First grocery trip, First day of school

I apologize for the delay in updates, but it will be a few days before we get internet at our apartment. I have been having to wait to come to school and write on my lunch break, but it shall suffice :)

So, I left off at Sunday night...

Since all the grocery stores were closed Sunday, we made our first trip to the grocery store on Monday. It was INSANE.

We had to go to La Defense to find a supermarket with reasonable prices...

which also meant we had to haul all the groceries back home via Metro...

5 huge grocery bags filled with wine and cheese, you know, the neccessities. We had to stop and take a break.

The good news? I was able to find the ingredients to cook an AMAZING gumbo for my roomies; they had no idea what it was, so I had to show them some GOOD cooking, CAJUN STYLE.

The only different ingredient: some type of French sausage (saucisse), but it was REALLY GOOD.

And the final outcome?

VOILA!

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the expressions of heavenly glory on their faces, but you can just imagine. It was the perfect meal for the night before our first day of school. Oh, and I also made us all lunch to bring the next day: croissant sandwiche au jambon avec fromage (ham sandwiches with cheese, lol)...

For me, the next morning was like the first day of kindergarten all over again. I was so excited, and kinda nervous at the same time. I will probably be more nervous next week because this week is only orientation. Of course, we left a little early, just to be on the safe side. We ended up having time to snap a few photos to remember our first day of school in Paris :)

So our first day of school was pretty good. We had more time after school to take some more pictures. These are for you Ms. Laynie :)

And our official class picture. ESCE International: Fall 2011!

So after getting home from school, we had some laundry to do. WELL...our dryer is in German or Dutch or Finnish or something (who knows?!). My lovely roommates decided to fix this problem, and to them, I am very thankful :) The four of us are like a match made in heaven.

Our freshly, english-labeled washer/dryer with pictures and all :)

Check out the label for cotton... It's a little sheep!!

And of course our little laundry man. If I were him, I would be scared, too.

I think that is all for now. I have a meeting to see what my schedule will be like in about an hour. Also, I think I will try to find Chinatown in Paris to get some soypaper to roll some sushi for dinner tonight. Don't worry. I will take pictures. And don't be too jealous, either ;)

À plus tard,
Kristen

Home, Sweet Paris

It has definitely been a CRAZY past few days. I'll try my best to remember everything :)

Sunday was AWESOME. I got to meet my roommates and we got to move into our apartment early. I couldn't have asked for BETTER roomies. LOVE 'em! We also happen to have a WONDERFUL landlord. He likes us to call him Uncle Bernie. He's 92 years old, and he has more energy and spunk than me!! Because he let us move in early, he wanted a little more time to clean the apartment, because he wanted it to be SPOTLESS for us. This gave us an opportunity to explore Paris a little more and get to know each other a little better.

So we decided to have lunch. We got on the Metro to St. Michel. We stopped to have lunch at a small little restaurant where I had onion soup (FRENCH ONION SOUP! lol), steak-frites, and creme brulee for dessert. Of course I also had to order a glass of merlot.

 

This is Alejandra and her boyfriend. He had to leave us that afternoon to go back to the North of France for school.

So while Ale was seeing off her little lovebird, the roomies and I played in St. Michel, and we had such a good time.

The roomies and Remi posing for a picture.

It was a beautiful day with a wonderful view of the river :)

Then we went around to Notre Dame and the Garden

These are the other to roommates, Alejandra (we call her Kot because we have two Alejandras, and Jos) playing in the garden

We also stopped by in a few little souvenir shops and had a little fun of our own :)

I think your Metro stop is RIGHT HERE, baby!





While sightseeing and waiting for Ale to come back from the trainstation, I came across something very intresting that reminded me of MANY of my gals from home, but Holly, Karen, and Raven Robichaux especially.

(looks like there was a problem uploading the video, but I will post later when the technical difficulties are resolved.)

Once we met up with Ale, we decided we would try to find a grocery store. But, it just so happens that in Paris, mostly everything is closed or closes early on Sundays. So unfortunately, we had nothing to cook.

Lucky for us, the previous tenant had left food in the apartment (which we were slightly weary of). Most of it was expired, but there were some things that were still good that we could use to feed ourselves for the night. Spaghetti and bernaise sauce was about the only thing that would suffice; spaghetti and bernaise sauce it was. Of course I wanted to cook in my wonderful new kitchen.

(The roomies have the picture of our wonderful first meal.) Also, we had GLACE ( ice cream) in the fridge too; we were lucky enough to have dessert. And oh my, was it delicious! Framboise sorbet and darkchocolate ice cream with dark chocolate chips. SO YUM.

After dinner we decided that we were going to take some pictures of the apartment to show off to everyone back home. Unfortunately, pictures do this apartment NO JUSTICE :)

This is the beautiful view from my bedroom...

And this is my beautiful bedroom :)

HUGE bathroom. The bubble bath will come soon enough.

Et, l'entrance

Jos in the living room...

And more living room (check out the view :)

So after we got settled into the apartment, I decided to organize my cosmetics, and as it turns out, I brought ALOT. My mom will KILL me when she sees this, but hey, she only make me downsize my luggage; she never thought about the makeup bag (hehe :) The roomies were super excited about it, though.

Only have a little more time for lunch, so I will post more about the last few days after we finish orientation.

À plus tard!



Lost in Paris

Today had its ups and downs.

The Simeral family and I started the day off with a little shopping at the local (huge) grocery store; this was a TEASE. Why? Because I can't wait to cook up these kids an awesome gumbo. Especially since it's in the 60's here; I'm so glad I'm not sweating my skin off in Thibodaux. :)


After coming back from the grocery store, we had a very good lunch, and it was beautiful outside!

