This week went even faster than the last. Classes continue to be very interesting. I'm currently procrastinating two homework assignments (the only I've had so far) by writing this blog. Yay habits that never go away!
Last Sunday I went with a friend, Paul, to see an old Italian movie about the German occupation of Italy during world war II. Foreign films are just as vague and open ended in France as they are in America. It was still a fun experience though. We walked back by the Pathéon, which is a mausoleum where many important people are buried. It's a very beautiful area.
This week we went to the assemblée nationale, which is located in the old palais bourbon. The building itself is absolutely stunning, but it was also a really interesting way to learn about french politics. The history of the french government is one that is fairly complicated. Unlike the American revolution which resulted in one republic that has essentially stayed the same for 200 years, the french have had 5 different republics and intermittent emperors/ kings. Many were named Napoléon or Louis.
Anyway, that was a very fun trip. The other place we went to this week was the Shoa memorial. Shoa is the french/ hebrew term for the holocaust, being derived from the hebrew word for catastrophe, rather than the greek word for sacrifice. There's all sorts of political arguments for one term or the other. While the museum itself was very well put together, it was a very tough visit as you can imagine. Whole sections of the city were emptied when the Nazis demanded the deportation of French jews. They have memorials to all those who were deported, and especially those who were deported as children. Only 200 of the children deported returned alive.
I now seem to have contracted a cold, so I missed class yesterday (due to the fact that I couldn't sleep, I'm not complaining I'm simply justifying my truism) but I met up with friends later to go over our homework assignments and plan our papers. French style of argumentation is much different than American, so this is going to be an interesting project in more ways than one. We got together as a group to make couscous later (thank you very much to the barbary fig for the inspiration of the included vegetables and spices) and then we went out to the bar where I take my coffee every morning.
I like that I already am starting to have a routine. The woman at Wake Up Paris (the bar I go to everymorning for espresso... which I chose largely due to the fact that it's name is in English... despite the fact that it is a Brazillian bar) already recognizes me and knows exactly what I'm going to ask for. I leave the dorm at the same time every morning, am the first to arrive at class so I can read the newspaper, and eat basically the same thing for breakfast and lunch. Quotidienne.
Today I've been mostly doing homework, but I also went for a walk around a couple parks in Paris and through the Jardin de Luxembourg.
Alright now you get to know my big embarassing slip up of the week:
For our only homework assignment in my afternoon class, our teacher asks us to read the newspaper everyday, and share a few articles with the class. I chose to share about how there has been a notable decrease in the number of police officers in France over the past few years. The author blamed Sarkozy for this. The term for this is "baisser," used in a sentence, "Sarkozy a baissé la quantité de policiers en France" Instead, however, I said "baisé." Go ahead and type that into google translate. Yeah. Pretty bad.
No pictures, I keep forgetting my camera >_< but hopefully some next week!
