The adventure continues

It's the end of my first full week here, and I'm thoroughly impressed with the range of things I've managed to squeeze in! My classes (supposedly the reason I'm here... but we all know it's the pastries...) went very well and I think they're going to be a lot of fun. The first day of French was a bit overwhelming, but I'm learning very quickly how to keep up with the natural rhythm of my teacher's speech - she doesn't slow it down for students! My electives are going to be a lot of fun and I'll probably retain more because they're in English. I'll get to watch about 10 French movies in my film class, and my fashion class is taking quite a few excursions around the city to museums and centers of fashion. I'm starting to figure out my routine for my week - when to wake up, how to eat, when I'll splurge on coffee, etc. If you don't plan, you can end up spending 20 euros on food and drinks for the day, no sweat! I have a 2-hour lunch break between classes on Tuesday which lines up with my friend Taylor's, so we have a standing date :) Of my adventures the last week, the most notable have been champagne, pretzels and girl talk under the Eiffel Tower on Monday night, dinner with Chelsea Temple (from Starfire) who's also studying here on Tuesday night, another fantastic lunch at Fizz on Wednesday with the girls and trying to navigate the Parisian university bookstore, and finally getting down to Cafe Universel for drinks and live jazz! Whew :) I learned an expensive lesson at the Cafe - Tenny and I ordered cocktails for (gulp) 10 euros each and they turned out to be AWFUL. Like, undrinkable. Mine tasted suspiciously of cough syrup and had about the same consistency. Luckily our friend liked them for some reason and bought us some wine. Much better. The jazz was GREAT though, it was "jazz caraibe" or caribbean jazz with a singer, piano and bongos. The singer was a young African woman who sang in English and French and had the richest, most luxurious voice and had a lot of fun on the small stage. I will most definitely be checking out the acts more often now! Last night we decided to venture out to an Indian restaurant nearby called the Bollywood Lounge. The inside was really fun, a lot of bright colors and a huge TV screen playing Bollywood music videos. Buuttt the food was kind of awful. Minus the chicken tikka masala and rice, which were just average, it was pretty much inedible for me. Luckily we got a glass of champagne and rose out of the deal, but it was a big disappointment. Not to be dettered, our group vowed to try France's version of sushi next week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Today, Jen (a fellow UCSD student!) and I decided to check out a giant antiques and ham (yes, ham) market in a suburb of Paris. After riding the metro out there, we couldn't find it. Somehow, we lost a giant market. Our wanderings took us to what we thought was it, but turned out to be a huge weekly flea and food market mostly populated by Muslim immigrants. It was absolutely insane - everything was so close together, people were everywhere and not polite, and vendors were screaming at the top of their lungs. The fabric sellers were stunning though! Jen and I lasted about 15 minutes before bursting breathless away from the crowd and making a hasty retreat. We're not quite up to that level of market yet! We decided instead to make a pilgrimage to a couple of famous dessert places we'd heard of - Patisserie de Reves (Pastry shop of dreams!) and Christian Constant, the best hot chocolate in Paris. Patisserie de Reves truly was a dream, very very chic and impossible to choose a treat (see pictures of the display below). We finally settled on splitting a "St. Honore," which is an elaborate assembly of cream-filled pastry shapes and whipped cream (see cross section). The packaging itself was spectacular (cute pink box, ribbon, napkins, and forks in a beautiful bag), and the dessert did not disappoint either! We justified our next excursion by walking there, which seems to be a common theme lately :) In a cruel twist of fate, Christian Constant turned out to be right next to my school and very very tempting in its assortment of mini desserts, patisseries, and chocolate. Next door is their cafe, where Jen and I ordered pots of hot chocolate. I'm not kidding when I say that I had to surrender to this concoction (which has only happened once or twice before). When we poured it into our cups, I realized that "chocolat chaud" literally meant "chocolate at a high temperature." One sip and I knew I'd met my match. To give you a picture, we dipped little cookies in the drinks and the chocolate stayed coating the cookie. I drank a cup of FONDUE. It was impossible for us to finish two orders - next time we'll have to share. Unreal. Tonight is La Nuit Blanche (the white night) where Paris celebrates contemporary art and music with an all night party around the city. Public gardens and museums have special exhibits free to the public and it's open from 7pm to dawn. I have a feeling I won't make it that long, but we'll strike out at about 10pm and give it a shot :) Sending LOVE to all - I'm so lucky to have friends and family like you <3