Bonsoir!

It's great to hear from all of you, and I'm glad you find me so amusing. Your comments are very entertaining, so please keep them coming!

A few answers and clarifications: You don't pronounce the 't' in "Salut", so it's not really a harsh sounding word. So you can all sit back down and relax and there's no need to salute me. It just means "Hi!" Talking to strangers is bad news, that's true. But sometimes you meet nice strangers, and since everyone in this whole city is a stranger, I sort of need to talk to a few of them. But I'm not going to go anywhere with them, even when they ask me if I want to go to a café with them. I'm glad you are all putting so much thought into the math problems and am also glad that no one is going to jail. And it sounds like everyone had fun weekends! Also, "cradle" and "bombing" were learned on different nights. Because we usually find one (important) word that I don't know at each dinner. And apparently "cradle" was deemed important.

Yesterday was another free day with no class or field trips, which are my favorite. I had asked a few people the day before if they wanted to go to the Catacombs, and a group of 4 of us met at 11. The catacombs were quite disgusting, but also really, really cool. They are in tunnels/caves under Paris beneath the metro and water/sewer lines and were built hundreds of years ago when they were running out of cemetery space, so they dug up a whole bunch of mass graves and transferred the bones to these underground areas where they are artistically stacked and arranged. And it goes on for ages, so there are tons and tons of bones with tons and tons of people, and it was pretty amazing. They also have some French poetry about death randomly posted about, which was amusing in the sense that it was over-the-top depressing.

After that we went to the Carnavalet Museum because we are all required to go see it for our Proust class. At that point my friend Mira left to go home and my roommate Kathy met up with us. And before walking from the subway to the museum we went into a bakery where I bought a mini quiche and a chocolate croissant. The quiche was quite tasty but the croissant? Man, oh man, that was delicious. Definitely a cut above our croissants in the U.S. Then we went to the museum, which was free. It was mildly interesting, but was essentially an old mansion filled with various paintings and furniture from throughout the history of Paris, so it seemed rather random and like an odd collection. But there were some interesting pieces and we saw Proust's bedroom setup and furniture, and then we left.

We also had to walk down the central Jewish street Rosiers so I went to do that while other people headed off to eat more food and then go shopping. The street wasn't particularly bustling but there were a few plaques about Jewish deportation during WWII. Then I wandered around a bit more and saw Hôtel de Ville, which was a cool and massive building, before heading home on the subway.

Yesterday evening/night I went to the park and booked a hostel in Amsterdam for the weekend and then went to Gare du Nord to make a train reservation, which was slightly overwhelming, but I prevailed. Then we had quiche for dinner and Ingrid and Jean Claude went to the theatre and I did some of my reading and then we went to bed.

Today we met our group at the Gare de Lyon train station to head to Fontainebleau Chateau. I left extra early because train stations confuse me and, sure enough, our train was leaving from the "Grandes Lignes" section, where we were specifically told not to go. But this time I decided to ask early on and got to the right terminal area and then I thought I had found the train, but since we had only been given the time of the train and not the number (and the trains are only listed by their final destination) I asked to be sure I was in the right spot. And I was, and I was proud. And I was also half an hour early.

We took a 45 minute train ride which was interesting because we got to see some of suburban Paris/France along with pretty trees and rivers and winding paths and things. And then we toured Fontainebleau!

We all received the audio tour guide and followed that through the chateau, and it was very interesting. Every room (almost) had the amazing elaborate ceilings and gilded walls with frescos and sculptures and stone and wood paneling. It was also at that chateau where Napoleon said farewell to his troops before heading into exile, so there was a lot of history involved.

Then we had lunch in a café (not as a big group), and that was tasty. Then we met back up, waited ages for a bus, got to the train station 50 minutes before the hourly train, and decided to go for a hike in the woods! We had originally been planning on walking through the woods a bit, but then it started to rain and we changed our minds. But the rain had mostly stopped and off we went, and it was very pretty and nice to be back in nature, instead of in a big city. And the leaves were beautiful. Eventually it started pouring and we headed back, saw we were now 45 minutes early for the next train and went and drank coffee and hot chocolate, which were delicious. At this point it was a group of me, two guys, Mira, and our conversation class teacher with his 17-month-old adorable daughter named Maddie (or maybe Maddy, I'm not sure). And she was very cute and so I played with her a bit. And we took a train back to Paris and talked about France and comparative literature and played peek-a-boo, and it was great. And then I took the metro home.

When I got off the metro I decide I was too hungry to wait 4 hours until dinner, so I bought a chocolate croissant. And then some lady who must be a landlady of sorts told me I couldn't come inside the apartment building while I ate my croissant because she had just vacuumed. So I ate it outside and then came back inside. And it was actually kind of nice because I think she was trying to be annoyed but she could tell I was actually nice so she was pretty friendly and we got to speak French.

Also, apparently the play Ingrid and Jean Claude went to wasn't very good, because Jean Claude said he fell asleep five times. Which is sad, and also reminds me of my daddy.

And now I am tired and lying on my bed typing this in the dark while Kathy is trying to nap underneath me. And sometime (soon, hopefully) I will post it for you!

Also, I since I am heading to Amsterdam this weekend (which you hopefully caught on to), I probably won't post next until Tuesday or Wednesday because I don't want to bring my computer and risk it getting stolen in the hostel. But you can call me if you'd like, or I will talk to you in a few days!

Also, pictures are up! I have a ton more, but I decided to limit it a bit. Unfortunately, there aren't a ton of me because either I was touring by myself, or I was touring with other people and the pictures of me are on their cameras. So I will work on that. But enjoy!