Ma première semaine à Paris

Here's and overview of my first week in Paris:

Lundi

Jardin du Luxembourg

• This was our first day of orientation!  We had a lecture for about two hours in the morning by Estelle, the directrice of the program.  It was just general information that we had mostly heard before, but it's always good to have reminders.
• Afterwards we were free for lunch.  I hung around awkwardly for a little bit after the lecture and then attached myself to another girl named Anna.  We wandered a while until we eventually found a little pâtisserie.  I had a quiche lorraine, she had a sandwich, we both had Oranginas.
• Then we walked a little more until we ended up at le Jardin de Tuileries.  There we sat and watched lots of kids playing with boats in the big fountain.
• That afternoon, I had my first French class.  My teacher is amazing and so funny!  There are 8 people in my class and I can already tell it's going to be super fun.

Mardi

• Today was our second day of orientation.  Estelle talked about more academic details.
• During lunch time, I went over to the Free Mobile store again because my real phone had officially been unlocked by AT&T.  However, the original SIM card I got for the small phone was the wrong size so I had to get a new one.  So I'm down about €30 (€10 for the new SIM card and €20 for the mini-phone, but it might come in handy again).
• One of the classes I have to take is Introduction à la Société Française (ISF) and part of that was listening to a lecture today.  It was a 2 hour overview of the history of Paris, which gave some context to some of the beliefs and customs in French society.  So it was interesting, but the lecturer was very strange.  She's american and had a very disorganized style.  She would go go off on tangents and then loop back when she had forgotten things from her notes.  Idek.
• In the evening, the grand kids returned so it was a more lively dinner time.  However, it wasn't as roudy as before because Martine let them watch the TV while they ate.
• After dinner, Ashley and I met up with a few other Stanford people at a bar 2 metro stops away.  However, the drinks were super expensive - €9 for a small cocktail and €5 for a tiny beer.  So we didn't stay there long and instead wandered the streets for a while, but it was pretty dead so we weren't out for very long.

Mercredi

• Today was our first official day of class, which for me, didn't start until the afternoon.  So after breakfast I casually walked over to Notre Dame.  I did some reading from the spot where I took the picture above.  There were a lot of tourists, though, so I left rather quickly.  Then I walked along the Seine for a bit until I ducked onto one of the side streets.
• For lunch, I found a crêperie and got a jambon, oeuf, fromage galette.  Then I walked with my galette and wound my way back towards the Stanford center.
• That afternoon, I had architecture and french class.  Architecture is taught by Estelle and seems pretty interesting.  Usually on Tuesdays we have a lecture to give us a little context and then on Wednesdays we have a walking tour.  But since this was our first day, we just had a normal lecture.  It was kind of similar the ISF lecture from the day before - she went through the history of Paris and commented on how the city limits and style of architecture changed.  **Raci from the future here - I ended up deciding to audit this course.  This means that I don't do any of the papers or readings, but sit in on the lectures and walking tours and have more opportunity to hear French.

Jeudi

• Today I woke up rather late, so there wasn't much time to do anything before my classes for the day.  My first class of the day was film.  This class is taught in English by the visiting professor for the quarter, Jean Ma.  She usually teaches film at Stanford, focusing on Chinese and Chinese-American films.  For this class, we will be going through the history of Parisian film and it seems like it will be super fun and interesting!
• My other class for the day was French, which was fun as usual.  We all have to give short presentations on daily French newspapers and mine was Libération (or just Libé).  It was co-founded by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1973.  Initially it was associated with the extreme left, but now it is just reasonably left leaning.  However, it does seem to support Melénchon for president, who is extreme-left. 

*** Sorry if these posts are a bit lengthy/boring, but I'm also using this blog as a sort of journal for myself.  So I want to put down all the things I want to remember! ***