After waiting and waiting for my laundry to be done, I finally met up with a few friends from UC Berkeley. I underestimated how far away the district they were in was, took me over an hour to walk there. We went through Victor Hugo's house, which was really interesting, and then walked around the neighborhood for a couple hours.
The person who does this art goes by "Space Invader." There are tons of these around Paris.
This is all chocolate :) Thought my mom would like this. The truffles inside looked even more amazing.
They also went to the Pompidou, but as I had made the mistake of running that morning, I didn't think my knee could handle also walking around a museum for a few more hours.
Pompidou at night.
I came back to my apartment, chatted with Berton and my parents, and then had some wine with my housemates. Silome, from Holland, turned 21 yesterday, so we decided to go to a bar for drinks. We took the Metro over as it was quite a ways to the bar where we were meeting up with another one of my housemate's friends. The bar we ended up in was actually "private," only open to those friend's with the owner (one of the guys we went with did). It was quite small, but it was nice to have a glass of wine in a bar for the first time. However, since it was private, smoking was also allowed inside which led me to develop a headache pretty quickly. We finally left a little before two.
On our way out, more friends of the people we were with were coming to the bar.the They definitely enjoyed that I was Californian and I got to practice a bit of my amateur French with them. I am really amazed about how much people know about America here...a couple of them started asking about Jerry Brown being governor and the Steelers game that was in progress. Also, when I told them I was going to Sciences Po, they began to bow to me, literally. Apparently it is a really big deal to go to this school here...similar to Harvard in America I suppose. It will be interesting to be in a private institution. They already told us during orientation that we don't have to worry about strikes since it isn't a public school. I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about this by the end of the semester :)
Anyway, we were heading back to the metro a little before 2 am, under the impression that it didn't close until 3 am. We were wrong. We got to grab one train that brought us closer to the center of Paris, but could go no further. The gate of the metro were literally closing as we were attempting to exit.
We would have probably began a one hour walk home, but my knee at this point had had it. I was ready to just take the hit and hire a taxi. However, my housemate who navigated us home through the bus system. We ended up getting home at 3:30, and to celebrate making it and our friends birthday, we finished the night off with some Paris pastries and tarts (yummy).
The consequence of staying out so late however, is that I didn't get up for mass at Notre Dame and lunch after with Berkeley friends as I had planned, which I was really bummed about.
I instead got up when mass was about getting out, 11:30. My housemates and I decided to visit the Catacombs today, which was definitely interesting, but more creepy.
I didn't expect it to be so massive...it really went on forever, and tourists are only allowed through one path of the catacombs, it is really crazy expansive. Also couldn't get great pictures because flash was not allowed :(
Because of the beautiful weather, Silome and I decided to make the trek over to the Tour Eiffel. However, we underestimated how tired we were.
I thought the name of this place near the Tour Eiffel was really funny-stands for the dog who smokes.
But of course we made it there :)
I thought the Tour Eiffel was really impressive. I've had people tell me that it isn't such a big deal in person, but I thought it was very awe inspiring.
We didn't buy tickets beforehand, nor were we up for the wait in line, so after walking through the park we took the metro home and took a bunch of pictures of the Tour Eiffel on the other side next to the Seine.
I think my plan for tonight is to RELAX and stay off my knee. We may watch a movie and drink some wine later which sounds perfect to me :)
On another note, definitely felt my first pinch of homesickness today. Little things that are different/more difficult/need to be fixed (washing machine, house needing to be cleaned, knee hurting, fridge not being very cold, school starting) have left me a little anxious. However, I'm trying to take on one thing at a time. My orientation begins again at 9 am tomorrow with free breakfast, so I'm sure that will lift my mood. If not, I'll stop by a pastry shop on the way home :)
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