Une Princesse de Fleur!

I know i haven't updated my blog in forever, but I have been extremely busy lately and have not had internet as readily available to me. First of all, I have a new address! I moved to 1 Boulevard Emile Augier. It's still in the 16th arrondisement, but I used to live in the northern 16 and now I live in the southern 16. I live at La Muette, right by the metro, ALL the way at the western end of Paris. I love my new area because even though I liked Victor Hugo also, it was very residential. There wasn't too much to see or do without taking a walk. But La Muette is a very ritzy, lively, energetic, dynamic place to live in comparison. There are lots of shopping places, boulangeries, and restaurants nearby. There's a Sephora down the street from me; Serena and I used to try on all the makeup at the Sephora on the Champs Elysees, but now that there's one so close by, we just go there. It's funny because this morning, we went there first thing and just used all their makeup and products. We always put a ton of products in our hair and spray all the perfume. We're so delightfully snobby when we do it too: we go straight for the most expensive products in the back and turn our nose up at the cheaper makeup in the front.

I've been exploring my new area, discovering the best places for macaroons, baguettes, etc. I go to this small mall right by my house called the Passy Plaza. H&M is my favorite store there.

I feel happy with my decision to move out of my housing arrangement early because I'm saving so much money this way, and my room at La Muette is much nicer than my room at Victor Hugo. My room here feels cozy; I have a little kitchen area in the corner, and I live right next door to a park. I climb out the window and sit on the roof. I can see the park and into some people's houses, sort of like Rear Window. There's some sort of embassy across the street which is VERY mysterious... The only sucky thing is that I don't have internet! I suppose I can always take my computer to the McDonald's that's nearby, but I've just been going to the school's library a lot. I've also been checking out movies to watch at home to entertain myself: I've seen The Birds, Mullholland Drive, Elizabeth, Some Like it Hot, and a couple others.

The family I au pair for is in New York for 2 weeks, which is nice because I have no babysitting obligations. Finals are approaching, which is somewhat troublesome. I have to do a lot more painting, especially the 3 paintings that are going to count as our final. My French oral final is this Wednesday. I have an extra credit assignment to do for Human Resource Management. And I have a big group project I'm doing for Entrepreneurship class.

One notable thing I did recently was take a class at Le Cordon Bleu to learn how to make lemon pound cake and lime macaroons. It was just a demonstration; we watched the chef make it, we didnt' actually get to make it ourselves but I enjoyed it. And the two assistants kept saying "Oui chef!" just like on Hell's Kitchen, but in French. I really want to make macaroons now, but I don't know anyone with a high tech oven.

I went to the movies on the Champs Elysees with Mathilde a few times. The screens are so small compared to America! We saw Deux Soeurs Pour Une Roi (The Other Boleyn Girl; the French title means Two Sisters for One King) and Penelope. I was thinking about it and Mathilde is one of the few actual French friends I've made in Paris. It's quite hard to become friends with genuine Parisians because I go to an American school where everyone speaks English and everything is Americanized. School is always the primary place to meet people and make friends, and AUP is such a small university. Many of the students are only visiting, like myself. So most of the people I know and interact with are American; I know some international students and very few French students.

I've heard other students complain about how they feel the French classes at AUP are too easy and they haven't learned anything. To the contrary, I feel like my French has progressed worlds, because I didn't know much before. I'm still not too concerned with grammar and spelling; I prefer learning how to say phrases and construct simple sentences.

Today was the "World's Fair" at AUP where all the students had tables with food representing their different nationalities. I had just bought this shirt from H&M that's white with a purple flowered print on it, and Serena was wearing some flowered dress also; we stopped in the park near the Eiffel tower on our way and braided a bunch of flowers into our hair. Along the way, we started talking about how we looked Hawaiian and joking about how we could say we were representing Hawaii at the World's Fair and avoid the 5 euro cover charge. We started practicing saying "Aloha" and "Mahalo." Well, everyone believed us, even though there wasn't even a Hawaii table! We got all the food for free, mwah ha ha!

These are just random pictures I liked...

Hot Chocolate being poured

chocolate cake
The Simpsons Go To Paris
charmant!
I like to paint whipped cream, because I put lots of colors into it.
pastries
tulips. Paris is getting sunnier..

View from the Sacre Coeur.

This was from that protest of the olympics being held in China. Supposedly, the Chinese have been oppressing Tibet or something, so there was a demonstration.



cemetery

Ha! I forget which museum this was at...


the view at night

scratched in the bathroom in the museum of modern art
some "interesting" works of art, at the centre pompidou
All is well!
The park at La Muette

The tuileries! One of my favorite places in Paris! i've been reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. I go sit on the chairs there and it's pleasant.

A shot of Rome:
More paris at night
I learned the words to this french children's song, Une Souris Verte, and I keep singing it. I try to see how fast I can sing the song. I also learned the words to Alouette, but I like to sing them as La Muette.

Pareee

Nothing new happening in the past few days, I've just been painting a lot.

My new bangs....

