case something's got to go...

End of finals

I had my grammar/culture, politics, and history exams today. The first two were fine, but history was... terrible. Thank goodness that's over. Like 90% of my other finals, it was just one question that I wrote five pages on, yet don't think I really said anything of critical importance. My prof made me uncomfortable because I was sitting around trying to brainstorm a thesis while everyone else had already started writing their papers, and he walked around the classroom and was staring at my blank sheet of paper... I was like, Leave me alone! You're interrupting my creative-thinking process!

I had dinner with Mathilde and Slimen tonight and then we watched two episodes of Prison Break, then we sat around and chatted over cups of tea. Those two are so great. They're both really smart, too, and it's handy to ask them questions about French because they really understand the sense of the word I'm asking about. We had canned pineapple slices, and Mathilde was saying how she likes canned pineapples but not real pineapples, and I said, "I like grapes." Then she looked at me and laughed and Slimen said, "What's so funny?" and I was like, "Yeah, what is so funny?" and she said to Slimen, "Well, I was just saying how I like canned pineapples but not real ones and Theresa just randomly decided to say that she likes grapes." And I said, "Mathilde, I thought this was a conversation about fruit... it made sense!" Then we had a big group laugh. And then I kept telling them lame stories like, "Today I had a grammar final. I had to talk about immigration and the French media." Then I would forget that it had no real relevance to the conversation. This is probably not very interesting to you but the moral of the story is that I had a great time doing nothing with the two of them. I said my final goodbye tonight in case I don't see them tomorrow or Thursday morning, and they were both really nice.. they hugged me goodbye and said that they really enjoyed spending time with me and we should keep in touch.

I tried to start packing when I got home around 5 from my finals, and it just seemed too final... I couldn't handle it. I sat back down at my computer and bummed around. Later, when I was more emotionally prepared, I managed to open my suitcase and start putting away clothes. Like most difficult things, it's hardest to get started. I have to bring back all of my schoolwork in case IU wants to contest the validity of my credits when they transfer, and I have no clue how I'm going to manage it. Paper is heavy!

Host family so far

Mathilde and Slimen with their Christmas tree Lionel and Catherine... this is what's left of the huge dessert array that Catherine prepared for her coworkers before she left

Finals

I had two finals today in theater and literature... and they were both terrible. I had about a three hour break in between which was equally terrible because all everyone in the entire IES center did was complain about how crappy finals are and how much they hate IES for giving us finals one day before we leave. Which I agree with, but it just stressed me out even more. My theater final was two questions; we were supposed to choose one and answer it for 30% of our total grade. The one I picked was "Is theater a visual art?" I said yes, it was, and I really hope that's what my professor thinks too because even though I tried to back it up with things we read, here in France professors don't give you credit for opinion questions if you don't have the same opinion as them. There aren't really opinion questions... just real questions disguised as opinion questions, so there is indeed a right answer. It only took me about an hour though, which wasn't too bad.

Literature was more like three hours though... it was easier in the aspect that I think I was more on target, but it was a ton of writing and was really boring. I've got three more exams tomorrow before I'm done. Wednesday we have a farewell lunch. Somehow I'm supposed to find time to pack and be ready to go by Thursday morning. I really don't like how our finals run directly into our last few days here... it's a bad system. Trying to cope with the stress of so many finals in such a short time, packing, getting ready to leave, trying to see everyone before we split up, saying goodbye to my host family.. it's a lot to deal with.

Tonight Catherine and Lionel called to see how I was doing and wish me a safe return, which I thought was really nice. She said to make sure I keep their address/correspondance information and keep them updated.

After dinner Aurélie and Alex turned on some music while they were working on homework or something in the dining room, and I went downstairs to ask Aurélie how to turn on the heater in my room because I was cold. So she came upstairs and did it for me, then she walked out into the hallway and motioned for me to follow her quietly. So we snuck down the stairs and we could hear Alex singing along with the music, and sure enough, he was singing and dancing in the dining room in front of the mirror while gesturing with this white scarf he was wearing. It was... hilarious, to say the least. I was in the middle of writing this post actually and just a second ago he popped his head in to say, "You can forget about what you saw downstairs, you know." And I laughed and said, "No, I'm in the process of telling all my friends about it, actually!" Poor Alex, little does he know I was not kidding.

Anyway, back to the study grind... wish me luck!

History

Here, just as I promised... the picture of my history class.

Last day of classes

So today was my last day of actual classes until I have finals next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I'm really happy classes are over because I'm sick of them, but I'm not looking forward to taking finals. How can they expect me to study during my LAST WEEKEND IN PARIS? (Don't worry, Mom and Dad, obviously I'm going to study... I'm just going to complain about it a lot.)

