Tuesday, September 27, 2005

I slept late and then headed to my 1 class of the day: Paris Monuments and Political Power. The professor is very cool—she is so passionate about Paris (she’s American) and seems to know the history of everything “touristy.” The class meets two times a week (Tuesday and Thursday). Tuesday’s will be lectures about a specific monument (or area of Paris), and Thursday’s, we will visit the monuments.

My only “oopsie” is that the midterm is scheduled for Thursday, November 3rd, but I’m headed to London from November 2nd to 6th. I informed her of this already, and it seems that she will let me take the exam either early or late. I know this is a terrible attitude to take, but since my grades don’t transfer to Kenyon (just the number of credits), if I’m not allowed to make up the midterm, it won’t be the end of the world. It shouldn’t be a problem though. I’m just excited to be able to go to all of these monuments and not just see them, but to have someone educate me on their significance.

Speaking of London: a friend of my dad’s from work who is now retired is British and lives in London and has offered to host me for a long weekend (when he visited St. Louis, he even went to “tour” my grandma and grandpa’s garden). They have asked me what I want to see and do and I think they are going to act as my guides (so I’m not set free in London but actually have someone showing me around). They also told me that they got us tickets for Guys and Dolls on Thursday, November 3rd! The cast is fantastic (my friend Stefanie from Cranbrook spent the summer in London and saw the show twice)!

After class, I took the bus back to my neighborhood and had lunch by myself (successfully) at a brasserie overlooking the Eiffel Tower (really, everything overlooks it in my neighborhood, but I don’t think it will ever get old). I had a good hamburger (sans bun of course) and read a 2 week-old People magazine that my friend Katie had sent to her from the USA. I was going to go to Pere Lachaise cemetery today (it houses the graves of people like Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde), but as I was leaving the brasserie, it began to rain, so I spent my afternoon reading a book in the apartment.

In the evening, I headed back to class where there was a reception for all host families hosting international students for the semester. I met my friends’ hosts and they met mine. My friend’s “women” (what we call the host ladies) seemed younger and more outgoing than mine, but my woman is still good. She feeds me once a week (good food) and does my laundry (although it sometimes makes me itch), and I don’t think my friend’s women do that for them. They do seem to have more personal space than me though, so it’s a tradeoff.

After the reception, my girls and I headed to an Irish bar for pints cider and a football (aka soccer) game was going on. It was a good time. As soon as I get back to the USA, I will be turning 21, and I think I’ll be doing it more frequently (although substitute basically any other sport for soccer). You hear that Uncle David? You + me at Sportsman’s when I get back.

The walk from the metro station to my apartment puts me with my back to the Eiffel Tower and as I have said before, it lights up with sparkling lights on the hour. During my walk to the apartment, I could see the reflection of the sparking lights in all of the windows in front of me. It was quite a sight.