the last post!

I'm finally done with school and this week I'm taking the time to be a tourist in Paris. I've been eating fondue, crepes and cider, falafel, and fancy pastries. I went to Musee d'Orsay (the art museum in the old train station), l'Orangerie (a museum with an amazing collection of monet paintings), Musee Rodin (with many of rodin's statues and beautiful gardens), and the Guimet Museum that features Asian/Hindu/Buddhist artwork.

Overall, I LOVED Paris this semester and highly recommend visiting! There's so much to discover and I learn more about it each day. Paris has a distinct culture that's definitely more different from the US than I thought it would be, but I've really learned to love it. It was also a great experience for me to learn to live in another country, since I've only ever lived in the States. Now I feel ready to live/travel almost anywhere! (except I don't think I could live in Africa after hearing my friend's stories haha). I hope you enjoyed entries about my time abroad and I give everyone a lot more details when I come home for Christmas :)

I apologize for the lack of posting, but my life has been pretty boring lately. My trip to Copenhagen was sadly canceled because I found out the night before that my airline was bankrupt, and they never even emailed me about it. I have a 20 page paper, 2 exams, and a presentation this week, so I'm sure I'll be MIA for awhile.

I can't believe my time in Paris is almost over!

what i've been up to :)

field trip to Geneva, Switzerland:
On Monday and Tuesday, my health policy class took a field trip to visit the WHO, ILO (international labor organization), and MSF (doctors without borders). Overall, it was an okay trip. We didn't get to see much of the city because we spent most of our time traveling between the organization buildings, the hotel, and the train station. We heard presentations at each organization. At the WHO, we heard about the polio eradication in Africa and India and about gender rights in Afghanistan. Then we ate a yummy fondue dinner, something Geneva is known for. On Tuesday, we heard about social security in low income countries I think. I don't even really remember because the speaker was so so so boring and repeated repeated repeated almost every word 3 times. We then went to MSF and heard a speaker from their operations office talk about medical missions. Although all these presentations sound great, the trip was a little too rushed and I'll have to return to Geneva to actually see the city. It was definitely a trip all about business!

This weekend I'll be visiting my friend in Copenhagen, which will be a great break before I have to finish up the semester and start doing real work. I have a 20-page group research paper due in a couple weeks and also finals and presentations. I can't believe my time abroad will be over in about a month! There are definitely some things I miss about home (my friends, my family, large fountain diet cokes with ice), but I know that as I arrive in America I'll begin to miss les petits choses(the little things) of Paris that I've grown to love.

An Epic Trip to Spain

During my Toussaint (All-Saints) holiday, I went to Spain with around 15 other people from my Northwestern program in Paris. It was absolutely incredible. We went sight-seeing all day, ate delicious food, and went out every night. Now I just wish I didn't have to return to school and the giant papers/finals that await me in the next month...

Highlights include:
MADRID

-Plaza Mayor
-Sangria
-the gardens
-my first stay in a student hostel
-lunch and dinner with great friends

SEVILLA



-the most beautiful palace and cathedral I have ever seen
-paddle boating
-watching parts of the election
-walking up at 5am to hear election results
-cheap food

BARCELONA
-an incredible (and cheap) apartment with 7 other girls
-making dinners (actually I didn't cook but I ate delicious food)
-cheap wine
-Barcelona nightlife
-a gondola ride
-the fortress overlooking the entire city
-the deserted remains from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics
-water and beach
-parc guell

This is amazing

And now I'm off to Spain for the week. When I return, I'll have many stories about hostel living and Spanish parties, and maybe I'll even know a word or two of Spanish. Adios!

Happy Birthday Michael Barr! (He was born in 1950 :))

Obama in Paris

highlights of the week
1. having no quizzes/tests
2. the organic market at Raspail - Parisians love their markets and always have a great variety of fresh produce, meat, homemade jam (confiture), honey, cheese, jewelry, and more. I wished Americans cared this much about good food.
3. the Marais on Sunday - The Marais is an area of Paris that is considered the Jewish area, and on Sundays it's definitely the "place to be" in Paris. Many stores/restaurants are closed in the city on Sundays, but the Marais is almost completely open. It's full of cute designer stores, falafel restaurants, parks, and Jewish bakeries. I'd love an apartment here!
4. The Bastille Opera - Tonight the people in my program were given a tour of one of the opera houses in Paris. It was completed in 1989, so it's still considered very new. Although I almost fell asleep during the tour of the dozens of backstage areas and the basement, it was interesting to see where the operas take place and how much work/money is put into them. The tour guide said the shows sell out every single night.