Tonight we had our last ever potluck at Megan's apartment. This is probably the fourth or fifth one we've had and I absolutely love it... they get bigger and better each time. It's so nice to just bring a dish over and chow down while chatting with my friends. Tomorrow is my friend Rachel's 22nd birthday... she's actually older than me! This is probably because she's a senior in college, but regardless, I'm so used to being the oldest in a group that I am enjoying having another old person around.

I'm so excited to get home for Christmas to see everyone, especially my family, but I am not ready to leave Paris and the life I have here. I can't actually think or talk about it too much because it really makes me sad, and I don't want anything to spoil the remainder of my time here. No sense in moping when I'm still here! I'll save that for when I get home and have to go back to school...

So I'm quite determined to get pictures of my more eccentric professors, and most importantly, Marc. The plan was all set in my mind on Wednesday to ask him for a picture after class, but then he left early because we had to fill out evaluations! Zut! Foiled! Anyway, don't you worry, dear reader... I WILL make it happen. He's already said he'll be at the farewell party, so I have every intention of asking him for a picture. This might even work out better, actually, because he was NOT wearing black on Wednesday. I know, I know, it was a really big deal. There was a hilarious moment when a kid in class asked, "So, what do you think of Sarkozy? Is he doing a lot as far as international relations because I keep seeing newspapers calling him 'dynamic'?" And Marc looked thoughtful for a minute, then stood up and started bouncing on the balls of his feet (with his stylishly European semi-boots) and shadowboxing and said, "Look at me! I'm dynamic! But am I really doing anything important?" But then he stopped and said that he was probably not the best person to ask that question to seeing as how Sarkozy is quite conservative and Marc is admittedly "super leftist." He also said it's most likely too soon to tell. Either way it was a total riot to see Marc in his super chic turtleneck and designer jeans doing anything remotely athletic.

I did manage to snag a class picture of my literature class with Sophie. She was a really good sport about it and I don't care if I looked like an idiot... it's not the first time and certainly won't be the last.

I also asked my history professor for a class picture and he was all about it. He was like, "That's so nice! What a great idea! Can you email it to me? It would be such a great little memory." He looks oddly like Michael Cera (for those of you who've seen Arrested Development or Juno), but he got his hair cut this week and the resemblance is less strong, though still present. I haven't uploaded the picture yet, but as soon as I do I'll post it here.

Rome, Days 2 and 3... Yeah, I saw the Pope

Sat. Nov. 29

Wake up call: 7:20am

Colosseum tour: 9:15am

So our tour guide Mitra knew everything about anything you'd want to know about Roman history. We got lucky and were the only people in the tour, which lasted about three hours. Did you know that the Roman forum and Colosseum used to be covered in painted marble that was stolen by the popes when the Roman empire converted to Christianity during Constantine's reign and was consequently used to create the Trevi fountain, St. Peter's Basilica, tons of Vatican decorations, etc. etc, and that all the statues that line St. Peter's Square were stolen from the Colosseum and therefore have pagan roots, but were redesigned to give them a Christian flair? Crazy.

We also went to the Vatican museums and saw the Sistine Chapel, of course. You're not allowed to take pictures in there, either, and I think those guards were definitely the type to take your camera and smash it into a million pieces if they saw you breaking the rules. No joke... those men meant business. I've never seen more stone-faced police/security.

After we left the Vatican we went to St. Peter's square and basilica at night, which was gorgeous.

Bedtime: too late to think about :-(

Sun. Nov. 30th (last day in Roma)

Wake up call: 9:30am

We went back to St. Peter's square so we could actually get into the basilica. Let me tell you, if you go to Rome, you MUST go to the basilica. Even if you're not religious. First of all, the square itself blew my mind. I took a picture off of Wikipedia because it does the majesty and size of the square much more justice than any picture I took ever could. Then when you actually go inside the basilica... let's just say I am completely ruined for other churches for the rest of my life. The scope of that basilica was just out of this world, and to think that it was built so long ago is also unbelievable. GO THERE. You will not regret it, especially if you are religious.

Then didn't we get incredibly lucky because as we were exiting the basilica, there was a big crowd in the square and we could hear a voice over the loudspeaker... yeah, it was the Pope. The Pope himself. He speaks like 8 languages and was repeating himself a lot. It was amazing, absolutely amazing. A great end to a wonderful trip.

Afterwards we got lunch and then hopped our plane back to Paris.

Rome

Rome was definitely the best trip I've taken so far in Europe. It makes me want to learn Italian so I can move to Italy! What's not to love... delicious food, friendly people, beautiful scenery, history/ruins EVERYWHERE. Take my advice: GO TO ITALY. GO TO ROME. (Though I hear Florence is incredible too. Next time.)

