Une bonne semaine

A lot has happened since my last post.  I will start with Monday.

I met my parents for breakfast at their hotel and we headed out to walk to the Eiffel Tower.  As we were walking there, we noticed that three people found these rings on the street.  My Mom thought it might have been a parade so we kept looking for them.  All of a sudden, a man right by us found a ring and showed it to us asking if it was ours.  We explained to him that we saw other people who found rings as well and that he was lucky.  He said we could have it for good luck and gave it to my Dad.  Right after, he said he was hungry and wanted some money...how stupid are we?! Of course it was a scam.  My dad felt bad, so he took out his wallet and everything falls on the ground.  I scurry to pick up al the money before this guy steals it all.  He said he wouldn't rob us and just wanted some money for a sandwich.  My Dad wanted to give him 10 euro but I said no way.  We ended up giving him 2.70 euro and my Dad purchased his only souvenir of Paris....

We finally got to the Eiffel Tower and had to wait about 30 minutes for tickets.  We climbed all the way up to the 2nd floor and then took the lift up to the top.  It was a beautiful view!  The last time I climbed, the top was closed so it was so nice to finally get up there.  We all had a good time.

After getting down from the tower, we stopped to get crepes for lunch and sit on a bench right in front of the tower.  What a view.  We've been having wonderful weather as well.  Barely even need a jacket!  It's great!

We walked over to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Élysées.  We stopped at LaDuree and got some macaroons!  We also stopped at Monoprix to buy a few things for happy hour.  We got back to the hotel and ate the macaroons and had some wine.  Then we found a cute little Italian resturant called Gambino's.  It was delicious and so crowded for a Monday night.  My Dad had linguini incre (ink) with scallops,  Mom had pasta with pesto and mushrooms and I just had pasta with tomatoes and basil.  It was all great.  Dad got a picture outside since his uncle is a Gambino!

Tuesday, my parents went missing.  Well not exactly.  Our plan was to meet at 12:45pm at the Musee d'Orsay. When I got there, the line was long.  I decided to wait outside, figuring they'd come check the exit if they didn't find me inside.  An hour goes by, so I decided to get into the line since it died down.  I got in a bit after 1 and couldn't find them anywhere.  I felt bad, but had to run to go teach at the school.  I was a bit upset, but it was my fault for not making more specific plans.

Teaching at the school went well like always.  The kids are great.  After that, I came back to the hotel and my parents still weren't here.  Oops.  They did come back about 15 minutes later!  I found out that they weren't allowed to come out of the exit :(

We had a little happy hour and headed off to my host family's  house for dinner!  I had to bring my big suitcase over there since my other one ripped on the way here.  As I am walking them through my neighborhood, I tell both of them that this one baker in the bakery loves me.  He is always so smiley.  With this, my dad looks in the window and starts waving!  Does he not understand that you aren't supposed to even make eye contact, let alone WAVE!?  Oh boy...

My host family was so excited to meet my parents!  It was such a nice night.  My host Dad gave my parents a tour of the house and luckily speaks English very well.  My host Mom tried to speak English a few times, but would mainly tell me something in French to tell my parents.  My Mom practiced a French line to tell my host Mom "thank you" for taking care of me.  It was so cute.  She made a delicious meal.  We first had an Italian salad since she studied Art History in Florence.  We had green beans, mini potatoes called "Rattes" in French, and beef, like london broil.  Everything was delicious!  My host Dad kept pouring wine from my host Mom's brother's vineyard.  It was really good wine, as well!  After the dinner, 5 different cheeses came out for dessert.  And still more to come...a fruit salad.  It was such a nice night.  I had to go upstairs to pack a few things for my parents to bring back to the states, and when I came back down my host Mom was making us Infusion.  It was already getting late!  We didn't get home until 11:45pm.

Today was a very sophisticated day.  It started off with a trip to Versailles.  The line was really long to get into the chateau, so we started with the gardens.  It was breathtaking.  I couldn't believe how much property was there.  We walked through the gardens and then had lunch on the lawn :)  Nice picnic!

