Who Would Have Thought!

Bonjour!!
I totally remembered what I did Sunday! I know you’re dying to know because your life felt incomplete without knowing the goings-on of my Sunday! Sunday, I did not only dye a bit of my hair purple, but I did some other things earlier in the day as well. The Tour de France ended in Paris Sunday. They make like 7 laps around the city and the finish line is at L’Arc de Triomphe. Well I decided to go to L’Arche de la Defense on Sunday. The Arc de Triomphe is in the center of the largest roundabout in France (maybe in Europe, I can’t remember what my guide book says…) and there are 6 streets that intersect it (so it looks like a star with 12 arms). The main arm that runs directly through the center of L’Arc de Triomphe is called the axe historique. At one end, there is a mini Arc de Triomphe, then the Arc de Triomphe is in the middle, and then there is the Arche de la Defense at the other end.
Ok, so we have the Navigo passes that allow us to have unlimited bus and metro rides in the first 2 zones of Paris. The zones are concentric circles…there are 4 of them. Everything we’ve done on this trip thus far has been in the first 2 zones, so it’s never been a problem. Well, it turns out that La Defense is in the third zone, and the closest we could get to it was the Arc de Triomphe on the outer rim of the first zone. We (Leslie, Belinda and I) were like, “oh whatevs, it’s no big deal…we’ll just walk from Arc de Triomphe to La Defense. It can’t be that far!”
We took the metro from the Foyer to the Arc de Triomphe and it was INSANE!! We had temporarily forgotten about the Tour de France and there were so many people!!!! And it was around 3:00 and the race wasn’t even by the arc until like 5:00 or something!! I know it is the Tour de France…but it’s a glorified bicycle race people, haha. I think I don’t understand because I’m not into sports or anything, haha. (Sorry if you have an affinity for the Tour!) Anyway! We started walking to La Defense. 75ish minutes later, we finally arrived!!! We definitely walked 4.9 km to get to the arc. I know that’s only like 3 miles…but we did not go as the crow flies. So I’m estimating like 4 miles maybe 3.5. That’s a very long walk when you think it’s only going to be about 20 minutes away! Haha. It looked like it wouldn’t take much time at all to get there though and we figured out why when we arrived: the arc is HUMONGOUS!!!!!!! It is so big that it looked like it would take no time at all to reach…how wrong we were, haha. La Defense is a lot more modern compared to the Arc de Triomphe. It is just a huge, white arc and its angles and the material it is made out of are very modern. After seeing all three arcs on l’axe historique, I will say that the Arc de Triomphe is my favorite. Just because it is the most beautiful I think, what with all of the carvings and statues on the outside and all of the names on the inside.
Tuesday (today) I had my culture class at 11:00 and we went to the Musee Rodin. It is a museum built in this very old house (I think it might have been Rodin’s house, but I have no idea…) and has a lot of sculptures by Rodin…whose first name escapes me at the moment. There is also a big, lovely garden in the back that had several sculptures as well. The gardens were nice, but after seeing the gardens at Versailles and at Giverny, nothing can compare! I did like the topiary though: all of the bushes and stuff were cut into shapes like cones and triangles and things.
The house is 2 floors and there were a bunch of rooms. Every room had at least 15-20 sculptures in it. I know nothing of Rodin, but to make all those sculptures, he must have not had a social life! There were at least 100!! In one room, there were these sculptures that were extremely beautiful and well done. They were the best in the whole museum! Turns out, they were actually done by a woman named Camille Claudel who was a student of his. She was super talented!! And way better than Rodin! Her stuff was amazing! After touring the museum, I learned from my teacher that Rodin and Camille’s brother worked together to put Camille into an asylum!! Just because she was better than him!! Laaaammme!!! But that’s the early 1900s for you, I guess.
After the museum, I went back to the Foyer and did some…you guessed it! Homework! I had my 4 hour lit class at my teacher’s apartment starting at 3:30. We got there a little late because we got separated on the metro, but we made it there around 4:00. We discussed our reading assignment and she made us dinner! Which was not only very nice of her, but very delicious! She purchased premade dinner stuff at a Moroccan market and just heated it up at her apartment. I’ve never had Moroccan food before, but the chicken was delicious! I also really enjoyed the couscous, which I’ve never had before either.
So now my day is coming to a close and I’m doing some more homework before bed. I talked to Colton and Dad via facebook chat before my computer died, which was nice :D
I have a busy schedule tomorrow! (Wednesday)
-Lit class at 11:00
-Musee de Cluny (a medieval museum) with lit class at 1:00
-Going with teacher to a piercing place to get her nose pierced!! at 3:00ish (which I’m sure will make me very jealous of her and make me miss my nose piercing a lot, haha. stupid metal allergy!!)
-Going to the program director’s daughter’s birthday party in the Luxembourg gardens at 6:45
Woohoo!

Bon nuit!
Briana

p.s. some things I'd like to mention:
-toilet paper in France is pink!
-there are no preservatives in the food here
-I have been actively concentrating on not biting my nails and I am proud to say that I 4 out of my 10 fingernails are the longest they've ever been in my entire life!