bonjour, paris!

hey friends!

after staying up all night, practically getting into a fistfight with the smartwings lady (ok, more of a verbal fight), and making my way to the suburbs of paris, i am happy to say that i am all settled in and loving paris, even more than when i was here in april. this marks the last part of my european adventures - for those who are new readers (which sounds incredibly vain and it's not like i expect my blog to have a super-wide following so this is really for my friends who may have forgotten why i'm in paris) - i will be in paris from may 19 to june 9, doing research for my senior thesis about french representation of religion in colonial north africa thanks to the generosity of the wesleyan davenport grant. after two days in paris, i am REALLY looking forward to the next two weeks!

so, a few things, starting with housing.

i am doing a homestay outside of paris - it's a 10-minute ride on the commuter train - with a lovely married couple named val and ben, and their little son armand, who is adorbs :) i have my own room on the first floor, which leads into an outdoor garden!! it's nice living in a home and val/ben are very nice except it's sort of hard to communicate because my french is extremely rusty. i mostly nod my head and smile and hope that they don't ask me something i can't answer. i still have to figure out how to ask about the washing machine..

paris, so far.

on wednesday, i didn't sleep and got to the airport at 4am. there was some trouble at the counter with my luggage (the smartwings lady was a TOTAL bitch to me, btw) but somehow i made it to paris, with my 39kg of belongings. i got to val and ben's around 8:30am and proceeded to sleep until 1pm. i met up with julie and dani at st. michel and we went to get delish burgers while watching some trashy american music videos. YUM. also, i got a new pair of sandals on day 1. haha.

today, i went to musee d'orsay with dani - it was part of my proposed research to see visual representations of north african societies but there wasn't a whole lot. d'orsay was cool (and i got to use my czech visa to get in for free, which was nice) and not overwhelmingly large, which is not something that can be said for the louvre, which i will be visiting tomorrow. after that, i went to l'institut du monde arabe which i guess was the real start of this research adventure. they have a great bookstore of arab books - both fictional works written by authors in the maghreb and in the middle east, as well as books on history, architecture, contemporary politics, and so on. i got two books that i think are going to be SUPER helpful and i'm really excited about reading them - but they are in french so it's going to take me awhile. after that, i went upstairs to the library and did a bit of reading. the building is BEAUTIFUL and has a wealth of resources so i will definitely be going there soon.

outside musee d'orsay!

the next few days are a bit up in the air, mostly because i have a lot to read before i really delve into the material i came to paris to see (like actual primary documents and whatnot). my plans are sort of set, though - i'll be heading to aix-en-provence from may 30 to june 2, then i'm going to take a few days off and enjoy what is my summer vacation (though it doesn't feel like it to me) in NICE, FRANCE! aka beaches, here i come!! i'll be there until saturday, then a few more days in paris before flying to jfk on june 9. should be wonderful!

i still have a lot of things i want to say about prague, which i miss already. i saw pilsner beer at monoprix (the grocery store) and felt very nostalgic... i will say that studying abroad was a really great decision at a great time for me, and i think i am in a much better place to go back to wes and truly enjoy it in the fall. being abroad also made me feel a sense of extreme accomplishment at small tasks (even until my last week, i still liked going to the post office and buying stamps in czech) and really made me feel independent. i've always considered myself to be pretty independent (especially since i don't go home very often as it is) but living in prague, and now being in paris, really solidified that. well, more thoughts to come. for now, i should probably figure out a game plan for tomorrow...