party.

So it's been quite some time since my last post. I broke my camera last week therefore upcoming posts may be significantly less interesting because there won't be any pictures... unless I steal from facebook that is, such the case with this post!

So lets start with the first memory that stands out since the last post. Julie, Megan, and Allie were all gone in Nice last weekend, so I got to get to know Cassandra, Cayenne, and the other girls in the program a little bit better. The Pope was here on Saturday and Cassandra and I decided we wanted to stalk him. We took the metro to Concorde, got off, and tried to get in front of the Invalides but the police had all the entrances blocked off. So we followed the crowds, walked around, and ended up behind the church and behind where everyone was. We watched the Pope on this big screen they had set up. At the end of what I think was Mass, we watched him get into what we now call the "Pope Mobile". Its a Mercedes car with this large glass encasement that he sits in! He starts to drive off and we thought that everything was over untill we realized that everyone was still waiting around. We started walking and then saw that the Pope IN THE Pope Mobile as driving towards us! We got to see him drive by in the car. It was SO awesome. I'm not even Catholic and I was WAY excited. Here's me with a flag that Cassandra got for free (oh how we love free stuff) :



Tuesday nights have become going out nights as well. Most of us don't have class untill noon the next day. The last two weeks we've gone to this bar called "The Frog and the Princess" or something like that. It a chain, and seems to attract a lot of english-speaking foreigners, so its not exactly conducive for improving my french, but its fun either way. Taleen (Flipper!) came out with us last week and so did James (JM/Jean-Marc). It was so good to have them with us. We ran into some of my cousin's other friends too!





Thursday night, we all went out to The Mix. The Mix is a club here in Paris. I went a couple of years ago with my cousins and friends when I was here for the winter. It was really fun so I'm glad I got to go again. We met up with my cousin's friends Cedric, Louis, and Christopher. I didn't get back till like 4 AM that night, which is actually kind of early, but I was SO exhausted. Oh! And I ran into Esther from high school! It was such a nice surprise!







Friday, Wilson organized a picnic under the Eiffel Tower. We met up with a couple of others from our program and hung out at the park for a while. I also met up with my friend Victor from UCLA who was visiting for two days before he went back to LA. It was so wonderful to see him. Afterward we had drinks with one of his friends. It wasn't the friend we were thinking of, but it was still nice. That night I met a couple of his other friends that he sailed with this summer. We were on the Champs Elysee for most of the day. It was nice to be with french people and attempting to practice my french.

Saturday, yesterday, Paris had their annual Techno Parade! It was such an awesome day! It was sunny and breezy. I woke up late, met up with James, and then (after quite some time) finally found Cayenne, Wilson, and Heather. The parade ran from L'Opera to the Bastille. There were SO many people out in the streets. Everyone was dancing, drinking, partying, and following these huge tour buses to the Bastille. We made a little detour to do some illegal things that Blaise would be pleased with (and NO I did not participate, but I did assist!). Went home for dinner and stayed in for the night. Eventhough it was Saturday night and I should have gone out, I was SO exhausted from the last like week worth of going out. It was so nice to be able to chill out finally.








And finally, today is Sunday. I'm playing catch up today with homework, blogging, emails, CEC emails etc. Meeting up with Esther too! Life in Paris has been pretty eventful which has been great. I feel like I'm experiencing a lot, seeing a lot, but probably not practicing my french as much as I should be. It's a little frustrating. I really really want my french to become as close to fluent as possible by the time I leave. I've been writting down random observations in my moleskin (thanks mark!). I'll write something about them hopefully sometime in the next week.

Miss you all a ton. Please send updates about lives in LA. I can't believe school is starting in LA this week. I'm so bummed that I won't be around for the amazing events that occur during fall quarter, courtesy of CEC (yay!) and UCLA football.

That's all from me for now. OH!! I forgot, or I might have written about it in the last post, but Lea and Scott were here last week! It was SO amazing to see faces from home that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE. Showed Lea around, took her out, we had fun!

And Food Blog for Nitey:
The food here is quite amazing. My lunches consist of crepes, both savory and sweet, paninis, sandwiches, and falafels (sp?)! There's an amazing falafel place in le Marais. Everyday on my way home I buy a baguette for 85 cents and in the morning i'll get a croissant! Pictures when I get a camera my love!

