Pictures, finally...

Here's the Moulin Rouge. I'd go see a show there, but the cheapest tickets cost more than 100 dollars each.

Here's the Louvre at night, aint it perty?

Here's the chateau at Fontainebleau. Eight centuries of French kings went to this place. It was also one of Napoléon's favorite haunts.

Here's me standing at the top of the main staircase at Fontainebleau.

A random chandelier at the chateau.

There's a room in Fontainebleau where the walls are decorated with one of the King's (I forget which one) china. Here's a plate with a depiction of Niagra Falls on it. He had it made for him after he visited the United States, before it was the United States of course.

Here's me taking a picture of me taking a picture at Fontainbleau.

Here's the kings' bed.

Here's a room and the bed where a pope stayed for a while when Napoléon held him hostage at the chateau until he would accept one of Napoléon's laws.

And here's the queens' bed. Marie Antoinette ("Anne d'Autriche" in French) had the room redecorated, but she never got to see it before she was executed during the Revolution.

A random hallway at Fontainebleau.

Another random hallway at Fontainebleau. Napoléon III had the shelves on the walls filled with over 1600 books from Napoléon I's personal library.

Napoléon I's throne room. This is the only throne room still in existence in France.

Sorry this picture is sideways. It's a picture of Jim Morrison's grave at Père Lachaise Cemetary in Paris.

Here's another picture at Père Lachaise. I took this one so that you could get a feel for the cemetary. It's like a small town, but instead of buildings, there are just giant graves everywhere; no simple tombstones here.

The next few pictures are of the Christmas window displays in Paris's largest, and ritziest, shopping mall. When you ask a Parisian what to do in Paris around Christmas, their first answer is always "go see the windows at the Galleries Lafayette." They look more impressive in person because all of the displays move and each has its own song. It's awesome.

Here's one of the main entrances to the Galleries Lafayette.

And finally, here's a picture of my school. I don't actually have classes in this building, but this is the Sorbonne.

A few pictures

Bonjour à tous. So I still haven't had a chance to upload any of my pictures. Sorry. But, here are a few that other people have taken of me. I hope this helps you get by until you can see my pics.

So here's the Louvre on a Friday night. This is one of their indoor sculpture gardens.

And here's me standing in front of the gardens at the Palace of Versailles. Apparently they're even more impressive when there are flowers and the fountains are turned on, but I still enjoyed it.

 And here's me (in the back left corner) hanging out with some of my friends from my program on Thanksgiving Day.

And finally, here I am with some of my friends from my program going to get cafeteria food for dinner. We jokingly call it the homeless shelter. The food's not great, but the price can't be beat (it's only 2.90 € for the student meal, that's the equivilent of 4.27 US dollars).

Hey There

Hello... Sorry it's been so long since I've checked in. I feel like I say that a lot, I just get busy and this kind of falls to the bottom of my list of priorities. Anyway, things are still going well here. I had a big grammar test yesterday and I'm not sure I know how I did. That brings me to an interesting point though: the French grading system. Everything is graded on a scale of 0-20 with 0 being the worst and 20 being the best. I have never seen anybody get a 20. The average score is 10-12, decent is 12-14, good is 14-16, really good is 16-18, and anything above that is almost impossible. So what they do is you start with 20 points, and then for each mistake that you make, you lose one point. Unfortunately, that does not leave much room for error. If your teacher is nice (which thankfully, mine are) they will only take off a half point if the mistake is not serious. The difficult part comes when you get your grade. Although a 12 is average, it still has a tendency to remind you just how poorly you speak French. Fortunately, I got a 16...

Anyway, on a lighter note, I saw my first French protest today. For those of you that don't know, France is renowned for its workers going on strike. Some French people even joke that it's France's national sport. Since I've been here, there have been at least three strikes that I know about. Today, there was a strike by most of the high school professors and some of the students. The cool part of it is that they closed down one of the busiest streets in Southern Paris. It was funny, the police knew that they were going to protest so they closed down the street to give the protesters a staging area. Then all of these vans showed up as part of the protest and they tied big balloons to the top of the vans with the name of each school that was there. I felt like I was seeing a practice run of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or something. So then, after about 45 minutes of standing around, things got started and the protesters marched down the street to one of the busiest intersections I know of, right in front of a major train station. Everything just shut down and nobody acted like it was abnormal. It was weird but pretty funny. All I know is that I'm glad I was walking and didn't have to try to drive around all of that mess. Here's a link to a news story about the strike: http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article_interactif/2009/11/24/les-enseignants-en-greve-pour-vos-enfants_1271261_3224.html. It's in French, sorry. I'll try to get some pictures up soon.

