mads in france: first day of school

some quality firsts today

first grocery shopping trip (leader price)

first shopping trip (sephora)

first crepe (avec nutella!)

first trip on our own on the RER (sucess)

it was also my first day of school. class started at 9 so i had to be on the train at 8:10 to be there on time. so early. luckily i have yet to be able to sleep at night so i had ample time to get ready. our first art history class was... long. but, the rest of the classes meet in "mu-zames" (museums, as bernie, our prof, says it), so they will be less boring. and the possibility of all of us falling asleep will be much less.

after class we decided to just take a little stroll around good ole' paris. we just wandered around those classy cobblestone streets stopping in all kinds of little shops. right now it is "les soldes" in paris, aka the sales. everyone is pretty much required to have sales for the month of january, and this is the only time sales are allowed. aka now is the best time to go shopping. we found ourselves in sephora where jamie and i decided to be extra french and put on some crazy lipstick. it was quite the experience. we also found this great little cafe called joos bayoo. basically they make super fresh juice right before your eyes, i had an orange ananas menthe (orange pinapple mint) and it was delish! we plan on going back daily, plus they have really cute places to sit. see pink chair below.

after that it was raining pretty hard so my roomie emily and i got back on the train and headed back to les banlieu (the suburbs) where we live. i have become a metro pro. in fact twice today people came up to me to ask for help with the metro lines, and i was able to help both of them. and they were so excited that i could speak english. it made my day. i think i must have been looking pretty french because i do not know why on earth they would ask me. anyway, we made it back to le vesinet and to our humble abode. 7 avenue rembrandt. this is my house:

the middle window on the second floor is my room. it is a VERY old house. the doors are hard to open. this morning we woke up poor madame because we spent about 10 minutes trying to unlock the doors. oops. this afternoon we took a little adventure into town and went grocery shopping. i have never seen so much cheese and yogurt in my life! holy cow. the french love their yogurt. also: french people do not condition their hair. there is only shampooing (shampoo). the grocery store was so fun. (you have to bring your own bags, or else you are carrying your groceries home. yikes!) i bought some apples, cheese, bread, and salami, yum! i also stopped at cute flower market and bought some yellow tulips for madame. i was nervous to buy her flowers but that was silly because she loved them! after that we headed back to Paris for fhe, which was all in french and we played a little taboo (which is TOTALLY a different game here). now i am just back at home avoiding my poly sci reading. it has been a very french, very wonderful day. highlights were definitely the lipstick, the being asked for directions, and being catcalled by a group of frenchmen while i walked by. life is good. a plus tard! toute a l'heure! a bientot!