We were off to a semi-inauspicious start, however. We (eight girls from my Paris program: me, Rachel, Shelly, Stevie, Misa, Sarah, Lexi, and Megan) got a bus from the Ciampino airport into the center of Rome itself and then were totally lost. We found a bus station (it was roughly 12:30am, by the way), but could not figure out how to catch a bus. Then, out of nowhere, who appears but a Chilean Jesuit priest named Claudio! He just approached us and asked, "Do you speak English? Are you lost? Do you need help?" He was such a nice guy! We actually were going to take the same bus as him, so he showed us how to buy tickets and pointed out several things on our Rome map. Turns out he lived in Madison, Wisconsin for the first eight years of his life, even though he was Chilean. I didn't want to ask why he left Chile... thought it might be rude. Now he lives in Rome with other Jesuit priests. He even told us we could come visit him, but we didn't end up having enough time.

We eventually found our hostel, which was actually a converted convent, so it was for women only and was quite clean and nice. Since there were so many of us, I was in a room with four other girls so we didn't have to worry about our roommates stealing our things. Our time in Rome was absolutely jam-packed with things, and at the airport waiting for our flight back to Paris, I made a list of things we did, so I'm just going to transcribe it from my journal.

Friday, Nov. 28

***Author's note: many of the facts I will relate about Rome are courtesy of our excellent Colosseum/Roman forum tour guide, who know a lot about a lot. She was amazing.

Wake up call: 8:30am

Borghese Gardens: A park-type area with a gallery of amazing art

Bernini sculptures... Apollo and Daphne, The Rape of Persephone, David

These were hands-down the most amazing sculptures I have ever seen/will probably ever see in my entire life. You weren't supposed to take pictures, but my friends Misa and Shelly are art freaks who snuck their cameras in anyway, so I have copies of their pictures. Just LOOK at Hades's hands on Persephone's thigh and waist... can you believe that's marble??

By the way, it rained probably 60% of the time we were in Rome. Apparently we managed to get there during the rainy season, aka close to wintertime.

We ate pizza at this restaurant where no one spoke any English... now I know how tourists feel in France. It sucks. :-)

We took the Roman metro to the Spanish steps. I had heard lots of horror stories about the Roman metro, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Rome's metro is something like only two lines though, and they don't go many places. The problem is that there are so many ruins underground that the city will start digging to make a new line, then they'll run into ruins or something and have to decide if it's worth it to keep going. Often they'll just fill the ground back in because they don't have enough money to excavate, but they don't want to destroy the ruins either. Bummer.

We ate gelato and walked around the Colosseum at night and saw Constantine's arch as well. We passed a building (don't remember what it was) that has the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (with a torch) and the eternal flame of Rome. Apparently, the Roman soldiers are licensed to shoot to kill if someone attempts to smother either one of these torches. Is it the same in America? I don't actually know.

We went to the Trevi fountain at night and just relaxed. I threw in a coin for good luck. The Trevi fountain is gorgeous! Then we went to the Pantheon and ate dinner in this cute little outdoor restaurant decorated with white Christmas lights while these men played some jazzy bongo drum music. It was amazing, except for the part where it hailed!

Afterwards we got more gelato. After all, when in Rome... eat gelato!

Bedtime: 12:30pm

Summary of my life thus far

I know that there's no way I'm going to catch up on my blogging, so I thought I would hit the highlights so that everyone knows what's going on.



I saw Tony and Robin (my Halox boss and his wife) Nov. 12th and Nov. 14th and it was fantastic. It was so good to see familiar faces! I also went to see a play at the Bastille, and it was hands-down the most bizarre performance I have ever seen. I was sort of upset actually because I really enjoyed the play when we read it in class: Les Justes by Albert Camus. It was all about a group of terrorists in Russia who were rebelling against the tsar and decide to kill his uncle, the grand duke, by bombing his carriage. However, when they go to do it, the bomber changes his mind because he sees children inside. Later he manages to set off the bomb and kill the grand duke and goes to prison and is eventually hanged, but the whole story hinges on whether or not all lives associated with the "despotism" are forfeit, even those of children, and whether the terrorist had the right to use any and all means to stop the despotism. Camus wrote it as a metaphor for the French Resistance during WWII, so it carried quite a different connotation of "terrorist" than nowadays. Anyway, the play itself was terrible... for some reason there was a point when all the actors sat down in the aisles and ate oranges. I'll spare you further description because trust me, I don't feel like writing it and you don't want to waste time reading it. Even our theater professor was slightly stunned and this is a woman who's seen her fair share of plays. I recently learned, actually, that she's 35... I thought she was 26! The whole class was baffled.