Photo credits go to Cassandra and Heather!

bisous bisous!

boys.

So there's nothing too special to report about Paris this week. We had two excursions, one to L'Opera and the other to Quartier Latin. Both were places that I've been to before and neither were too exciting. My cousin Luc is back in town! It's so great having him around. I hung out with him a couple of times this week. My friend Deborah from LA came to visit on her way to Barcelona. It was so good to see a face from home. We went shopping in Le Marais and I bought a great vintage red coat. I'm sure you'll see it in pictures soon enough. Scotty is here too! He'll be here for the next nine days and Lea gets here tomorrow! Justin is here too. I love that everyone I love is coming to France.

I think I've made a few new observations this week about life in Paris. The one that stands out the most is that boys... are dumb... in all parts of the world. As much as we like to think that French boys are special and that Paris is the most romantic city of the world.... we're wrong. Aside from being a significant amount cuter and a tad bit more charming than most boys, French boys, I've come to find, are just as clueless as American boys. They're just as confused about their relationships and are quite casual about cheating on their significant others. They really take "carpe diem" to another level. French dating is quite confusing. I've asked many of my friends about the ins and outs of French dating and have received different responses from each. Some say it's okay to kiss on the first date, some say its not. Either way, I think I've realized that, just like it is in America, everything is on a case by case basis, and really, you shouldn't do anything you wouldn't do in America.

On a more serious note, I spent some time yesterday at le Jardin du Luxembourg reflecting on the last three weeks of my life. As some of you might know, one of the goals I had for studying abroad was to learn how to be comfortable just being on my own. I'm involved in so many different groups on campus that I feel like I'm always surrounded with people I love and that my time is always occupied with things to do and people to see. Don't get me wrong, I love that; but I realized that I was becoming to dependent on being with other people. I realized that I really hated being by myself, not by myself as in I'm one of those girls that always has to have a boyfriend (which I'm not) but by myself as in just not being with people in my life. Somewhere along the way, I had forgotten how to just relax, and how to be completely independent.

After sitting in the park today, I realized that, it's nearly impossible to be completely independent from others. Our personalities are built by the people we encounter and the things that we experience. We're social beings and without social interactions we wouldn't have anything to base our characters off of, we wouldn't have anything to validate our presence. Granted that it's important for us to be comfortable enough with ourselves to validate our own behavior, it's also necessary for us to learn and grow from the behavior around us.

On that note, I've come to realize (again) how much I truly love the people in my life, and that I don't voice that appreciation well enough. I have these moments when I'm around my friends where I think, wow, this is such a great moment or wow, these people are amazing. I cherish moments like that with all my heart, and want to thank all of you in my life for those moments. You have no idea how much they mean to me.

That's all for now I think. This might be deleted soon. Sorry.

(Currently listening to: Emily Haines)



Peace and Love!

relax.

11:00 PM Thursday August 28 - Not going to Hossegor
11:30 PM Thursday August 28 - On the phone with Matt Cochran and looking at train tickets for the hell of it
12:00 AM Friday August 29 - BOUGHT A TICKET
5:45 PM Friday August 29 - ON A TRAIN TO HOSSEGOR

So some friends from my old internship, Fuel TV, were filming the Rip Curl women's surf contest in Hossegor, France this weekend. I had known about it for a while and had been considering going down to visit them for a while, but never got around to actually getting a ticket. So my decision to go to Hossegor this past weekend was probably the most spontaneous decision I've made in quite some time. One minute I wasn't going, the next, I had a ticket! I'm so glad that I made it there though!

I took a train to Dax, a town 30 minutes or so from Hossegor. Matt picked me up and we got back to the hotel around 11:30 PM on Friday night. We met up with Shannon and Sean and headed down to the beach for a party. The contest had just finished and they were free pretty much free for the rest of their stay. There was a Latin music festival going on that night so we found some live music, tons of people, and ohhhh a lot of alcohol.





Highlights of the night:

1. Shannon getting mistaken as Gustavo Kuerten, the famous Brazilian tennis player, all night long. GUGA!
2. Speaking drunken (yet better) French with Bastien, a scrawny french kid who claimed he worked security for Rip Curl.
3. Bottcher, Cochran, and Shannon all thinking that "BON SOIR BITCHES" was an appropriate way to pick up girls.
4. Being the perfect amount of intoxicated all night long
and oh so many more.