Then, we went back into the chateau.  The line was super short and we walked right in.  It was magnificent!  I could never go in the summer, though.  It was so crowded in there and the tour groups were very annoying...It was also very very hot inside the chateau.  We were dying.  We probably stayed there about 4-5 hours in total.  It was enough for us and a wonderful day.

When we got back to Paris, we went to Angelina's.  My Mom and I ordered the hot chocolate, of course, and my Dad ordered a glass of wine.  When my Mom let my Dad try the hot chocolate, he traded with her!  That was the first time in HISTORY that my Father gave up his wine! We all enjoyed it!  I finally brought back a Mont Blanc as well.  This is Angelina's speciality.  It is a meringue and a chestnut paste.  Not really sure what else.  It was pretty good.  I didn't eat the bottom since it tasted like pure sugar...

We stopped at Franprix and another outdoor market.  My Mom bought a really nice silk scarf!  We headed back to the hotel to have some snacks.  And we had big plans for the night: A ballet at the Opera Garnier!  Now here's a story for you...

We get to our seats on the first floor.  It was kind of hard to see, but we worked it out.  The ballet was "Dances at a Gathering" by Jerome Robbins.  It was very classical.  It is amazing how wonderful these people can dance.  I get so jealous!  They bowed for about 20 minutes, and then it was time to leave!  My mom was wondering the lady behind us didn't take her coat, but I knew her friend was upstairs so she probably just went to get her.  We start walking out of the Opera and the lady at the exit asked me if I was coming back.  I didn't know what she meant, so I just said "Oh, No."  She said that the second part was better than the first.  What second part!? We didn't even know there was a second part.  Well, back to our seats now.  "You can bring the culture to the people but you can't bring the people to the culture."  That's US!  So now, for the second act;  This was called "Apartment."  Each scene took place in a different room of the apartment.  To be honest, I had NO idea what was going on.  Everyone kept dropping dead and they popped a dead baby out of the oven.  This was a more modern dance with more up beat music.  Both the dancing and music were great!  Just the story was a bit insane....

 

Ma famille est ICI

My family finally arrived and I am a happy girl!  

Yesterday, I surprised them at their hotel.  They got here just about 9am.  I was so excited to see them!  They would like me to add that they were overjoyed to see me and surprised!  We walked around a bit and then put everything into the hotel room.  It was surprisingly big for a French room.  We all got to snuggle in a king sized bed! :)

We had a cute little lunch at a burger place nearby my school.  I had to run off to class quickly after I finished eating, so gave Mom and Dad my map and hoped they'd find their way.  History class was boring as usual, but for architecture class we got to go to a cute little park called Butte Chaumont.  It was beautiful and definitely a place I would have never found out about on my own.  I met back up with my parents and we walked to the Eiffel Tower.  On the way there, we stopped at the longchamp store so I could buy Mom a Mother’s Day present.  The man asked me if it was a gift, so I explained to him it was for my mother in May.  My parents didn’t exactly know what was going on, but my dad figured it out and explained to the man, in French, that I was buying the gift but it was his credit card.  Gave the guy a good laugh!


The walk took quite a while, but it was a nice walk.  We stayed by the tower a bit and I got them a banana and nutella crepe! Yum!  We got to see the tower sparkle and then walked back to the hotel.  My Dad refused to take the metro even when I had passes for them!  My mom and I went searching for some quick food for dinner, and finally were able to find ham sandwiches on a baguette.  We grabbed them and brought them back to the hotel to eat.  Then it was bed time, since we had to get up at 5am for Nice, France!

Our train ride was good.  Of course, we were on the wrong "train."  There were two trains that were connected, both going to Nice and following all the same stops.  We happened to get on the wrong one, so at the first stop we had to run up and switch.  Kind of seemed silly to me, being that no one even checked our tickets on the 2nd train.  After about 5 hours, we arrived in Nice.  We walked to our hotel from the train station, which took about 15 minutes.  It wasn't a bad walk, though, especially when my dad carried my heavy bag! :) Our hotel was amazing! We somehow got upgraded to surprerior rooms so we each had these big big rooms.  During the afternoon, we just walked around the town and along the 'boardwalk' type place.  It was a bit cloudy and windy, but still really nice! Then, we stopped at a cute pizzeria for lunch.  After lunch, we tried to find a grocery store for snacks and happy hour materials, but it was so impossible.  Finally, dad bought some wine at a corner store and Danielle and I went searching for the store.  My Dad of course, has to speak French to everyone and it might possibly be one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed.  He's so good at French and just says the craziest things all of the time!  Never a dull moment with him around! 

