Busy busy days!

I'm sorry for not keeping up with writing on here and telling you about all of the awesome things I have been doing here! Instead, I have been out doing awesome things haha! Seriously our days are so long. We get up around 8 and leave for class in Paris and then we don't come back home until after midnight. We've been doing this everyday so we carry around our backpacks everywhere and we eat from vendors on the streets most of the time. Everything is so interesting and this has been an incredible experience so far. The problem is that I'm taking two classes out here at the same time and it is difficult to keep up on all of the reading and writing that I am supposed to do for the class. Today after class (yes everyone here goes to school on saturday) we came back to our house in the suburbs and we have spent the day getting caught up on homework and journal entries. I just wrote 9 pages worth of journal entries because part of our class is that we have to write reports or summaries on the different "walks" that we do around Paris. I just finished writing about our trip to Chartres a couple of days ago, our visit to the flea market, our walk around the Latin Quarter, and our walk through the Jardins du Luxembourg. There are monuments and historic things around every corner here. The people are very interesting too; not necessarily in a good way though. There are four things about Paris that I do not like: 1. EVERYONE smokes, even young teenagers and old people. The streets and sidewalks are covered in cigarette butts and people smoke in buildings and restaurants and just everywhere. It's gross. Fortunately the museums are smoke free, but I think I permanently smell like cigarette smoke all the time now. 2. The metros smell like urine, which is just gross. This brings up another interesting thing. There are hardly any public restrooms in Paris and if there are you have to pay to use them. So one of our french friends told us that a lot of men just pee where ever they want, especially the corners of the metros, because they don't have restaurants around. Our director always tells us to "start on empty" because there are few places that have free and functioning public restrooms, called toilettes. 3. There is so much nudity in Paris! Posters, post cards, signs, movies...it's also gross. It's one thing when it's in art in museums, but it's different when it's posted on a wall on busy streets in the city. 4. Everyone drinks a lot. There aren't any open-alcohol regulations so people drink on the metros and in front of cathedrals and places like that. It makes walking around the city at night difficult because there are so many crazies out. Okay, I think I'm done venting for now. Those are just some things that are not so great about Paris, but there are plenty of good things! I really like the Latin Quarter, so named because it has some of Paris's largest universities there, because there were a lot of students there and shops that weren't too expensive. I think I've seen a new cathedral or basilica everyday that I've been here. Yesterday we went to the Basilica of Saint-Denis, which was awesome. I'm thinking a lot of my pictures are starting to look the same because they are all from the inside of churches, but really they are all so different and there is so much symbolism in each one! We had an amazing tour guide yesterday who showed us around Saint-Denis. She spoke very fast in french, but her pronunciation was great so I really understand the majority of what she said. It was a really interesting tour because the Basilica holds the bodies of almost all of Frances kings and queens so by talking a little bit about each one it was basically a review of all of the french history I have every learned, so it was really cool. I have made some really good friends out here and we have a lot of fun together. Unfortunately we have a 9:1 girl to guy ratio, so no prospects there haha. We do have a great group though and a great director. It has been great getting to work really closely and get to know our director. He's a a little man but he's a big ball of stress and I think it's funny. Anyway I have to take an exam now so I better go study! I'll try to keep more posts coming! Bisoux bisoux