Also, I got some really good news. My roommate called to tell me that we are meeting with the landlord tomorrow to get the keys and move in! Yay! We get the apartment sooner than expected. WooHoo!
With the good news, I courageously decided to take a ride into Paris and go shopping by myself (of course with lots of help from Mr. and Mrs. Simeral, local maps, google maps, etc.). With all this help, you would think I would have made it around quite easily, but think again...

After finding shelter in an apple store from the POURING rain (for about 4 minutes), another English woman and I found our way to H&M :)  This was the runner-up for HIGHLIGHT of my day. Although I only bought 3 things, I am still excited about it.
After leaving H&M, the goal was to try to shop at the Galleries Lafayette. BIG MISTAKE. There were so many people that I couldn't move. It was like I was in a can of sardines. Dangling a Louis Vuitton bag in front of me in my angst only made the situation worse. So I got out of there ASAP! However, it was BEAUTIFUL, and I managed to capture a cool sight: a man working at the Clinique counter!!

Woops, I think he spotted me catching his picture... "BONJOUR!"

Allergy Tested. 100% Fragrance Free.

So after I left, I got lost for about 2 and a half hours. Pretty much walked in circles. I started to become frustrated with myself. Then I stumbled upon a little treasure, the HIGHLIGHT of my day: OYSTERS ON THE HALFSHELL. It reminded me of home, and the oyster man was super sweet, but I passed, because I wanted to find my way home THAT BADLY. I thought to myself, "Ok, Cheer up, silly. You're in PARIS."
So I stopped at a Starbuck's patio table and recomposed myself. I then managed to find my way back to the right RER station (after a very long, long, LONG walk and asking "Parlez-vous Anglais?" to about 25 people).

Also, on the RER ride home, there was this nasty couple who couldn't stop sucking each other's face off. If I would have eaten something, I probably would have thrown it up. You see, PDA is widespread in Paris. And it's gross. Just saying.

So after a 30 minute RER ride back to St. Germain-en-Laye, I was exhausted. It was nice and chilly outside, and I had a great view while waiting for my ride. It totally made up for the mishaps of today :)

Chateau St. Germain-en-Laye all lit up at night

Just a SLIGHT disaster, LoL

So, I was brave enough to hit the streets of Paris solo last night. I was so nervous getting on the RER and the metro by myself that you could probably spot my scared self from a mile away. I was ok once I got my ticket. The guy selling tickets knew I was having trouble with my French, so he made me practice with him! Haha. It was great, until I couldn't figure out how to get on the RER. Thank goodness most everyone speaks English.

So I managed to get on and off the RER and onto the Metro, with PLENTY of help, but once I got off, that is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT STORY. As I'm wandering around the streets of Paris asking people, "Parlez-vous Anglais?!", I'm thinking to myself: "What the HELL did I get myself into. I think I'm crazy." Then out of nowhere, appears my destination: The James Joyce Pub! WooHoo, Thank you, JESUS! I was going to meet some classmates of mine, only I showed up about 40 minutes late, because I got lost and I think I also lost my mind for a second, too (Woops!)

I thought the Pub was the perfect little spot to sit out and enjoy a drink, especially after my RER/Metro fiasco. But NOOOOOOOOOO, it wasn't good enough for the European boys (might I add who are slightly rude, but OK, I can handle it). So of course, they want to go elsewhere, so we get on the damn Metro, again, and walk around for about an hour or so (because the boys, who are like a million feet tall by the way, decide they are hungry).  Found some interesting sights along the way, which totally compensated for...the other stuff.

So the lovely gentlemen from Brazil pictured on the left, were extremely polite. I promised to cook them a MEAN gumbo:) And to my right, well you can see how happy he looks to be in the picture. (By the way, I was later told that the one who brings the camera is the unpopular one. Well Mr.: until YOU are paying me to take some pictures, SHUT IT :] )

Also found this very talented gentleman outside of a pub...somewhere:

Eventually the boys decided on a pub that was good enough for them, called Tennessee. Just a little American satisfaction for me :)

By the time we got back on the Metro and I managed to find my way to the RER, guess what?? IT WAS CLOSED.  So, I'm standing around La Defense by myself, (not a very safe thing to do and was thankfully fussed later for it). Good thing Mr. Ron gave me his daughter's cell phone to bring with me and good thing he called! I managed to find a taxi, which just so happened to be a Mercedes. OK Paris, points for you. So after a 40 euro taxi ride home and an extremely difficult time explaining my destination to the taxi driver who didn't speak English, I finally made it. YES! But it wasn't my fault I was late, it was the boys :)

So lesson learned. Don't trust the European boys. Haha.

After finally making it to bed and sleeping most of the night, this is what I woke up to:

One of the 2 recent additions to the Simeral family...

And maybe half of the other one.

(These pictures especially go out to Sunnie Diaz, Victoria Chiasson, and Emily Pizzolatto, my wonderful feline friendly femme fatales- try saying it 5 times quickly, haha)





But who can be mad at such cute little things?! Not me! So, all in all it was a very interesting night and a mostly lovely morning, after a few bottles of water and some Aleve.

Side note: Don't take shots with Tabasco, and don't let the European boys persuade you into taking them either. With oysters, YES; Bloody Marys, YES (which they make here, YAY!); Shots with tabasco, NO THANK YOU!

It seems to be a BEAUTIFUL Saturday in St. Germain-En Laye, so that is all for now!

À plus tard,

Kristen