Getting in the groove

After having class for three days, I think I can say that I thoroughly enjoy Paris. I mean, who can say that they get to walk to school through the Luxembourg Garden? And stops in a café and is given free cappuccino and pain au chocolat on her first day of school? And gets to make friends with people from all over the world and learn more French at the same time? Yeah. I feel pretty blessed.

The level of French in the intermediate class has not been a huge challenge, but I've enjoyed answering questions and helping other students in the class. It's been a good way to test my teaching abilities, I think... :) My favorite people to help are Julia, the German girl, and Mickele, the tall, skinny, teddy bear Italian. It's also nice to have less homework from this class so that I can work on my reports for Monsieur Kevin, the program director. It took me about 5 hours yesterday to finish my report on la Cité... That wasn't pleasant, but at least it's over and I didn't have any other homework.

This morning, Abbey and I left the Foyer early in order to find a place to print off our reports that are due tomorrow. We wandered around in the streets for about 10 minutes before we found the Cyber Café right next to one of the Alliance Française buildings. It was closed, so we resolved to check after class. As soon as school was over, I went over there and printed off our papers. In there, I found so many assortments of paper and I realized that all my panicking at the beginning of finding paper was in vain because it was here all along... if only I had been braver in exploring... Oh well. At least I know of a place to get more paper if I need it...

We went to the Cathedral at Chartres today after class at Alliance Française and it was great. As I approached the lovely Notre Dame, I remembered being there two years ago and how much I loved it back then. Malcom Miller, a nice elderly English gentleman who has been working at the cathedral for 50 years sat us down for 2 hours and told us about some of the stained glass windows and the history of the building. It was a great experience! After that, we had time to wander around the town a little. Most of the shops were closed, but I took a few people to a patisserie (pastry shop) that I visited two years ago and we all got something to tide us over until we got back to Paris.

I've decided that I enjoy taking the train. Getting my luggage through the metro to the Gare Montparnasse will not be fun in 1.5 weeks, but that's a ways off, so I'll worry about that when I get there. Tomorrow will be another slower day, sans excursion. I'm looking forward to that because I'll work on homework after class and maybe go to the Eiffel Tower and that area over there. That's the tentative plan.

It's hard to believe I've almost been here one week. It's been a great week... eventful and dydactic... but great.