Keep Calm, And Carry On

It is now the beginning of my second week here in France!

So my 8:30am classes are going... as predicted.  I hate every second of the morning, but once the class begins, it is actually nice to have the whole entire day to spend in Paris!  Oh... just kidding.  Our schedules were finally finalized and I have French from 8:30-10:30, Phonetics class from 12-1, and then I have to meet with the other students in my program for our History of Art class usually around 2.  Then by 4 or 5 when we are FINALLY done, I am too exhausted to do anything.  UGH.

 

SILVER LINING... I'M IN PARIS!

So I am going to make the most of my time here.  Between French and Phonetics today, my friends and I went to the famous Shakespeare & Co. bookstore.  And because I am a secret nerd, I loved every minute of it!  There is one section dedicated to rare and expensive books, and another side with less rare and less expensive books.  So from that side, I bought a novel called "The Paris Wife", which is a fiction book about Hemingway's wife in Paris in the 1920's.  I used to believe that my favorite period was NYC in the 20's, but after re-watching "Midnight In Paris", I think that Paris is tied!  From Shakespeare & Co., I also bought a nice copy of the French classic, "Le Petit Prince", as well as Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast", because I feel like if there were ever a time for me to read it, it would be in Paris.  We also went to a little used bookstore, where they had books for .20Euros.  I bought a bunch of French Disney books :)

Then for today's site visit, we went to my professor's favorite museum, the "Musee de Carnavalet".  It is basically a museum that commemorates all of the aspects of the "Old Paris".  Georges-Eugene Haussmann was the man in charge of rebuilding Paris in 1860.  Circa the movie's "Les Miserables", the streets there look much different than the streets of Paris now.  He made the streets much wider, and changed the architecture of many buildings, and this museum houses a lot of things such as street signs from the "Old Paris".  Besides having to carry around all of my newly purchased books during my tour of the museum, it was overall a pleasant day :)

Then we ended the afternoon with some gelato from Amorino's.  HINT: A delicious combination in Vanilla with Strawberry and Raspberry. 

And to top off what could have easily have been a bad day, there was a full on orchestra, complete with string bass, in the metro playing some classical French music <3