Things to look forward to
1. Halloween!! Parisians don't really celebrate it (the most Halloween-related things I've seen in Paris are a few bags of pumpkin-shaped candy in a fancy grocery store and signs for the Halloween party at EuroDisney), but I'm sure we'll see many Americans dressed up and going out on Friday night.
2. Spain - Next week I'll be in Spain for 6 days with people from my program. We'll be going to Madrid, Sevilla, and Barcelona, so I'm excited!

Rennes

This week, my Health Policy took a trip to Rennes. We stayed and studied at EHESP, which is a school of public health and management in France. It is where all managers of public hospital are currently trained. From Wednesday-Friday, we had various lectures concerning public health issues in Europe like long-term care for the elderly, comparative health costs in different EU countries, culture, and inequalities of health. We also visited a hospital in Rennes where we dressed in scrubs and watched parts of a lung cancer surgery and a heart valve replacement surgery. The hospital was really interesting because it's a public hospital (like Ohio State), but the facilities definitely aren't as nice even though they do the same types of operations and procedures. Americans definitely like to be pampered when they're in the hospital!

In Rennes we also:
-Ate at a delicious creperie, paid for by Northwestern
-Ate delicious Moroccan food
-Visited Rue de la Soif, Road of Thirst, which is infamous for all of it's bars and students (the area around Rennes is known for its smart students and schools, but also for the highest amount of alcohol consumption in France)

Overall, it was great to be out of paris for a few days and see more of a "college town" of France. And I'm also really happy about the current exchange rate: 1 Euro = 1.2602 U.S. dollars

This article talks about a lot of the things I've been studying in class: Infant Deaths Drop in U.S., but Rate Is Still High. The US has one of the most expensive health care programs, but unfortunately it's not working in a lot of important areas :(.

le grand journal

So as one of our cultural activities for French class, last night we went to a taping of the french show, Le Grand Journal. You can actually watch it online here. Although I'm not on it that much, a couple girls from my school are sitting right behind the host in almost every shot. In the picture above, you can actually see me: I'm the fourth person from the left in the front row.

As a little background for the people who don't speak French...The older man who speaks in English is the author Salman Rushdie. Also on the show was the president of sports for France and the singer Laam because at a recent soccer game with Tunisie, she was whistled at for singing the French national anthem. It was very controversial due to Tunisie/French relations so they've been talking about the issue in the media this week. Sooo even though I couldn't understand all of the fast French, I can at least say that I've been on french television!

New York Times: 36 Hours in Paris

I actually ate falafel in the Marais today! What a coincidence.

yay for gossip girl actors and obama!

It has been so interesting for me to watch the political situation in the US from abroad. While I will definitely be voting for Obama along with many other Americans come Nov. 4, it seems that no one is more excited for Bush to leave and for Obama to take over than the French. They hate Bush. Actually, they detest Bush and his policies and the Iraq war. There's a movie coming out called "W" about the life of George W. and advertisements were all over the Paris metro for it.

While the French hate Bush, they loveeee Obama. When his lead drastically increased this weekend, I woke up on Monday to pictures of Obama all over the Paris newspapers. I posted a few articles about the issue below. It just seems like politics is so much more intense and "in your face" here than it is in America. You see the French president, Nicholas Sarkozy on TV almost every night. In America, it seems like the media has just ignored Bush for the past few years, instead focusing on much more important topics, like college football and the weather.

-The good American and Monsieur Obama
-Barack Obama, the French American idol

I wish I could be at the big game against Michigan State today, but in Wildcat spirit here's a rap video that was recently created about NU football. Go U!

Conversation overheard on the Metro, French man talking to an English-speaking couple:

French man: Oh, are you British?
The Couple: No, we're Australian
French man: Not American?
The Couple: No.
French man: Oh, you're very, very welcome in Paris then.

And then he kept talking about how Canadians are welcome and all these other people, but not Americans. Although I have met many French people who are happy to welcome Americans to France, as you can see it's definitely not always the case.

