for those of you who were worried,

in my spare time, i actually do go to school.

here is an update on my classes.

art and architecture: we meet every monday in a different museum. we gather around paintings and make things up about color and iconography and symbology. its a treat. actually, it is a lot of fun, even if we are on our feet talking about paintings for three hours straight. today we met in the louvre and about halfway through class it hit me: i'm having class in the louvre. it doesn't get much better than that. the best part about the class is probably our hilarious teacher bernie who knows everything there is to know about art and shares it all with us. he wears really great glasses and loves to say 'things like this, yes?' and 'things like this, no?'

at the beginning of every class he tells us he is tired/out of it/ sick and apologizes for being so scatterbrained. at the end of every class he tells us that we were extra distracted/lagging/ recovering from the weekend and it makes me laugh.

political science: isn't easy. we do lots of reading for this class and it is sometimes hard. we talk about all kinds of grand french thinkers like descartes and rousseau and we talk a lot about the french revolution. the whole group is required to take this class that meets twice a week and it is really the only time we are all guaranteed to be together. our program director, professor/doctor/brother hancock teaches it. the best days are when we go on 'outings' to museums or castles and pretend to learn political science but really just take pictures and chat with his cute cute wife. we have guest speakers on occasion as well - also exciting.

french 102: this class is probably my favorite. i've never taken a beginning french class at byu before (i skipped them!), but i decided it would help me a lot just to get back to the basics. it definitely helps to go over all the grammar rules. this class is hilarious because it has about every level of french speaker possible. i always sit next to james who at the beginning of the class spoke literally ZERO french and who now is doing a million times better (although i don't know if she'll ever say 'et' instead of 'y', love ya james) and we just have a grand old time together every tuesday, wednesday, and thursday morning. the best part is when we sing hymns together. you would all be impressed.

french 311: this class doesn't really exist. we just have to have a certain number of conversations, record 50 new vocab words every week (harder than it sounds), and read the newspaper in french three times a week. i love that part. everyday there are free newspapers available at all metro entrances so it is easy to just grab and go. i don't know what i would do without my daily updates about french celebrities and the daily horoscope!

paris walks: this is the class you hear the most about. it is self-guided and we just have a large book of around 21 walks and we have to go on 14. the walks guide us through exciting (and less exciting) parts of paris and give us little tidbits of history along the way. after we go on the walk we are supposed to blog about them, which luckily is just a given for me! so, today we did another walk. however, due to the cold and the lack of desire to walk, it was more of a speedwalk. it actually was definitely a speedwalk. we walked around the embassies and the french president's house etc while emily sped-read and we took a limited amount of pictures. although it was neat to see the embassies, there is not much you can do around them because a. pictures are discouraged and b. you cannot go inside. highlights of the walk were probably the obelisk (allison wondered what the heck kind of gift an obelisk was and i thought to myself that it makes a very nice gift - one year my mom gave us all lovely obelisks for easter) and speed window shopping in the classy stores around the embassy. we saw some gorgeous wedding dresses and some serious heels. we have all mastered the art of jaywalking, which here is one hundred percent legal and most often encouraged. if there are no cars coming, actually if there are cars coming but you probably have enough time, go! we used this skill several times on our walk today. and our speedwalking allowed us to conquer a one- two hour walk in about 30 minutes. go team! enjoy our cold pictures

a little shout out to nappy b in front of a monument for him

just kicking back for a half a second

a little break from all that speed walking

you cannot really tell but i am sad because the ferris wheel is lacking all the ferris.

a.k.a. its just the wheel.

this is allison pretending to be ramses. or something like that. she was trying to tell me that since she has seen the mummified and preserved face of ramses she has seen the face that saw the face, that saw the face, that saw God. therefore, i have seen the face that saw the face, that saw the face, that saw the face, that saw God. and now, you can say the same.

jamie was a little cold.

obelisk make for great gifts

not an embassy door. i wasn't allowed to take pictures of those

love red and white

you cannot look at this window display and be surprised that french children are always dressed so well.

after our freezing cold walk we decided it would be fun to catch a movie on the champs-elysee. the four of us went to see true grit (in english) and it was really a treat just to kick back and sit for a few hours. and we all snuck in treats from the near by grocery store and shared some popcorn.

it was a great time, and the movie was cute too!

after the movie i went to FHE with emily.

hakim and i traded hats.

so, now you know. i do go to school. and i do do homework. but that doesn't stop me from having quality times and many, many adventures. alright, thats all. stay classy france.