A Semester in Paris: IES Orientation in Normandy and la gaie Paris

And thus begins my blog about Paris!!!! I do not have photos of the house I live in yet partly because I'm lazy and partly because I feel strange whipping out a camera and snapping pictures of my house but don't worry, because they will soon come. My host family is really nice, they live just southwest of Paris in a town called Billancourt; it's right on the metro and the metro station is only a 5 minute walk from my house.

I live in a small house with a middle aged couple, Guy and Laurène. They have three children, two of whom are about 30 years old and live out of the house. I have a 19-year-old host sister, Lucie, who goes to college about 1.5 hours away from Paris, but she is usually home on the weekends. They're really nice and have been hosting IES students for a while. The house is a little small but it's really nice and quaint, with a small courtyard. I have the entire third floor to myself, including a bathroom.

A note about showers in France: they do not have shower curtains. I am serious. I have a showerhead on a flexible cord but no affixutre above my head so I need to sit down in the tub and spray myself which poses a few problems: a) when I am spraying myself with water, I can only use 1 hand to scrub the shampoo out of my hair b) if I want to use two hands, I have to turn off the water so that the showerhead doesn't spray water all over the place c) this means that I am perpetually cold in the shower even if the water is hot because I'm always half-wet with no hot water pouring down my back. So this past weekend all 89 of the International Education of Students (IES) students went to Normandy to get "oriented". We went to the Memorial de Caen, Bernieres-sur-Mer and Omaha Beach and got to sightsee in between getting-to-know-you activities. It was pretty fun, even with all the time spent in the bus (it takes 3 hours to get to Normandy from Paris). It was a shocker for some students that the place we were staying at didn't have towels; they improvised.

When I got back from Normandy, I went out to eat at Cafe Daguerre with four other IES students, three of whom go to Gettysburg College. After, three of us went to la Place du Louvre and the Palais Royal which was GORGEOUS at night!! It was about 10:30 PM when we got there and it was all lit up, it was incredible!