So last weekend I went to the Cathedral at Chartres. Chartres is a small town about an hour and a half drive west of Paris. There wasn't anything special about the cathedral except for the fact that it's one of the oldest cathedrals in the world. I guess if you include the Druids, people have been worshiping in that spot since 300 b.c. You can see walls that were built in 700 a.d. I will get some pictures of that up soon as well. (It's starting to look like my next post will just be pictures).

I also went to the opera last Thursday. We saw a German opera called Salomé. The story is pretty disturbing. Salomé is the daughter of King Herod from the bible. Well King Herod has John the Baptist arrested for something and when Salomé sees John the Baptist, she falls in love with him. Of course, when Salomé comes onto John the Baptist, he turns her down because he is entirely devoted to God. Well John the Baptist starts telling King Herod that his kingdom will not last and that the only eternal kingdom is God's. So Herod gets sad and asks Salomé to dance for him. Salomé doesn't want to because she is heartbroken over John the Baptist. King Herod offers her anything that she desires if she will dance for him. (That's where it starts to get weird. See, there's a creepy, incestuous sexual tension between Salomé and her father, King Herod). So, Salomé does a dance.

Now, I was disappointed in her dance. It's the infamous "dance of the seven veils" where Salomé is wearing seven veils and she takes them off one by one until she is totally naked. It's supposed to be very sexy and is often considered the first strip-tease. Somehow, the director of this opera managed to make this dance very unsexy and really just weird.

But anyway, back to the story... So when Salomé finishes her dance, Herod asks her what it is that she wants in return. Since John the Baptist denied Salomé, she demands his head on a platter. King Herod tries to talk her out of it, but it doesn't work. So John's head gets cut off (offstage) and then they bring it on stage and present it to Salomé. She gets really weird at this point and starts professing her undying love (and lust) for John the Baptist, to his severed head. There's a lot of writhing around on the floor and then she has a schizophrenic attack and tells John's head that she hates it, then that she loves it, then that she hates it, and so on. Long story short, she makes out with his severed head and then lays on it, weeping. The end. Like I said, it's a weird story. And the opera was in German (they had French subtitles above the stage). Needless to say, I didn't really care for it. But it was kind of cool going to the opera in Paris.

So, I think that's enough for now. I will try to be in touch and try to get some damn pictures up. If I don't talk to you before Thursday, happy Thanksgiving.

Hello There

Hey friends. Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Anyway, I survived Amsterdam. Honestly, I was kind of disappointed. I didn't have much fun and the city is a little creepy. But I had plenty of good beer and even tried some pretty good dutch food. I'll post some pictures in a few days, but I don't have time right now. Last weekend we went to Versailles. It's pretty neat, but (and I feel horrible saying this), it's just another insanely large French palace. I know that sounds funny, but it's kind of true. After a while you start to feel like, okay, this was built by Louis XIV in the 1600's and there's a lot of guilding, and mirrors, and nice gardens, show me something I haven't seen. Anyway, rather than taking it for granted, I just take it as a reminder that I'm in Paris and I'm loving it. While it doesn't sound like Versailles was much fun, I did enjoy it and I will share some pictures from there as well. I met a French girl the other evening. I was walking to the Metro after class and I walked by the Pantheon and thought "hey Pantheon, what's up?" (because again, I see it everyday and it's pretty commonplace at this point) and when I looked back down to see where I was walking, there was an extremely cute French girl standing there. I thought to myself "now that's nice". Then she came up to me and asked me for directions to the Metro. At first, I wasn't sure that this was actually happening, I thought maybe Ashton Kutcher was going to jump out of the alley or something, so I said excuse me and asked her to repeat her question. She asked me again "Where is the nearest Metro?" So, I whipped out my map, and showed here where we were, and where the two nearest Metro stops were. Then it hit me, "I'm walking to the Metro right now". So I told her to follow me. We started walking and neither of us was saying anything. So I asked her her name and she told me it was Emily. We continued talking and I learned that she is 21, she's from Normandy, she is studying agronomy (which I later discovered is the science of agriculture), etc. The entire time I couldn't really believe that this was happening, but I figured I'd just go with it. So we get to the Metro stop and I start walking down the stairs to the train that goes my direction and I just assumed she would do the same, because why wouldn't she. She stopped me and said that she had to go the opposite direction and then she looked at me for a few seconds like "what happens now?" So, being the suave guy that I am, I said "okay, well I'll see you later" and she goes "Oh, okay, well thank you, goodbye". In retrospect, that was the worst possible way that I could have handled the situation. But at least I got some practice speaking French as our entire conversation was in French. So anyway, my new goal is to find Emily, and my second goal, if the first doesn't work out, is to find a cute French girl because in the words of one of my professors "at least if a French girls says something stupid, it sounds pretty".