Versailles, Nuit Blanche

I'm alive! This week I didn't have much class, so I had some time to explore Paris. On Thursday afternoon, I visited Centre Pompidou, which is a modern art museum. According to Wikipedia, the museum was completed in 1977 and named after the ex-President. On Saturday, I visited Versailles, which is the chateau for the royalty of France. It's a southwest suburb of Paris, and only took about 30 minutes to get there on the train. This venture was one of our "cultural requirements" for French class, but it was actually really fun! There was a La Fête des Saveurs going on, which is a tasting festival. They a lot of small booths set up with farmers offering tastes and explanations of their food. There were mussels, apples and pears grown in the Versailles gardens, homemade apple juice, wine, cheese, sorbet...the French definitely love their food! After our stomachs were full, we walked around the breath-taking Versailles gardens and visited the inside of the castle for the Jeff Koons exhibit. It's been a pretty hot topic in France, and it's easy to see why. I personally enjoyed it because it made me think about the purpose of each room in a different way than I otherwise would. And it was shocking that the pieces that looked like inflatable children toys were actually made out of aluminum!

After Versailles, we went out for Nuit Blanche, which is an all-night arts exhibition in Paris. With events and people all over the city it definitely wasn't a boring night :)

Overall, I'm feeling at lot more adjusted to Paris and just accepting that it's different from the US in many ways. While I'm sure every CVS/Walgreens in America is overflowing with cheap candy and plastic pumpkins at this point, there is not a trace of Halloween in France. There aren't tacky fall decorations or drunk Ohio State football fanatics or Halloween costume stores. But it's all okay, because I know all the American stuff will be waiting for me when I cross back over the ocean. Ohh, and I updated my pictures below, so you can either watch the slide show or click on it to go to my Picasa site.

Paris Gets its Grillzzzz

This is so crazy, I'll definitely be back to Paris to see it!

the weekend

Highlights
1. Stalking Natalie Portman while she was eating falafel in the Marais. She was with her parents, waiting in line for falafel just like everyone else for probably like 20 minutes. She even brought back some for her bodyguard! (He was waiting a block away in a big, black Mercedes)
2. Having dinner with my almost all of my host mom's extended family. These big dinners are great because the people are always fun and nice, and the food is amazing (the wine's not too bad either) :).
3. Not really doing any homework.
4. Great weather once again.

Negatives
1. Having dinner with the neighbors...they have a creepy 45-year-old-alcoholic son who keeps staring at me.
2. Getting sick...and getting yelled at for using toilet paper to blow my nose.

Things to look forward to
1. Fashion week in Paris! It's this week so hopefully I can work on my stalking skills and stand outside a show or something.
2. Nuit Blanche - Saturday night is a big cultural event in Paris...From what I've heard arts events will go on all night all over the city.
3. Gossip Girl!!! Last week's episode was simply amazing.

picture time!

Enjoy the pictures! I wrote short captions but let me know if you have any questions. It's currently Thursday afternoon in Paris, which means it's weekend time for me! This week I had a lot of class and learned about the French and American health care systems. Since I grew up in America and never received bad medical care, I feel partial to our system, but with so many uninsured people, we obviously need something to change. Yet is there an easy answer? Our government is currently spending a lot of money "battling terrorism" and saving bankrupt banks, so health care reform is currently not on the top of the agenda. It's always something important to keep in mind though.

Okay, quick post. I sort of hacked into my host mom's internet by finding the password on the back of the modem, but she likes to use the lowest amount of electricity possible and unplugs the cable/phone/internet when she goes to bed at 8:30pm. Therefore, I will write a quick post before I am disconnected from life.

I've realized some things about my 68-year-old host mom/grandmother (Marie-Louise) this week that make it easier to accept living here. I found out she has four sons, so I don't think she likes girls as much. She's also mean/stern, which you have to be when you have four boys.

My impressions of Marie-Louise's life were drastically improved last night when her son, wife, and three granddaughters came over for dinner. They were sooo funny, and I loved spending time with them. The thing about Marie-Louise is that she's incredibly French and doesn't know that much about American culture/living with girls. To her, everything in France is right so then politics/the economy/everything in America must be wrong. Her granddaughters (a girl who is 17 and twins who are 15) were a welcome relief because they actually appreciated having me around and asking me questions about my life. AKA they were fun and think it's cool to be American. Another thing that makes life a little more manageable is the pets...there is a dog named Norek (11-year-old husky) and a cat (Belle), who's a kitten and has an unimaginable amount of energy. I think the animals like me at least.

Whenever I'm spoken-harshly-to-in-French-I-can't-understand, I've gotten to the point that I can laugh it off. HAHAHA. And yes, I'm actually yelled at for things around here, even though I consider myself incredibly laid back and easy to get along with. For example, I have been "lectured to" for taking showers too late (at 7:40 pm), for using toilet paper to blow my nose, for turning my bedroom light on during the day, for watching television, for not taking my shoes off when I enter the living room, and for not liking canard (duck) mousse. Yet I eat amazing food each morning and night and live in Paris. Welcome to the life of an American girl in a French homestay :).

