why french women don't get fat.

I can't tell you enough how sick of cigarettes and the smell of cigarettes I am. That stereotype that everyone in Europe smokes is pretty much true. I'm not sure if they don't know how bad it is for them and/or the environment and/or everyone around them or what but smoke is EVERYWHERE. 

I'm scared that I'm going to come back with lung cancer from all the second hand smoke. Everywhere you go people are smoking and they feel no qualms about just blowing their smoke in your face. There is no way to duck and dodge it or hold your breath as you walk past them, it's inescapable and disgusting. 

A few of us have realized that the reason french women* don't get fat is because all they do is smoke. When we have a break from classes we typically eat lunch or have a small snack but they have smoke breaks. Pretty much, they don't eat. Even if they do eat, nothing can possibly taste good to them after all that smoking, so all they eat is the bare minimum. 

There are cigarette buts everywhere you turn. you can't sit down in the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower with out sitting on one or kicking five out of the way and they're ALL over the streets and the sidewalks. I've never understood smoking and to this day still can't. Breathing fire into your lungs just doesn't sound so appealing to me, not to mention the deadly chemicals companies put into them. 

I hate going to restaurants at and being worried I'm going to leave smelling like cigarette smoke much less worrying about it just walking down the street. 

Well, that is my rant for today, I have one about the metro too but I will spare you. Hope everyone's having a good day!!

*french women being the stereotypical french woman. There are plenty that are perfectly healthy, plenty that don't smoke, and plenty that aren't skinny at all.  :)

Creme Brulee and Pizza Pino's

What a great weekend. Friday afternoon IES payed for us to eat lunch on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower (sooo yummy) and great views! So we got a free ticket up and a free meal! Then that evening Remi and I went to a "cabaret" (more of a vegas show girls show) in Pigale and it was a blast. My favorite act they did was the french Can Can. It was amazing; the girls were squealing the whole time they were dancing and it was soo much fun! We had the chance to walk around Montmatre before the show and had dinner at a really good restaurant in the area. 

Saturday I met Amanda for lunch and then we met up with some of her friends from back home that happened to be passing through. We hung out with them and a gaggle of others for the rest of the day and had dinner at Pizza Pino's on the Champs Elysee! (good suggestion Laniers! :) We had planned to go out Friday and Saturday evening but ended up being to exhausted both nights to do anything. We decided the way to do it is spend the day doing nothing if you're going to go out to clubs. They don't even open until 11:00 and it doesn't really get going until about 1:00 am. :P

Sunday was AMAZING! I went to Versailles with Amanda and her friends and we spent 7 hours there! We made sure and got there right when it opened (9:00 am) and it was perfect! The line for tickets wasn't too long and we got through the chateau before it got too crowded. It was the Journe du Patrimoine this weekend (which means pretty much all museums, and a number of other attractions, are open for free) so we got to go into Marie Antoinette's chateau and grounds for free! It was a really interesting experience. Apparently she had a play area/village built for her (she was 15 when she became queen) where she would go with her friends and play peasants. She had cows, goats, and other animals brought in so they could pretend, but of course not actually take care of them. So they brought farmers in to tend to them. Pretty crazy to think that she was doing all that while Paris was starving. 

I also got to try my first Creme Brulee! It was delicious!

Classes started today; I had Bandes Desinees (comic strips/books) et Societe and Cinema et Societe. They both seem like they are going to be really interesting and a lot of fun. I was quite impressed with myself when I could comprehend - pretty much - everything the professors were saying! Hopefully it will continue to get easier. My biggest problem right now is having the confidence to speak myself!

Hope everything is going well back in the States! 

Beau Gosse et Bilingue

I've been really bad about updating, so sorry about that! 

I've met a couple of really great friends! One that lives really close, Amanda, so it's been really awesome getting to hang out with her! I feel like I've seen so much of Paris in the past week: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Centre Pompidue, the Louvre (parts), the Latin Quarter, St Germain-des-Pres, and s

o much more! It's been an amazing adventure and my feet are close to falling off.  

Classes start next week, so all we've been doing this past week is our language and culture class from 9-11 in the morning each day. There's been a ton of time for exploring! Tomorrow afternoon I'm going on a tour of Montmartre, a quarter of Paris, with IES and I'm really excited about seeing the area! 

Everything with my host family is going great. Laurene made the chili that I gave them as a gift tonight and did a great job with it. She really enjoyed it too!! I'm not so sure what Lucie thought of it but she ate most of it, so that's good!

This past Firday Amanda, Bonnie, Darell, and I met Remi, Antoine, Johan and Yohanna (Parisian friends from London) at the Louvre (it's free Friday nights for students) and had an amazing time. Afterward we walked along the Seine to the Latin Quarter where we ate dinner at a Greek restaurant. Hands down the best night in Paris so far! I felt ridiculously french while walking along the Seine with everyone.

Also, the Pope came this weekend so everywhere we went was really really busy. It's also getting much colder much sooner than any of us thought it would! 

Yesterday, Amanda and I were planning on meeting for lunch at one at a cafe and when we got there we realized that literally EVERYTHING (minus maybe 2 stores) closes in Boulogne after noon on Sundays. Everything. So we found a baguette and some cheese and went to the park and had a makeshift pick nick with the rest of the town. Also, roller blading and Razor scooters are curiously in style and everywhere in Paris. Even some of the police officers ride around on roller blades. It's pretty amusing to see men riding to work on their Razors. 

Hope everyone is doing well!!

ps - I fixed the flickr link on my last post! Thanks Karlene!

It's what separates us from the French.

Just wanted to write a quick entry to give everyone my numbers because... I FINALLY got my new SIM card working!

