Today I am experiencing a VERY unexpected side effect of my wonderful French experience: I have eaten too much cheese and have an awful stomach ache. Really. For dinner last night, we had pasta with salmon and cheese, then a cheese plate. I also bought bread and cheese for my room and I ate some of that. Then, this afternoon, I had a crepe with chicken and lots of cheese. I am breathing, tasting, and sweating cheese. It is totally disgusting and I dont want to eat it ever again.
Or at least for a couple days, but I'm finding that impossible here.
Right now I am writing from the APA offices. My friend Kate and I came to find courses at the Louvre (it's not actually our day to search the brochures, but we walk on the wild side). We are the most excited about a year long course in French Impressionism with excursions to the Musee d'Orsay. If that doesn't work, there is another on photography. There are so many courses on foreign art - Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Oriental - but we are only looking for classes in French art, since we are already right here. And preferably not on Friday.
Classes here are only about two hours once a week, so I have one class every day. It's great. There are a couple of other discussion courses arranged by APA and small classes called Travaux Practiques for large French lecture classes. I should only be in one or two of those, I think.
I have choson a course in Libertine French Literature at Paris IX, reading historically banned books like those by the Marquis de Sade. I chose it because there isn't one like it at GWU and I'm sure it's going to be awesome - plus the only other class that I can't take at home was French Children's Literature.
I can't believe I'm only been here about a week. It feels like such a long time. I had a hard time yesterday because, at the dinner table, Quintin and Camille were speaking very quickly and using slang the entire hour and a half meal. I had no idea what they were talking about and then Francoise, the mom, starting fussing at them to slow it down for me - to which Quintin replied, "But I'm not talking to her, I'm talking to Camille!" It reminded me of Trevor.
Today was better, though. Eventually, we'll be divided up into different French classes based on our skill level. Today we were seperated based on that awful test we took so that our skills can be evaluated firsthand by our professors (this is a two week thing, after an initial dinner and a test). I gotta say, though, I must not have done well on that test because there are a couple of people in my class that I know haven't had as much French as I have. One girl in particular could only form sentences one word at a time. I thought I was going to die. Thank goodness this is only a test and hopefully they'll place me in the advanced writing class, because I know that's where I need the most improvement. We also had a class on Introduction to Europe, which was very fast paced and I had very little trouble understanding, in the end. Ugh.
One more little story - on the bus today after class, there were three little French children and their mother. One of the little French boys heard us speaking English and he decided he wanted to speak English, too, so he started to repeat us. His mother did speak a little, so she would whisper things for him to say and he would laugh and laugh. It was so cute.
This evening, I am killing time in the city until meeting friends at the Cite metro stop for dinner (no cheese). Afterward, we are going to the symphony at the Cathedral of Saint Chapelle. I am SO excited.
By the way, Grandma Hedy, I am wearing my new black coat and have gotten lots of compliments on it.
The weather has gotten very cold here very quickly, just the other day it was 75 degrees outside.
Okay, well I'll write more later about the concert and all.
Love you guys!
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