so much stuff

this past weekend was incredible! so let's start with thursday

after class was over thursday i went home to get ready for a party at my friend Jessica's homestay. she lives in a southern suburb of Paris called Malakoff which is easy to get to on the metro, plus it's nice to get out of the city for a little while. SO we went and it was amazing. It was sort of a dinner party/mixer for older folks (ages ranging from the 40s-the 70s) but it was also a cabaret performance of this old man and his friend who played the accordion. So we all squished into this little theater in Mimi's house (the lady with whom my friend lives), champagne in hand, and listened to this adorable old man duo sing and play for about an hour and a half. Afterwards we all went upstairs to eat and dance and there were a couple guys playing guitar and they made all of us Americans (there were like 5 of us) sing Simon and Garfunkle songs. then i danced the "rock and roll" which is basically east coast swing (linde hop sp?) as they called it with a man named Andre who had to be around 60, but he was fun! It was just nice to go out and be in a place that felt smaller than Paris and just have some good clean fun.

Friday night I went to see the Bejart Ballet perform for cheap. Our tickest were supposed to cost 100 Euro but instead were 25...still a bit expensive, but WAY better than 100 and sooo worth it. The ballet was amazing...they had a great mix of traditional point and modern movements as well as a lot of world dance styles thrown in. It was called "Around the World in 80 Minutes"...there were a few female soloists, but most of the dancers were men which was definitely a feast for the eyes. it was super fun to get a little gussied up and go out to something nicer than a panini stand on the street. Score. Then after the ballet we went along the Seine for a bit and were trying to meet up with some other folks from IES but decided to go out instead so we grabbed a beer and chatted for a while. then we decided to check out some street performers dancing on the street and one of them roped me in so i was dancing with this dude on the sidewalk for a bit...it was super fun. afterwards we went to the Bastille area of town where there is pretty good nightlife and just hung out with some folks until the metro closed. actually...my OTHER friend Jessica and I thought that the metro would still be open (it's supposed to be open until between 2am-2:30am on weekends and we left at 1:30)...but it wasn't. so we had an adventure on the Noctilien (the night bus) which was actually pretty amusing. got home safe and sound at 3am and snuggled into bed sans probleme.

Saturday
MONTMARTRE. RUGBY.
Montmartre is super fun. Pigalle=the red light district of Paris so i got some pictures of the Moulin Rouge and other things like that. it's also suuuuper hilly so it's quite the work out to run around there all day. first we got some tasty Indian food. yum. then we went to the eroticism museum which was pretty interesting. and it was cheap...only 4 euros. we walked around for a bit longer, peeked around some shops, saw Truffaut's, Degas', and Dumas' graves in the Cemetiere de Montmartre and wandered up a few giant hills to the Dali museum. i really liked it because while there were a lot of his works there that were well known, there were a lot i had never seen so it was nice to see some different things from him. not to say that i'm any art expert...but it was still nice. it's also nice to throw in some chill activities like museum going because then you don't have to walk and you don't have to talk...everyone can do their own thing which is super nice. i will not lie...walking around in groups is getting to me...i like to do things on my own and so many people, americans in particular...american GIRLS in particular, are so indecisive that it gets on my nerves. but it's fine...i can deal. as long as the groups don't exceed four or five people max, it's all good. after we had walked around all day, we went out to see a rugby game. it was France vs. England which should have been good, but it was 13s so it wasn't as big a deal and the France team was absolutely terrible. or the England team was really good...i think it was a combination of both. the England team was way more cohesive and had better strategy which was fun to watch and watching France basically give up was kind of funny. they lost by almost 60 pts...whoops. the main event at the rugby game though was definitely the drunken streaker who decided to get caught right in front of our seats. i got some pretty funny photos of him...ever notice that streakers are only funny if they are out of shape? an in-shape streaker would not be nearly as comical as an out of shape one...dunno why...but so so true. also, one of the coordinators for IES, Bertrand aka Mr. Beau (he's cute) came with us, so we all went out for a beer afterwards and after that Jessica and I went to the Bastille again...got on the metro at like 1:30 and by the time we got off the metro they were all closed. so we were in an unfamiliar place pretty late at night with no metro and no knowledge of where the Noctilien was AND when we got out of the metro there were these men fighting in the street. I'm talking 5 guys on 1, throwing punches and bottles, intense fight. so we stayed on the metro platform for a bit and walked away from the scene as discretely as possible...not easy to do because Jessica was in a dress. that made me nervous. anyways...we walked around for a bit and followed an older couple and finally were able to hail a cab. oh adventures in Paris.

Sunday:
We tried to find this famous flea market that supposedly sprawls 15 acres and is amazing but failed. we found a fake one that was basically a tourist trap and we were walking towards a very sketchy area so we decided to give up and go get pancakes. after pancakes we decided to go to a mall but forgot it was sunday and everything was closed...so we just sorta sauntered around and stumbled upon the louvre so we took a few pictures. i decided not to go in because i would have only had an hour and that would not be worth it...so we walked back up the seine to the metro where i went home to eat dinner. my family had a british guest over for some pre-dinner drinks so i spoke with him a bit which was nice...it's nice to be able to express everything you want to a stranger! the dad was like "oh you've never told me this stuff" and i said "yeah cause it's hard to in french!" and he just kinda giggled...he had had a bit of champagne. haha. so after dinner i went to my friend Jessica's (it's confusing because there are two...sorry) and we started planning our trip to the Riviera...i am so pumped for that!!

Also there is a chance that I will have free Opera tickets to see Carmen tonight due to a contest with IES so hopefully I get to do that tonight...if I do, ya'll will hear about it! Bonne Journee!

Ann :-)