Paris, Part 1

This is Jeanne. Oh my goodness, I do not know where to start.
Well, I had to wake up at 5 in order to catch our train. I felt really bad to make everyone get up so early after watching "Edward Scissorhands" the night before. By the way, it was my first time to see it and I saw it in French. I think thats a score!

Anyway Claire and her mother and I arrived at le gare (the train station) by 6:20 where I said goodbye. I joined Madame Shaw, Samantha, Kristen, and Chebon and in came the train. On the 1 hour 30 minute trainride from Abbeville to Paris, the five of us sat discussing our plans for the day and for the rest of the stay. We sat in an enclosed car where there was a very nice french gentleman. He spoke to us all the way, in french of course. It was so awesome to talk to a native speaker that was so nice!

We arrived in La Gare du Nord around 8 and went straight, by the subway, to Notre Dame. It felt so wrong to be inside the church as a tourist on Ash Wednesday. From Notre Dame we went to the Assemble Nationale and got a private tour! It was so cool! Only problem is that I though the officials had said "No picture taking" but by the time I found out I was wrong, it was too late. :-(

From that point on, the fellows of the l'Alliance Française split off from the Classen group and we went on our way. Our first stop was the Musée d'Orsay! Where we were absolutely not allowed to take pictures. Sorry. The museum was originally a train station that was converted, after years of laying empty, into the beautiful museum that it was yesterday!

After the wonders of the Musée d'Orsay, it was off the the Champs Elysees! But first we stopped in Les Jardin des Tuileries. (The Tuilerie Garden) where we witnessed first hand the awesomeness of the line that runs from the glass pyramid in front of the Louvre, to the Obelisk of La Place de la Concorde, to the Arche de Triomphe, to the Arche de Défense. It was soo cool and I will upload pictures as soon as possible.

More Later   

Samantha says...
Hey everyone! It's been a couple days since I last blogged, and since then, a lot has happened. So you're just going to get the stand out moments. And I'm sorry, but I didn't really have time to read Jeanne's posts, so you might hear some of the same stuff from me.

One thing I know she didn't tell you was my bathroom story; she promised me the rights to that one. Thanks Jeanne! Okay, so for those of you who don't know, you have to pay to use a lot of the bathrooms in Europe. On Tuesday, we were at the Gare du Nord (train station) to get tickets for Paris, and we all really had to use the restroom. As it turns out, the only bathroom they had was the paying kind (it cleans in between each section as well). The sign on the outside said that you could stay in there for fifteen minutes after you paid, so we thought we'd be crafty and trick the bathroom by holding the door open between each person, that way we could get five people in for the price of one. So Madame Shaw paid and went first, then it was my turn. I went in, and as soon as the door shut, water started spraying out of the floor...then the lights shut off. I was, of course, terrified, and I ran to the door and started screaming out the crack. Madame told me to push the red button, but I COULDN'T SEE. What red button? It wasn't until they had payed again and gotten me out that I saw it, right by the door. Needless to say, I still got to go to the bathroom, but I probably won't be using a bathroom you have to pay to use for a long time. They're far too smart for me.

And then Paris...oh, Paris. You really are the greatest city in the world. Oklahoma City needs a better public transportation system because the Metro is awesome! I don't know why, but I really enjoyed riding it. Everything in Paris was just fabulous. I don't really have enough time to go into detail about it right now. If I had to pick my favorite moment from the day, it might be Montmartre, even though we were only there for about fifteen minutes. It was just so perfectly French! I also really liked standing in the middle of the Tuileries Gardens and being able to see l'Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, the Obelisk of Luxor, the Louvre, and l'Arc du Carousel (I don't know if I'm saying that all right) all at THE SAME TIME. The only thing wrong with Paris was all those annoying tourists and all the people smoking. Other than that, it was perfect; I really hope we get to go back next week. Fingers crossed.

Today in a very small nutshell: we went to school; I think the Physics teacher made fun of me (and talked about spaghetti); we went into town to the open air market, where I bought a cute shirt and Kristen got to do some haggling; we ate lunch at a café where the owner did not like us very much; we conducted our surveys in English class; I practically slept through Maëliss's last class; we picked up Esteban from daycare; I watched French cartoons with Esteban, played "keep the balloon up", shared Crazy Core Skittles, and discussed the many merits of Batman ( he didn't seem to understand that Batman is the best superhero, poor confused kid); Esteban, Maëliss, and I played Blink; then we had some sort of muscles or clams for dinner (a local special) with French fries, and it was delicious. And there you have it.

More later.