Anyway, I am also trying to find new things to do in Paris or to see things that I haven't yet seen. I have an entire list of places already, but if you have any good suggestions, let me know. Talk to you later.

My Life in Paris

So life is good here. Here's a picture of the apartment that I live in. My room is on the top floor, facing the street.

And here's a picture of the family's dog, Dandi. He's very sweet, but he likes to lick your feet so you always have to wear shoes and he's only one year old, so he is really energetic. He's a fox terrier.

Here's a picture of the roundabout at the center of my town, Vanves, which is literally just south of Paris. And below that is a picture of the park that I have to walk through to get to the Metro every day.

Here's a picture from the Rodin Museum. Rodin is a famous French sculptor. This is the garden in the back of the museum, the building at the end of the picture is the museum.

Here's a picture of Collioure, that town in the South that we visited. Sorry I did not post this one earlier, I couldn't find it. I think it's my favorite picture of the place. It's from a medieaval fortress at the top of a hill in the Pyreneese Mountains looking down onto the town and the Mediterranean Sea at sunset. Could life get any better?

So this weekend, we are taking a trip to Normandy where we will visit Omaha Beach and a bunch of other World War II things. That should be interesting. Then, the weekend after that, I am going to Amsterdam with a group of girls from my program. Me, the other guy in our group Max, and ten girls in Amsterdam for Halloween, what could possibly go wrong? I couldn't refuse though. First of all, it's Amsterdam, and second, the bus ticket was € 53 round trip. I'm sure it will be a blast. Anyway, off to class.

Just Checking In

Hey there, so I don't have any fun pictures or much time; but I just thought I'd say hi. Everything is going well. I went to the Salon du Chocolat today. It's a 4 day expo that's all about chocolate. So I ate chocolate for an hour, and had some free samples of Bailey's, port, Gran Marnier, etc. It was pretty awesome but you'd be amazed how quickly you get sick of chocolate and just sweets in general(I think we only spent like 90 minutes there). I didn't buy anything because it was all really expensive. I am getting totally comfortable with my directions and finding my way around which feels nice. I drank some sour milk this morning at breakfast which I've never done before. It was probably one of the worst things I've ever tasted. So my grammar classes are going well and I start my phonetics classes tomorrow. Then I start my other classes next Monday. I'm going to a symposium on Darwin at the Collège de France this Friday, which should be interesting. And I'm going on a date with a girl from my program tomorrow night. I would tell you to wish me luck, but I think she likes me. Anywho, that's about it. Sorry to hear about the Rockies, but go Broncos. I'm also sorry to hear about the cold and snow, it's sunny and 60 in Paris right now. Well, I'm off to class, talk to you later.

It's been a while

Hey there. Sorry it's been so long since I've checked in. I didn't bring a laptop to Paris, so I am kind of at everyone else's mercy when it comes to getting online.

Anyway, things are still pretty awesome here. Since we last talked, I've visited an awesome town called Collioure in the South of France. The weather was great, I went for a hike, swam in the Mediterranean, toured a huge cave, and toured a medieval castle in Carcassonne. Back in Paris, I've visited the Rodin Museum, the Arc de Triumph, and other places, I just can't remember them all right now. I've decided to change the picture that I have at the top of this page. The first reason is that I took this new one, and the second reason is that I think it's a better picture. I'm posting a few pictures of my trip to the south, along with the Arc de Triumph at night. Let me know what you think.

On a different note, I got the results of my grammar test and they were pretty much how I felt about the test, not great. So I started grammar classes yesterday, at the elementary level, and I quickly discovered that elementary in Paris is much more advanced than elementary in Denver. I like the class and think it is the perfect fit. I start phonetics classes next week and then my real classes start the week after that.

My host family continues to be great. It's funny though, my host mom is out of town so when I had dinner with just the host dad last night, we had leftovers from the previous two nights and then he made crepes as thick as pancakes that were kind of burned with cream of mushroom soup in them. It tasted like a grilled cheese with mushrooms and I told him that what we were eating is a pretty common meal among bachelors in the U.S.