To call me from the states, call: 817-717-7297

If you happen to be in France, call: 06 80 20 54 12

Every thing's going well so far! Orientation has been good and we start our intensive language classes tomorrow morning! yay... We had to take a test today that was horrid and made me feel really inadequate at french. O well, as long as it's over and it didn't count towards anything except placing us in classes. 

Yesterday I went to the Jardins du Luxembourg with a friend and they were beautiful and filled with people. And today some of us went shopping in St. Germain du Pres and it's gorgeous down there, with lots of great (and expensive) stores. 

I was watching an episode of Rules of Engagement the other night and in a conversation about an infuriating lady in the elevator that wouldn't say hello after they said hi to her Jeff (Patrick Warburton) in all his amazingness said "When a stranger says hi to you, you have to say hi back. It's what separates us from ... the French." I thought it was extremely appropriate, and quite funny. :)

I hope everyone's having a great day!

Also, the link to my Project 365 on Flickr is

http://flickr.com/photos/29204746@N03/

Settle Down

Here's my mailing address for anyone that is interested:

Andrea Benson

c/o IES

77, rue Daguerre

75014 Paris, France

Today was the first day for everyone to go to the IES center. Apparently there are about 140 people in the group this semester so they had to split us up into two separate groups. Hopefully that means lots of opportunities for friends! Unfortunately I can already see cliques starting to form, just in the first group. Some people already know a few others, and that's never fun for anyone. However, seeing as today was the first day that I met any of them I shouldn't start passing judgement right away. I had lunch with a group of about 9 girls and it was pretty fun, a little expensive though. I'm going to have to figure out how to do lunches so it doesn't start costing too much. 

This evening Lucie and I had dinner together and got to sit around a talk for a little while. It's really fun getting to learn the differences between the two cultures. She's going to take me around Boulogne tomorrow afternoon, so we'll go shopping and to the library and the museum. It should be a fun afternoon. 

I'm almost completely settled in at the house. The family is really nice and very accommodating. I think that they've done this at least once before. I had the chance to walk around a little bit of Boulogne this afternoon when I came back from the center and it's really nice. I bought an orchid plant for my room, so hopefully I'll be able to keep it alive for the next few months. 

I'm still trying to figure everything out with my phone, so when I do, I will let everyone know the phone number they can reach me on!

It's really nice finally being settled in one place; I think that's where most of my home sickness came from.

We don't actually start classes until September 22, so until then we have orientation pretty much everyday (minus weekends and next Friday). It doesn't look like anyone has classes on Fridays, so that will be nice when I decide to travel...or have a lot of studying to do. ;)

The weather has actually been quite chilly and very rainy and windy. Laurene said that it's not normal though, so hopefully it will pass soon and be nice outside for a little while!

Hope everyone is doing well!

If If

Well, it's my first day in Paris! The hotel that Dr. Schein suggested, Hotel Montpensier, is really great. It's right by the Louvre, in a very nice area of town. The room that I have is quite large, compared to what I was expecting. I made it to the hotel from the Gare du Nord by the Metro which is much different than the subway and the underground, just by the feel, it serves the same purpose. 

Yesterday Karlene and I hung out with three of the french guys that we met at the hostel. We went to the Tate Modern, and actually got to look at everything. And then went on the Gosts of Old London walking tour. Karlene and I both felt bad afterward because they guide was scottish which made it even harder for the guys to understand. They pretty much couldn't understand any of it. They're all coming back to Paris Monday and offered to help me around and hang out, which will be great to have some familiar faces around!

My shoes have officially torn up my feet, so I'm glad to have my suitcase with more shoes in it!

Hope everyone's having a great day!

Just punches and Just bicycles

In the last 24 hours Karlene and I have met 6 french students on  vacation at our hostel here from Paris. It's been a lot of fun talking to them and hearing them interact with one another and also being able to help them with their english and practice some french as well!

We met three of them last night sitting in the lobby and we all just started talking and ended up talking for about three hours. They were all super funny and a lot of fun to talk to! There french was so incredibly fast that when they talked to one another I could barely catch single words. It was great getting to hear it though! The first thing they said when I told them I'm from Texas was George Bush. They said that in france he's mother f**ker. haha They didn't speak that much english but they know what to call GW. They asked what my favorite american actor is and I told them Daniel Craig and had to explain that he was the new James Bond. They started joking about one of them being the future James Bond and that he's only use punches and bicycles. We ended up talking about rap music for a lot of the evening because that was what was on the television. And we learned that french tv teaches them that americans eat chocolate covered ants and that everyone in Texas hates black people. I told them that the tv lies to them and to stop watching it.

The other three we met this afternoon and the first thing they said when I told them I'm from Texas is that the hurricane was coming towards it. Apparently Gustav made the front page on one of the free papers today. And then they proceeded to make fun of my accent. 

Today we went and saw the changing of the guards this morning at the Horse Guard. It was pretty interesting but lasted about 10 minutes and then we got bored of watching the guards stare at each other. The horses were HUGE though and they were really funny to watch because no matter where you are or how much training you give a horse they're always horses first and foremost. They were trying to get their bridles off and picking on each other the whole time. It was pretty amusing watching them. 

We went to the London Dungeons this afternoon and waited an hour in line thinking we were going to pay 20 pound a person and when we got to the front of the line the lady in line behind us gave us an extra 50% off coupon she had so it only ended up being ten pounds, which was awesome. The dungeons were interesting but not what I was expecting and not as fun. There's a ride that drops you at the end and they take a picture of you right in the middle and the faces that Karlene and I were making were well worth the money to get in. 

We went and saw Spamalot in the West End tonight. It was really funny, but pretty much just the Holy Grail with the story mixed up a bit. But definitely worth it. 

I'm much more relaxed and excited about Paris being around some Parisians, but still a little nervous about meeting my host family...and talking to her on the phone!

Hope everyone's having a great day!