Babysitting

My burn is continuing to heal, which is a relief. It should be gone soon, I hope.

So I babysat Julia and her little friend Satine this morning. Today I felt like I discovered the secret to babysitting! Remember those cootie catchers we folded out of paper when we were little? They had never seen them before; apparently, it's not a French thing, so when I made some for the girls, they were totally into it and spent the whole time making/playing with them.

I will be babysitting (excusez moi, *teaching English to*) Satine this Friday and possibly Saturday, so I went home with Satine and her nanny so I could see how to get to her apartment. I thought Julia's family was rich, but Satine's is crazy rich! I had some indication she came from money when I saw her little shoes were Marc Jacobs and her coat was Christian Dior. We got into the car, at first I thought it was Satine's father driving the car, but Vilma, the nanny, introduced him as their driver. We went to an apartment a short distance away where I was introduced to another housekeeper.

When I walked in, the first thing I said to Vilma was that it looked just like a museum. And it did; there were statues and huge paintings and weird art everywhere. She started laughing when I told her that, and repeated what I had said to the other woman. She was like, "wait until you see downstairs!" She showed me downstairs and there was a bunch of art, a home gym, a jacuzzi, and she opened another door and there was an indoor swimming pool! I ate lunch with the 2 housekeepers, the housekeeper's daughter, Satine, and her 2 little sisters. They are cute and kind of shy; they seem well behaved thankfully, not like little monsters. They vaguely remind me of me, Kimbo, Vanessa, and Marissa when we were little.

My French presentation went well today. I had a lot of colorful pictures of macaroons which distracted the class as I struggled through my pronunciation. And tomorrow for Human Resource Management I have to dress up in nice business attire because we're doing a role playing game simulating recruiters and candidates. I'm playing one of the recruiters for a consulting firm who is interviewing 4 potential candidates.

Oh, in painting class on Tuesday, we painted our first nude figure. For some reason, a bunch of people were absent that day, so there were only 7 other students in the class, which made for a nice, intimate atmosphere. The teacher hadn't told us we would be painting a figure today, so it was a little unnerving at first to see some naked girl standing in the classroom, but after 3 hours of painting, it was no big deal. And I like the way my painting came out! Yesterday, I painted a picture of a carrousel. I'll post my pictures on the blog sometime.

Hmmm, I was browsing online with Serena and we found a flight to Madrid for a weekend in April for only 15 euros. But the airport is 50 miles away from Paris, so the shuttle to and from the airport will add an extra 26 euros. And we can do hostels for around 20 euros a night. We're considering booking the flight, but not sure if we'll have enough time there. We'd be departing Saturday night and flying back Monday morning.