Finally, I was feeling great about everything this morning, so I decided to go to the dry cleaners to drop off a pair of pants and a sweater that I brought to Paris already dirty. I did not expect to understand much of what the dry cleaners said, but I thought I could get by. Boy was I in for a surprise. I think I understood two of the words the guy said during a five minute interaction. For example, when he asked me my name, I froze and forgot that when the French ask your nom (name), they really mean your last name. So I responded "Patrick". So now I am known in the dry cleaners as Mr. Patrick. Anyway, I just laughed it off because what else can you do?

Salut!

Alors...

Well, I know it may be hard to believe, but Paris is still great. I went to the Eiffel Tower yesterday. And I went to the Orsay Museum and Sacré Coeur the day before. I've also been to the Louvre, taken a nighttime boat tour of Paris, and met my French host family since we last spoke. I am going to have dinner with them tonight, and I'm a little nervous because "je ne parle bien le français" (I do not speak French well). I'm sure it will be fine though; they are very nice.

I took a language placement exam today. It does not affect my grades this semester; it is just supposed to determine what level classes I can take. If it actually went anything like I'm afraid it did, I may be taking some beginner courses.

I saw a movie a few nights ago with some of the girls from my program (there are 24 people in my program and two of them, including me, are guys). The movie was a British film called Fish Tank. None of us is sure if the movie will be released in the U.S., but in case it is, we are advising everyone we know to not see it. The movie was terrible and made for one of the most awkward experiences I have ever had with two girls.

I am beginning to get used to the French keyboard, but the "w" key still gives me a lot of trouble. I am just killing time waiting to upload some of my pictures right now.

Go Rockies and I will check back in soon!

Bonjour à Paris!

Well, I'm here; and I'm struggling to write this blog because the French computer keyboard is different than those in the U.S. They are similar enough to think you know what you're doing; but then you try to start typing and... oh yeah, that's where the "a" key is!

Anyway, the flights could not have been much better and I found my hotel with little difficulty. I had my first French lunch yesterday; les steak frites (steak and fries) with a glass of kir (white wine and some kind of liquere). It was pretty good. I slept much of the afternoon and most of the night. Then this morning, I did one of the first things that many of you told me to and bought my first truly French croissant. I gotta' give it to you; all of the ranting and raving that all of you did about how good the French croissants are does not even come close to describing the taste explosion that is the French croissant.

So today I am headed to another hotel, this one only blocks from the Louvre, for the start of my program. I'm trying to decide if I have the arm strength to lug my bags to and from the train station again or if I ought to just take a cab instead. Anyway, go Rockies and I will check back in shortly.

Oh, and all of those rude French people that I've heard so much about so far have dealt with my aweful attempts at speaking their language, helped me rescue one of my suitcases when it almost got eaten by the entrance door to the metro, and were really understanding when I got to the hotel and realized I booked my room for the wrong night. I don't know what it is, maybe the rude French were out sick yesterday.

Getting Ready to Leave

Well, I leave in less than three days. I've been picking up my house, studying French, and generally just getting ready to go. I am pretty sick of doing laundry at this point. I will try to add another post before I leave, but if I don't get to it, wish me luck!

My hotel room

I'm going to be arriving in Paris one day early so I had to find myself a hotel room for one night. I looked around online for a while, compared prices, read reviews, etc. A couple of days ago I booked a three star hotel for $108. I just decided to try to find my hotel on Google Earth and apparently I will be staying in Paris's Indian neighborhood. All the restaurants are Indian, I'm across the street from the the "Asian Sari Center" clothing store and the "Indian Music Center." I hope they have good vindalu!

Where I'll be living in France

So it turns out I won't be living in Paris, I'll actually be in a suburb called Vanves. It's about a 20 minute train ride from Paris. Here's a picture of the house I'll be living in. Technology is amazing isn't it?

Welcome!

So, as you probably know by now, I will be studying in Paris from September, 2009 - January, 2010. When I tell people that I am doing this, the most common response I hear is, “Oh my god, I’m so jealous” or, “Oh my god, I want to go.” So, with a little positive encouragement from friends, I’ve decided to start a blog and keep it updated while I’m overseas. Now I need a little help from you. Email me and tell me what you want me to experience while I’m in Europe. You can also give me your suggestions by clicking on the word "comments" below this post. Whether it’s something crazy like Oktoberfest in Germany, or standard like see the Eiffel Tower, I want to hear it! Soon I’ll be posting a list of some of the things that I am already planning on doing; and before I leave, I’ll post some of the feedback that I got from all of you.