Danielle and I finally found the Monoprix and got everything we needed for happy hour.  Just as we were on our way back, Lisa (my Mom's cousin's daughter studying in Nice) texted me saying she was at our hotel!  We met her at the door and had happy hour in my parents' room.  It was so great to see her!!


She showed us around and we stopped for some gelato.  This one gelato place has 86 flavors!  I tried black currant and strawberry.  The black currant had a weird taste at first, but it turned out to be really good! I would probably try every flavor if I studied in Nice....

We went to a really nice restaurant for dinner.  I had the escargot!  Mom and Dad tried it as well and really enjoyed it.  We stayed at dinner for a while, catching up with everyone.  It was a very enjoyable night.

We had breakfast the next morning around 9am.  Then we were headed off to visit the village of Eze and Monoco.  The dummkopf at our hotel told us that there was no way to get from Eze to Monoco and also gave us the wrong bus to get on. We ran to try to catch the bus and missed the one she wanted us to take…luckily, however, the next bus was going to Eze.  When we got off the bus at Eze, that SAME bus was going to Monoco.  She was quite an idiot.  We walked around the cute little village and climbed up the castle.  We didn’t go through the gardens since we’d have to pay 4euros.  But it was a beautiful day out and we had a beautiful view!  We had some pizza and drinks for lunch and got on the bus to Monoco!

What a city! We got off right by the casino and it was something to see.  The cars were so amazing, as well!  We took tons of pictures of the amazing blue water.  We didn’t stay for too long and then headed back to Nice.  Lisa met us when we got back and we had another happy hour in the room.  Then we were off to dinner.  We went to a cute little Italian restaurant and I had delicious pesto raviolis.  My dad of course was making eye contact with every person he saw.  This is not acceptable in the French culture.  When I yelled at him, he responded, “quand le serveur retourne, je vais mettre ma tete dans le terre.”  Translated to English: When the waiter comes back, I will put my head in the earth.”  Quote number 1 of the night.  We left the restaurant and went to an Irish bar. We sat at a table upstairs and my dad went up to the bar to order us drinks.  When the waiter came back, my dad asks him, “acceptez-vous des cartes de credit?”  The waiter laughed and told my father that he isn’t French.  Then my dad assumes he is from Ireland and tells him that Danielle and I were just in Galway.  He was so confused and told us he was from Holland.  It was already off to an interesting start.

Next, my father tells him “I’m from New Jersey.  They call me the Situation.  Do you know Snooki?”  The waiter responded, “No I don’t, but I guess you do.”  I was dying laughing and this was just the beginning.  At the end of the night, he told the waiter that he’d give him a tip if he heard the bell rang.  The bartenders would ring this bell each time they received a tip.  So yes, we heard the bell.  When we finally got out of there, we walked over to the gelato place.  Dad gave me dispensation to eat after dinner provided that I did a good deed (putting up with him counts).  As we ordered, my dad lets out a scream saying he’s paying for “tout le monde!” The servers were laughing.  We asked a different server if he could take a picture of all of us and my dad was telling everyone that walked past that they should get in the picture.  It was a funny night.  He also mentioned that since we wouldn’t understand the church the next morning, we would all hold hands on the beach and pray.  He was going to give a sermon as well.  As we walked back to the hotel, he decided to squat down on top of a pole in the middle of the road.  I really hope no one saw this disaster….

We sprung ahead this morning so are now back to being 6 hours apart from home.  I hated losing an hour of sleep.  We had breakfast again early and asked dummkopf if there as a church nearby.  She gave us 1. ONE! There were at least 5 around as well.  Lisa took us to one and there was luckily a mass at 9am.  During mass, the lady behind us would not shake hands with my Mom!  She was a cranky old French lady!  I couldn’t believe it.  We checked out of the hotel and were back to the train station.  Our train left about 10 minutes late, but we were on the right car this time!  We sat next to these French kids about our age that were BLASTING music in their headphones.  So we took out our wine, cheese, bread, chips, and vodka and had a picnic.  The train was a bit delayed, but we finally got back to Paris.

