La Fete Nationale!

Bonjour!
Happy Bastille Day!
Hmm, what's happened since the last time I blogged? Not much really! Monday, I had my lit class and then afterward I went to le cinema and saw Eclipse!! It was fabulous!! I'm sort of a twilight fan--and by that I mean that I think the storyline is sort of cute (but maily ridiculous), and that I've read the all the books and have seen all of the movies. So Leslie and I decided to go see the movie and two other girls from our group came with us. I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to keep up with the dubbed version of the film and have to rely on Kristin Stuart's acting skills...but not to worry! We saw the movie in English with French subtitles. Some interesting things about French movie theaters: they have no air conditioning, over 100 people (who typically don't wear deordorant) in a dark, hot room for an hour and a half = very smelly, and the theater we went to was underground! The movie was fabulous! Mainly becuase the acting wans't COMPLETELY terrible on Bella's part, and they adapted the book to the screen very well! You should go see it! Becuase I watched the English version with French subtitles, I would hear a character's line in English and then read it on the bottom in French. It was cool to see the things that were lost in translation and to see that Enlgish has like 5 phrases while French has 1 phrase for the same thing. For example, in the movie if the lines "I get it," or "I see what you mean," were said, the French subtitle for both was "Je comprend."...I understand. Twas an interesting albeit smelly experience :)
Tuesday, my culture class had a field trip to Notre Dame. I'd been there before, but I didn't have to rush this time and my camera was charged unlike last time, haha. I love architecture, and the Notre Dame is absolutely wonderful! It's extremely crazy to see it and know that it was built like 700 years ago! Back in medieval times when it was built, the population was heavily illiterate. So instead of teaching everyone how to read and distributing copies of the bible (a very difficult feat in the middle ages), the church was built to have integral scenes from the bible and important Christian lore displayed on the walls (inside and outside), in paintings, and in stained glass. Thus, Notre Dame is basically a pop-up book of Christianity. There is a tonnnn of stained glass and it is all very beautiful! As I've mentioned, it was extremely difficult to comprehend that all of it was created centuries ago!
After culutre class, I took a nap then went to my literature class. On Tuesdays, our class is 4 hours long. So we headed to the other side of the Seine for class at our professor's apartment (which has air conditioning!!!!!!!) We discussed stuff for about 2 and a half hours, then she made us dinner! Which was not only very sweet of her to do, but very delicious! We had chicken and a 3 grain mixture of rice, fruit, cheese and bread. We ended up staying until like 9:30 becuase she is just fabulous!! She's probably one of the best teachers I've ever had! I'm sad that I'll only have her for 3 more weeks :(
Wednesday (today) is July 14th: France's independence day! I had the day off from class and decided to go to the parade on the Champs Elysees. It started at 10:30, but we got there at 8 to get a good spot. At 10:30, representatives from African countries associated with France kicked off the parade, followed by every branch of the French military, the police, the fire fighter brigade, and the political leaders. So basically it was only military personnel. It was kind of boring compared to parades in the states...there was only one marching band!! But they were pretty cool, because they didn't even march: they were on horsies!! If you haven't seen a guy playing a sousaphone on a horse...well you're missing out! Haha. There was also a little airshow and some paratroopers. Definitely not as awesome as Thunder over Louisville, but still a pretty cool thing to see. My favorite planes had blue, white and red exhaust and they trailed it to look like the French flag! So everything was going dandiy and then all of the sudden, the sky darkened and a horrendous rainstorm started!! No one in my group had an umbrella, so we all got completely drenched!! I looked like I fell into a lake, fo realz!! Some French dudes next to us let us share their umbrella...but 6 people under an umbrella isnt physically possible, haha. I was soaking when it was over, and we went into the metro station where I proceeded to wring out my dress! Haha, I swear, like a gallon of water was squeezed out of me!!
After that, we came home and I've been in the library ever since.
Welp, I'm going on a walk to the Eiffel Tower now.

Bonjournee!
Briana