These are a few pictures from Place de la Concorde and our walk to Les Invalides:
Just a little brief history: Les Invalides was initiated by Louis the XIV in 1670 to house ill, injured, and retired war veterans. Originially, Hopital des Invalies, previously a hospital and residence of unwell soldiers, now houses Musee de l'Armee, The military museum of the Army of France. It is also a burial site of several war heroes, including the famous Napoleon Bonaparte.
Unfortunately, we didn't get to go inside of the museum because it was closed, but I'm sure we will go back. I need to brush up on my history anyway.
After playing around near Les Invalides, we were hungry. So Kot and Jos decided that they were going to take us to the Latin Quarter for supposedly the "best crepes ever". So we took the Metro, asked for directions, walked and walked and walked some more, and finally found the place. The line was outrageous; they're kind of like a street vendor, so minimal seating was available. At this point, after traveling for about 45 minutes and seeing this, I am NOT happy. And the roomates knew I was not happy. And I'm sure Kot was thinking to herself, "This (girl) has no idea." All she told me was, "They're that good." It was the only place on the entire street with a line THAT long, so I figured I would trust her, and stop being a little whiny baby.
Let me tell you: She was SO, SO RIGHT.
This was a turkey, egg, and cheese crepe; lettuce, tomatoes, and onions are INCLUDED.
I couldn't finished the whole thing, especially because I also ordered a sweet crepe:
This was dark chocolate, banana, and Grand Monier. All I could think of was Diane Champagne and Beverly Young at the Clinique counter and how much they would enjoy this.
I won't say what this crepe experience was like (or better than) for me, because you can just about imagine... All I will say is that after I was done, I felt like I needed to smoke a cigarette. It was THAT good. The roomies were RIGHT! So after our bellies were full of delicious crepes, we came home and slept like BABIES :)
Thursday was my first business class, FINALLY! It's called "Market Performance Measurement". Let me just say this: it would have helped if I was a marketing major or took a few more marketing classes. The French don't play with their marketing business! We took a quiz. AND.... good thing it didn't count. I made an 8/20. Fortunately, I did good on the Halal case study. It made me feel a little better. I had the class with my girl roomies, and they are majoring in Marketing. They didn't do much better than me, which made me feel a little less stupid. There were questions on the quiz that ONLY FRENCH students would know, unless you are a GLOBAL MARKETING GURU. But, hey, I'm going to get better; I will study my head off.
I will use 2 excuses for this quiz:
1- I haven't had marketing since sophmore year. I'm rusty!
2. The French terms are sometimes quite different, so, it takes some getting used to.
Don't judge me yet.
It only get's worse. The 2nd half of the class was a guest speaker. He was, or used to be, the marketing director for one of the biggest cinema companies in Europe. Geaumont-Pathe, I believe. It would have been a very interesting and educational lecture if it wouldn't have started off with, "OK. You don't give a shit about me, and I don't give a shit about you," in this TERRIBLE french accent.
So he lost me right from the beginning. But I promise I will try harder this week.
Let me just insert this little story. As I'm writing this blog right now, there is a riot of some sorts going on right outside of my apartment building; people are screaming and chanting, cars are honking, there is smoke in the air. So of course, NOSY ME, I have to go outside and see what's going on. I'm not sure if a car exploded or if someone set it on fire, but it was quite crazy.
There were people everywhere watching and taking pictures. I took a video, but it's too difficult to post on here, so check out my facebook later if you want to see it.
Getting back to MY UPDATE,
since I had absolutely no desire to listen to the arrogant fellow, who, by the way, thought that we could understand this:
I spent my time doing this:
Obviously, this took no time and effort. So, Nicholls, and my mother, don't be TOO disappointed in me. I did pay attention (somewhat) and got some interesting information out of the lecture. For example: his theater is the only one in my neighborhood, thus he has no competition, thus he can charge maximum prices at this particular theater. THUS: I will go to his competitor in another area if I want to watch a movie. But who wants to watch movies when you're in one of the most beautiful cities in the world???? Especially since your euros are paying this guy to give bad lectures at schools in France...
Anyway. Thursday was a VERY FUN night. It was the last Erasmus BOAT PARTY of the summer. It was so cool. There was a dancefloor on the lower deck, and the upperdeck was open. The view was beautiful. On my left, I had a GORGEOUS view of the Eiffel Tower, on my right, an even better view of the original model of the STATUE OF LIBERTY :)
There she is! The model of the STATUE OF LIBERTY. Not very clear, but you get the point :)
She's in the background here, too, if you look closely. ^
I have much more to post about the weekend adventures, but I have to go get ready for school, or I will be late. And I definitely don't want to be late for my good-looking Brazilian teacher.
I will try to finish the rest in another post after school.
Have a good day, everyone!!
À plus tard!!
Kristen
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