We headed back to my parents' hotel and just rested for a bit.  Then, we went out to a little restaurant for a bite to eat.  My Mom and I had chicken club sandwiches, which of course had mayonnaise even though I asked the guy if there was stuff on it....So we just picked out the chicken.  Dad had tuna.  It was a really cute place.  I told the waiter that I was studying here and my parents were visiting and he told me to never let a waiter take my American credit card.  Make sure they swipe it right at the table.  It was a really nice tip.  I headed back to my homestay to sleep for the night and get my things situated.  The random boy in my house wasn’t there when I got home!  Still have no idea who he was.

Now, just going to rest up for a full day of fun tomorrow with my parents!  We’re having dinner with my host family Tuesday night so that should be a great experience.

My father wants a shout out to all his cousins, Natassa, and Bart--- he hopes you’re doing well in the basketball pool!

Bisous!     

Si on a un choix entre la vérité et la beauté, on doit choisir la beauté parce que personne ne sait jamais la vérité.

Bruxelles

Had a really fun weekend in Belgium!  We left pretty early on Saturday and got into Brussels around 10:30.  It was a quick train ride; just an hour and a half!  We met up with some other friends there and our first stopped was a chocolate museum.  We had a little tour and got to watch them make chocolate.  Unfortunately, I was in the back so I couldn't see much...We at least got a bunch of free samples!  Delicious :)

After the museum, we just walked around.  Stopped for a belgium waffle.  Definitely was up to all my expectations.  The first one I tried had nutella and strawberries.  Yum!  We saw the Manneken Pis statue.  He was first dressed up in a little army uniform.  It was pretty funny.  The town is obsessed with this little boy!  When we walked back later, he was in a St. Patrick's Day outfit.  Not sure how many times a day they change their precious little icon.  We walked over to this very fancy part of the town where there were tons of chocolate shops.  They smelled so great but they were way too expensive.  We also stopped for some belgium fries that were wonderful as well.  We wanted to see the atomium, so we took a metro up to the area and decided to walk.  It was so so far and of course, we were a bit lost.  The atomium was built for the world fair in 1958.  It reminded me of Epcot for some reason.  It was so huge!  We didn't go inside or anything, but it was still pretty cool !

We took the metro back into the center of brussels and had to stop for another waffle.  This time I got one with some powdered sugar!  We stopped in a few souvenir shops and a honey store as well. The people were very friendly and actually responded to us in French.  That's a change...

We met up with everyone else for dinner at an affordable chinese restaurant.  I had chicken fried rice.  It was a cute little restaurant.  On the way back to our friends' hostel, we stopped at the grocery store and waited in a 20 minute line.  A bit ridiculous...then we headed back to our friends' hostel and left all of our valubles there before heading off to Sensation!

We had to take another hour and a half train to Hasslet, Belgium.  The train ride was crazy.  Almost everyone on it was going to Sensation.  We sat with a Spanish kid and he barely spoke any English so it was an interesting experience!  I learned a few spanish phrases as well.  When we finally got to the train station, we had to take a shuttle over to the arena.  It was so crowded so we were all jam packed on the little bus.  At least it was FREE!  The concert was a lot of fun!  Everyone was in white and we met a lot of different people from all over the world!  I had such a great time.  I can't wait until it comes to the US in October!  Hopefully it's on the east coast :)

It was a long long night and I was so tired in the morning.  I had three meals before noon!  Goodness.  We had a croissant when we got off the train and were back in brussels.  Then on our way to church, we stopped to get a baguette.  I fell asleep in church...oops.  It was the longest mass ever.  An hour into mass we didn't even say the Our Father.  We had to leave at 11 to get to the train station however to catch our train back to Paris.  At the station, I had pizza and garlic bread.  I couldn't stop eating!  What else is new....When I finally got back to Paris and got home, I napped for a few hours.  I slept so good that night and am still very tired!  But it was worth every minute!

My parents are coming in two days! I can not wait! Until then, I have a bit of work to do and plan fun things to do with my parents!  YAY

Bisous!