On Nov. 14th I had my last IES excursion to Fontainebleu and Vaux-le-Vicomte... or we were supposed to. These are two chateaux, but for some reason that was never explained, we didn't go to Vaux-le-Vicomte and instead went to the painters' village of Barbizon. Quite boring, really. Fontainebleu was great though... a lot of history there! We saw Napoleon's throne room and bedroom with its not-so-secret-secret doors. Pretty funny.

On Nov. 20th I saw another play, Couteau de Nuit (Knife of the Night) at a theater in the Montmartre quarter. This one was all right, but the best part was that our professor arranged for us to meet the writer/director afterwards. I didn't want our class to look like idiots who didn't have anything to say, so I was happy when some people had questions, plus I asked several of my own. The actors trickled in, which made the situation a bit more embarrassing just because there were more French people listening to us try to pose intelligent, thoughtful questions. They were really, really nice though and would nod in agreement or encouragingly. I asked a question that the author/director didn't understand, and I could feel my face turning really red, but she rushed to say, "It's not because your French is not good, I'm just not sure what you're getting at." I rephrased and it worked out. I've found that in my classes and in my life here in general I'm less and less concerned about looking like a fool. It bores me to tears when no one will talk in class, so I'll do it. It livens things up. I know you're thinking to yourself, "Theresa? Talking a lot? Saying dumb and incorrect, yet humorous, things? Surely not!" Quelle surprise!

On Nov. 16th Mathilde and Slimen invited me out to dinner with them and their friends, which was really nice. Slimen and I took the metro to meet their friend Lucille and then meet Mathilde and the others at Montmartre. We went to see the basilica at Sacré-Coeur at night, which was really nice. Then we went to a restaurant and the waiter gave me a hard time about pronunciation. I took it in stride though... it was sort of my fault, I mumbled what I wanted so Mathilde told me I had to enunciate. But the waiter wouldn't give me my dessert of fresh fruit salad until I said the name for him "une salade des fruits frais" because if I were to pronounce it the American way, you'd say the "s" at the end of "fruits" and "frais" but in the French way (aka, the correct way), it would phonetically be more like, "ewn sah-lahd day frew-e fray."

Wed. Nov. 26th was my final play, thank goodness. It was really entertaining though, and in a classy part of town: the Champs-Elysées! It was a bunch of short comedy sketches with the same two men, and each time it was just a ridiculous scenario, like they'd say "One, two, three... JUMP!" And neither would jump, then they'd get into an argument and be like, "Why didn't you jump?" "I was waiting for you!" "I was waiting for YOU!" "You said, 'one, two, three, jump!'" It was highly enjoyable.

I left for Rome Thursday evening, and it was really stressful. First of all, I had to say goodbye to my host parents... for good. They left for the Alps and won't be back until May. It was really sad, actually; I thought my host mom was going to cry! They hugged me, which is pretty big for French people. Catherine said, "Don't worry, I have your email, and so does Mathilde, so we can keep in touch, and you can come back if you want!" And I told them if they ever get a hankerin to visit Indiana, they were more than welcome to come to my house (yes, my mom already gave me permission). I tried to make sure they knew I was thankful for everything they'd done for me, and Catherine said she was very happy to have met me and really enjoyed having me as a host student. I was kind of emotional on the way to the bus station, and it didn't help that we got stuck in horrendous traffic and I was getting freaked out that I was going to miss my plane. Not to worry, I made it. Next post... ROMA!

Stay tuned, updates are on their way!

Hello lovely blog subscribers! I'm very sorry that I am now roughly 3 weeks behind on my blog updates. I'm currently caught up in a phenomenon with which I'm sure you're all familiar... you know how when the end of something approaches, everything speeds up and you suddenly have 10 times as many things to do? That's sort of where I am right now. I just got back from my trip to ROME! I left Thursday the 27th (Thanksgiving!) and got back last night, Sunday, at about 10:30pm. I'm writing this blog entry between classes so it has to be short. I didn't have enough time to eat breakfast or drink my morning coffee, so I ducked back home quickly and I'm in my room on my laptop. I also didn't have time to dry my hair and it's quite cold outside, so I'm going to try and eat breakfast, drink another cup of coffee, and do my hair before I head off to politics with my favorite professor, Marc.

Just remember... good things come to those who wait. Please keep that in mind, I promise I'll be posting new things very, very soon!

Love you Mom and Dad (even though you, Dad, are implying that I do not do any work here in France... it's okay, I know you don't really do work at work, you just play pranks on people).

Miss you, siblings! Anna and Dan, I hope all is well! Anna, it was great to talk to you last night!

Extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins... Happy Thanksgiving! Love you all!

All other blog readers (sorry I can't name you, as I don't know who you all are), I hope everyone had a wonderful, safe, delicious Thanksgiving!

I look forward to seeing you all in less than 3 weeks!