An update!

Everything's is going great in Paris, and the longer I'm here the more it actually feels like I live here rather than being on an extended vacation. Since I hate writing long blog entries, I rather share with you a few lists.

What I love about Paris:
-All the dogs are nice
-The kids are ridiculously cute (and they all dress better than I do)
-There is a dog on Wheel of Fortune (La Roue de la Fortune)
-I drink cafe au lait for breakfast every morning
-Everyone wears really nice shoes
-I have an excuse for everything (sorry, I'm American)
-Pretty gardens everywhere
-The Metro is amazing
-Cheap flights all over europe

What's better about les Etats-Unis:
-Flip flops are acceptable
-I can understand people
-It's acceptable to be really loud in public
-cheap cell phones
-Internet 24/7
-Carryout/to-go cups
-Athletic clothing
-Warm weather
-Football (even though osu is embarassing)

That's all for now! I'll post pictures this weekend, I promise.

Life is beautiful

So, I've been horrible at blogging so far, but France has been incredible. I think I experienced a little more of a culture shock than I was expecting, but how that I'm 12 days into my stay in Paris I feel much better about everything. I know how the Metro works, I eat really amazing food every day, and my host mom does my laundry. Nothing could be better.

Even though I have class four days a week, it still hasn't set in that I'm actually, sort of, in school. Life could not be more different than how it is in Evanston. After class, I usually sit around with my friends in a park for lunch as I eat a ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette.

Everything is just more relaxed in Paris. I rarely see people in a rush, or stressed out, and even the most ordinary day seems just a little more special here. Today, for example, I met up with a couple friends and visited the Museum of Man (le Musée de l'Homme) by the Eiffel Tour. There was hardly anyone there, but they actually had some really extraordinary pieces, like Lucy, the skeleton that is 3.75 million years old. After that, we ate our lunch in front of the Eiffel Tour, and then just wandered around Paris for the rest of the afternoon. We ended up in the Luxembourg Garden, which was full of locals and tourists alike enjoying the beautiful day in a beautiful city.

Finally in France

The last few days have been a whirlwind! I arrived in Paris on Monday morning after an overnight flight. The plane ride wasn't too bad, but our luggage took awhile to arrive and then we had to figure out how to negotiate the taxis. The first taxi driver didn't know how to get to my street, but eventually I arrived at my host mom's around 4pm. And then I slept for hours because I was soooo exhausted! The first night was pretty overwhelming because there were two guests staying over for the night, and no one spoke any English. My French is getting a little better now, but on the first night I seriously had no idea what was going on. And I don't have an internet which is just really, really annoying. Maybe I'm a little too dependent on the internet, but it's really my only way to communicate with people back in the states and I like being constantly connected to the news and what's going on.

Now for the positives! As I expected, France is an absolutely amazing city. I'll post pictures soon because the parks, and really the entire city, are gorgeous (and actually have internet). On Tuesday we had the orientation for our program and the professors just explained what would be going on over the next few months. Yesterday (Wednesday), was our first day of class and it was much less painful than I expected. In the morning we had a French placement test and then in the afternoon we had a 3-hour lecture for our France and French Policy class. The professor (Michael Loriaux) talked about the history of French education and then six French students who will be in our program talked about French education today. The six Sciences Po students are all in their second year at the university but for this semester they will take all their classes in English with us. I'll enjoy getting to know them better since they know much more about this city than we do. Well that's all for now! I'll write more (with lots of pictures) soon.

Here's another French music video: this song is featured on the season preview for Gossip Girl (the best show ever)

Here's Yelle's new video...I love her music!

So in just a few weeks, my big trip will begin. Although I’m still at an intermediate French language level, I hope living in France for awhile will really help my French understanding/conversational skills which is what I’ve always found to be harder than reading the language. I’m also excited for the amazing food, scenery, night life, and shopping that awaits me in the City of Light!

So here’s just a little about what I will actually be doing in Paris: I will be a student in Northwestern’s Public Health Program, which takes place at Sciences Po (http://www.northwestern.edu/studyabroad/programs/profiles/europe/France/Public_Health_Europe/index.html). My classes will be in English, except for my French language class. I’ll be living with a host mom in the 15th arrondissement, who I have been told has a dog and is a really good cook. My commute to school will only be about 15 min. on the Métro. In addition to taking classes, my program also involves some weekend trips to Normandy and Geneva.