We got back around 4 AM and passed out till 10 AM. The boys had to film some interviews for around two hours. I tagged along and watched them work. Afterwards we had lunch in Hossegor, got some ice cream (delicious!), picked up some stuff at the store, and then back to the hotel for the pool!




After that, Bottcher and Shannon went golfing (!) and Matt and I went to the beach. It was so great to the ocean again after so long. It started to get really cold and then it rained a couple of hours after that. Lame, but actually still kind of nice. We went out to dinner at this sea food restaurant. Cochran and Shannon shared a rather large plate of deliciousness. Then we went out to the same area we went to the night before and did a little bar hopping.







Highlights of night number 2:
1. Shannon being SO SO SO excited during dinner.
2. The return of GUGA.
3. Bottcher getting dirty looks from an old lady.
4. Bottcher taking pictures through his drink.
5. Being the perfect amount of intoxicated all night long
and oh so many more.

The next day we took a drive down to Biarritz! It was a gorgeous day out and Biarritz is such a great town! Had lunch on the beach, Shannon and Matt went in the water and surfed a bit. Sean and I sat on the beach and chatted.








Highlights of Biarritz:
1. The beach!
2. Getting in trouble with the hotel man for sneaking in on ping pong.
3. The ridiculousness of how much the boys loved France's topless beaches
4. Bottcher, aka the encyclopedia of random facts.
5. not being intoxicated all day long
and oh so many more.

Took a train from Biarritz to Bordeaux and then Bordeaux to Paris. Jean-Marc picked me up (yay!). Got home, showered, DID FRENCH HOMEWORK, passed out at 2:30/3 ish and woke up at 7:30 for class.

Train tickets: ~165 Euros
Drinks: 25 Euros
Seeing people from home that I absolutely LOVE: priceless!

It was truly an amazing weekend. I was so grateful and so happy to see some familiar faces from home. I'm not homesick, and I love my friends here in Paris, but it's definitely not the same as having my friends from home around. It was good to hang out with the guys. They're all such wonderful individuals that are so talented at what they do and have so much to offer the world. It was such a rejuvenating weekend!

Back in Paris, ready to conquer the world!


En Fin

appreciate.

Two blogs coming your way!

Hope all is well with everyone. Things have been quite amazing here in Paris. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, we're in the middle of French practicum right now. My French is surprisingly actually getting better (especially when I've had a bit to drink) and I'm learning more and more about the city because of the excursions we go on. Last week we went to Belleville, Le Pere Lachaise, Villette, Cite de la Musique, et Montmartre.

Belleville is this area of Paris that is known for its cultural diversity. It's where you can find all the little Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Jewish, etc shops. Architecturally it's a little more modern. But by being modern it loses a significant about of the Parisian charm I love, which made it kind of disappointing. There were a couple of places that still had some remnants of it though:




Le Pere Lachaise is the famous cemetery where Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Delacroix, Edith Piaf, and some other famous names are buried. It's slightly creepy but gorgeous with all the trees at the same time. Its HUGE and really confusing to walk through.




We also went to Montmartre. Montmartre is where the movie "Amelie", which I'm sure many of you have seen, takes place. It's where a lot of the artists live and has inspiration written all over it. The apartments and houses are quaint and have "petit jardins" which are quite rare in France. No pictures here! Got too lazy, sorry!

Friday, we went to Villette and Cite de la Musique. Villette is a poorer area of Paris. One of the great things about it, however, is the graffiti that decorates its walls. The graffiti in France is by far the best I've seen in my life. Although, I have heard great things about London's. Either way, it's much more impressive than the graffiti in LA. Cite de la Musique is supposedly this HUGE library of music. I didn't really understand how it worked, but I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough.



I finally met up with my friend Jean-Marc (aka James) here in Paris. It was so great to see him. My cousin, Luc, finally got back into town this week too! It was even greater seeing him. One thing that being in Paris has shown me is how much I absolutely LOVE my family. My cousins are seriously too cool.



The Parisians all get back to Paris this week. I noticed this morning that the bus was already significantly more crowded. The city is coming back to life (which I can definitely vouch for at the moment because there seems to be some singing and guitar playing outside my window at oh um. 1 in the morning). Lea and Scotty are visiting this week to! and Deborah is already here! Stories of raging will come!

Bisous bisous mes amis!