Carbs, Theology, Carbs, Art, Carbs, Out, Bed.

Me infront of the Moulin Rouge!



The Sacre Coeur! My favorite church yet!

Bren, Kimm, and I at the highest point in Paris!

So that's basically my schedule at this point, along with the other 75 students here. Wake up, eat bread with jam (delicious by the way, but nothing can beat Grandma Barber's home made jam, mmmm), go to theology, grab lunch (of course consisting bread, like a panini or a sandwhich), go to art class and burn the some of those carbs standing up for two and a half hours, come back and eat more carbs for dinner, go out and burn some carbs (or have a few more; crepes are just too hard to resist!) and then off to bed. Good thing we climb so many stairs or I'd have to find a gym around here!

Monday I was supposed to go help out in an high school English class, but there was a mix up in time, so unfortunately I won't be able to do that anymore. I was really looking forward to it too! But on the bright side, it gave me time to book our trip to Dublin! Wooo!! It's official! We're going the second weekend of February! Then we took a trip to Montremarte. Like I mentioned in the last blog it is like the "hipster" part of town, with lots of cheap places to eat and awesome artists! We got to see the Moulin Rouge! I feel terrible saying this, but it wasn't all I thought it would be. I was imagining this huge wind mill with lights and Nicole Kidman singing out from the window (Okay, not exactly, but you get the point), but in the afternoon it doesnt have that majestic feel I had imaged. But just gives me all the more reason to go back at night! We climbed up a bunch of stairs, since it's the highest point in Paris! There we went to the Sacre Coeur, my favorite church yet! It was absolutely breath taking. It looks like a mosque from the outside actually, but the inside is undescribable. You're probably itching to see pictures, right? Well unfortunately no one is allowed to take pictures because it is in prayer session 24/7. But it was nice to not be snapping away and just look around. It's a lot more modern than the other churches that we've seen so far, being less than two hundred years old. And it has one of the largest murals of Jesus on a huge dome over the alter. We're going to a night mass there in a couple weeks and I'm so so so excited for it! After we walked around the area and got crepes (I got my favorite; nutella with banana!) but unfortunately it begane to rain pretty hard so we came back to do some homework! That's something I haven't mentioned too much; the weather. We've been pretty lucky! There's been a couple of days where it's drizzled, like Monday and Tuesday, but for the most part it's been dry. But it's pretty cold (nothing like Rochester though, that's for sure!) But it's always so cloudy and gloomy! I guess it can be perceived as that romantic somber feel, but I'd rather have my romantic date on a beach in the sun than in the rain s'il vous plait!

Tuesday... Lets see... I slept in late (oops!) but got to class in time still! We had a heated discussion in Theology; our class is basically discussions and there are definitely some strong opinions in the class, which is very interesting. It's opened my mind up a lot, while at the same time made me realize more of what I think myself. (Don't worry, I'm not going to get all religious sappy on you, even though I do talk about churches a lot here! All of them are just so amazing! But I'm not trying to run to a convent any time soon!) Then we went to the Musée d'Orsay. It's actually an old train station; gorgeous inside but I'm still getting married in Grand Central Station.We saw a lot of great artwork, include Monet! I've definitely learned a lot about art and the techniques of artists and come to appreciate it a lot more. Then I went out for the night! One more day to catch up on!!

Today, well now tecniquelly yesterday, was once again super busy! (Paris never gives us a break!) Class (of course, I am "studying" abroad after all!), they made us lunch for the first time today, woo!, then back to the Musee d'Orsay where we began talking about impressionists, which I really enjoy! We're working our way to modern art. Then some friends and I grabbed dinner on our way home (I talk about food a lot on here too...) and then we had this awesome presentation by Andy Steves, the son of Rick Steves who write travel guides and books! He gave us some tips for traveling around Europe and things to do! Makes me that much more excited for London and Dublin in these next couple of weeks! He had a really good point that as we look at things from differen cultures we shouldn't just compare to our own, but try to understand why they do things that they do. He told us a time that he went to a bull fighting match in Spain (I can't wait; we're in Seville during the main bull fighting season!) and all afternoon long there were families of generations there watching these bulls get taunted and run around then killed; how can this be fun family entertainment? But come to find out, these bulls are the pride and joy of families for years, almost like a family pet would be, and after the bull is killed the head is mounted and hung in the house as a rememberence almost. I was like what? But he has a point; they show a lot of respect to the bull by honoring it afterwards and treating it like gold for many years, while we Americans make genetically disformed chickens without beaks who become fully grown in three days because of all the steriods in them just to be killed and made into McDonald's chicken nuggets. Intense, right?? I just found that super interesting! But enough about chickens and bulls... To end the night I did a Midnight Run! Which is community service; in short we made bagged sandwiches and go and hand them out to the homeless around the city, a simple way to give back! So that was nice. I've done it back in Manhattan and loved the experience, so it's cool to do it over here too! And I saw the Eiffel Tower "sparkle" for the first time tonight my friends' window!!! Every hour on the hour the Eiffel Tower flashes lights, it's breath taking! I sat looking out the window in awe until I finally snapped back into it to get our project done (and Facebook, of course!).

As you can probably tell I'm taking a ton from this whole experience being abroad. I definitely appreciate certain things a lot more (AKA my venti ice white chocolate mochas; Starbucks is even more ridiculously expensive over here!!) I've taken more in my art class in just this past week than I have in probably any other class, and as much as the debates in my theology class can make my blood boil I'm always interested to go to class to see what the topic will be (Tomorrow my group is leading dicussion; We're going to be talking about if the religious beliefs of presidential canidates should matter when it comes to voting, and then go into religion in America since 9/11. Some pretty deep stuff!) Tomorrow is "Friday" for us since it's our last day of classes before the weekend that I already have lots planned for! Including writing a four page paper on a painting and making a presentation on Hinduism. I knew this whole vacation phase wouldn't last forever! But with my trip to Normandy on Friday and then hopefully a trip to the Catacombs on Saturday and Sunday to enjoy Paris I can't really complain!