Hello again!
It's been a while since I've written here, it's been a busy week! On Thursday we went to Montmartre, such a beautiful part of Paris. It's the place where so many famous artists used to live, including Van Gogh, Picasso, and Dali. It's still a community for artists, and in the center of the town you can see all their art on display. We walked around for a couple hours and saw the whole town. The Sacre Coeur is in Montmartre and we went in to see it. It was so beautiful with tall ceilings and the only light was from the millions of candles. We got some lunch and sat on some stairs with a great view of the town. I learned in Montmartre that apparently Van Gogh did not cut off his own ear in a passionate rage, his friend did. Apparently his friend was an excellent fencer, and he and Van Gogh were playing and his friend accidentally cut off his ear. Van Gogh told everyone he cut off his own ear so that his friend wouldn't be thrown into jail. So it turns out Van Gogh was a good friend as well as an excellent artist. After Montmartre we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower and sat in the park and wrote postcards and napped. It was so relaxing and the weather was warm. It was pretty hot this weekend, everyone was in shorts and summer clothes. I love it.
On Friday we went to Versailles for the day. Versailles is the most amazing palace I've ever seen. The gates were painted with gold, there are thousands of statues, and every room is unique as it is excessive. It's pretty ridiculous how self-righteous and extremely rich the French monarchy was. It's no wonder people hated them. But as unfair as they were, they knew how to live in style.
We walked around the palace and then the gardens, and decided to walk a half hour to La Domaine de Marie-Antoinette (Marie-Antoinette's house and garden). It was so beautiful.
On Saturday we decided to walk the Champs d'Elysees and go shopping. There are so many amazing stores which are also amazingly expensive. The style here is so cool, I wanted to buy some amazing blue high heels, but I couldn't convince myself that they were worth 60 Euro. We went to the Arc du Triomphe which was of course full of tourists. Then some soldiers told us we had to clear the area and a bunch of them lined up next to the tomb of le soldat inconnu (the unknown soldier) so I think they were paying a tribute to him.
On Sunday my friends and I decided to have a picnic on the Seine. We went to St. Michel, a really cool part of Paris with tiny streets and all ethnicities of food. There was even a Mexican restaurant! I got a crepe with nutella. We sat on the left bank and ate our food and watched as the tourist boats sailed past. Some took pictures of us and we felt very french. After a while we began posing for the pictures, just to add some excitement to their photo album of Paris. It was very relaxing to sit at the Seine and pretend we were true parisiennes. Sunday night I went to Maggie and Molly's appartment for dinner. They are two very good friends from USD who are in Paris but go to the American school here. Apparently they became friends with a turkish guy in their class and he invited us over to hangout in his awesome apartment. We talked about how amazing Turkey is while drinking some very nice wine. He told us how he moved here when he was 15 because his parents made him. I couldn't decide if that would be fun or not, 15 is very young to be living in such a huge city by yourself. But it's cool because he knows all the cool clubs and bars and is definitely a good person to know here.
I don't have class on mondays so yesterday Carolina and I went back to the St Michel area of Paris. We walked on the other side of the seine where people set up little kiosks and sell things. Some people were selling their artwork, but it was mostly posters and used books. I found a book from 1890! I bought some really cool posters and postcards, I love the vintage art of Paris. We then met up with some friends and went to a little café, and I had to teach my friend how to ask our waiter to come out with us (she speaks no french).
Today was the first day of classes, I had french class for three hours. It was so long! My french classes are tuesdays thursdays and fridays and are three hours long, while my english classes are once a week but are 4 hours long. I don't know how Im going to stay awake. (a cappuccino and chocolate croissant, perhaps?)
After class we went to Marais, a part of Paris with really cool vintage shopping. It is also the Jewish center as well as the gay center of Paris. Definitely interesting.
Tonight my friends and I are going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, should be fun! Every hour after the sun sets the lights on the Eiffel Tower twinkle, so hopefully we will be up there when that happens!

I'm creating a Flikr account to share photos. Next post!