Joyeaux Anniversaire à Paris

Well, it is my twenty first birthday and I have to say it was a very long, packed, European, and overall surprisingly terrific day. You'll understand why I say surprisingly when you hear my initial schedule, which included a class from 9 to 11 this morning, a two hour evaluation meeting with my program, an oral theatre exam, and four hours of babysitting.

I started my day earlier than I ever like to be out of bed, and put on my nice dress that I bought here a couple of months ago. I was overdressed for my day but then it would remind me that it's my birthday! It was one of those days when my train was always waiting on the platform when I got there, and all the little things went very right. Thank goodness!

I had a very successful class where I was the only one who had prepared for the assignment that day, ultimately with about 10 minutes of notes that I took during an episode of Sex and the City the night before, but no matter.

My friend Koa brought me a pink rose that I carried around all day, and my friends and I had a nice lunch after class at a little boulangerie with surprisingly cheap fruit salads and great cookies!

Afterward, Kate and I skipped the evaluation to study for theatre or, in my case, take a nap in Starbucks. Luckily, we had anticipated that one particular play would be the focus of the upcoming final and studied only that. This could not have been a better move because, in fact, it was the ONLY focus of the exam. And I aced a very difficult dissertation that was handed back.

Following the exam, Kate and I decided to grab some dinner at a nicer but unfamiliar place, so we wandered through St Michel in search of a restaurant, which can often be a risk because they are expensive and not often open before 6:30. In the end, we found a little Italian place nestled behind a much more expensive restaurant called the Louis XIII, before a building where Balzac lived and Picasso began work on Guernica. It ended up being some of the best Italian we've had here and Kate paid for my dinner as my birthday present! I had fetticine alfredo, which I havent had in such a long time, and creme brulee.

I made my way to babysitting, where I would spend the next couple of hours having a fashion show for an imaginary audience with Marie, the little French girl I look after from time to time. When I got there, her mother had baked me a cake with candles and champagne!

Ultimately, it was one of the longest, busiest days in a while, but great.

On Sunday, to celebrate officially, a group of us are going to Disneyland Paris for completely carefree, anti-final exam good times. Of course, I have 3 finals left this week, and 3 next week, but there is an end in sight to the educational torture.

Paris is packed with tourists and the weather is going through mood swings.

My British friend Katy is taking the train in from London on the 29th, next Thursday. I will meet her at the station.

So there's the rather quick recap of my nice birthday in Paris. 16 days until I'm back in the United States! Kate and I said today the only way to describe how we feel about the passage of time this year is how surprised we are at how fast it has gone by and how long it feels like we've been here at the same time!