Hardly anyone was on campus today, it seemed. There were only 7 people in my French class today, and there's usually around 17 (so we watched a movie in French). I think most people were tired from last night. AUP had a party at a club called SixSeven on the Champs Elysees. It was hyped up on the fliers as a "free sushi event" but I never saw a single piece of sushi all night. The rumor was that there was, like, 1 piece of sushi, and the first person who got there ate it. It was fun, I enjoyed myself, but I left pretty early. It was nice that it's so close to home; I didn't need to take a taxi or anything. It seemed like I knew so many of the people there, which made it kind of tiresome.

This is that one picture of me and Irina Lazareanu from the Chanel fashion show that I said earlier I would post. My friend finally sent it to me!

Voila!! This is from the AUP party last night- check out my untra-cool new bangs! They make me feel very hippie-ish, in a Kate Hudson/Almost Famous way, so I've been wearing more love beads and stuff.

Me:
Kate Hudson:

This was from the fondue night...
White wine in baby bottles, yummy cheese fondue, and me and Serena... I still have so many more things I need to do in Paris, but I'm saving some of them until dad, Kimbo, and Vanessa get here. Hopefully, I will have the whole summer in Paris, assuming my au pair job pans out as it's supposed to. I met with the family again yesterday and it seems promising because they want me to move in as soon as possible. Also, they're going to Cannes in July and she suggested I'd go with them! That would be really fun!

The past week

On Thursday night I went to Duplex with Tessa and ended up running into a bunch of AUP people. It was a lot more fun than last week; the music was better.

On Friday, I went on the chocolate walk, the cultural excursion I signed up for. It was cool because they ended up feeding us so many different types of chocolate. I never want to eat m&ms or Hershey's again after hearing how it's such bad quality, so bitter and sour. They gave us some information on the history of chocolate, like how it used to just be a drink, not a solid, and took us to different chocolate places.

On Saturday I went to school to pick up my ticket for The Taming of the Shrew play, and then made my way to Palais Royal to meet up with the other students to see the performance. Surprise, surprise: It was all in French! I wish I could say I understood everything, but I didn't understand most of it. I kept trying to remember back when I read the play in high school to keep up with what was going on.

On Sunday, I went out for fondue in Montmartre with friends. They served us wine in baby bottles... And for dessert, I had orange ice cream served inside a hollowed out orange.

Today, there was some protest going on, so there were police everywhere. The Olympic torch was passing through Paris today, and since the next Olympics are being held in China, there were a bunch of demonstrators opposing the Chinese oppresssion of Tibet.

In other news, I have bangs now! They're very ooh la la. I'll post pictures later.

Just like in the Mary-Kate and Ashley movie...

Today the weather was finally sunny! Hopefully the rain has ended.

After French class today, I ran into this boy from my class getting on a motorbike/scooter/vespa (I'm not sure what to call it). He said he had just gotten it on Monday, and had an extra helmet, so he ended up giving me a short ride. It was SO fun!!! I want a scooter for myself now! I don't know if this is accurate, but he said that you don't need a French driver's license to ride one; that an American license would suffice, and that you just need to pay for insurance and parking.

Obviously, it would be impractical for me to get one here in Paris, since I won't be here long-term, but it really was fun, especially going fast. I need to make friends with kids who have motorbikes so they can give me rides...!

For the rest of the afternoon, I took special notice of all the motorbikes I saw. It's cool when I see three of four people all riding alongside each other and talking.

Je suis une au pair, peut-etre...

The reason why I haven't been updating my blog as frequently is because I feel like I've settled into a routine here... everything isn't new and fresh like it was in the beginning.

So on Saturday night, Paris was a bit crazy because of some soccer thing. I don't know... they had just beaten England and they were about to play some other team, so the Champs Elysees was full of police. There were tons of young guys, soccer fans, who kept running into the streets, waving around fire, and shouting and honking. On Monday, I went to St. Michel to go to this bookstore I had heard a lot about, called Shakespeare and Co. It's a store with English books, and it has a really cool, vintage feel to it. I bought a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and discovered an old postcard inside it, written in French, from 1939...

In my painting class, ever since we got back from break, we've only been painting nude models. We painted our first male figure earlier this week, and I had a nice conversation with him about how we were both Brazilian. I had to go buy more paper today because I ran out.

I'm pleased because I feel that I finally secured an au pair job for the summer. It's not official yet, since I'm not moved in, so I shouldn't count my chickens and all that. But I get along with the mother really well (she's young and very Americanized) and I like the accomodations. The only bad thing is that I'd have to share the bathroom and shower. But at least it would feel like my own place at last. And they are going to the south of France over the summer (do ALL Parisians do that or what??) so perhaps I'll get to accompany them!

Here are a few pictures from the Chanel show:




And Angelina's, way back when:


A random night near the Eiffel Tower:



And a few pictures from Italy:
Shanna the Innocent: This was right after Serena and I had been snickering at the old women crying at the pope's grave, and the guard told us to be quiet.