An American in Paris

Joyeux Noël everyone!  Hope everything's going good where you are.  Let's start with the last Friday of school:  Fête du Lycée, or School Party/Festival.  The main event was a concert all afternoon long in the gym.  The students did stuff but also the teachers!  Including my philosophy teacher who was dressed up as a member of ABBA and danced with some of the other teachers.  We also had lunch made by the teachers, and plenty of dessert brought by the students!  It was sweet!  If you look on my facebook, I'm tagged in a newspaper clipping picture about it!

Sunday me, my host mom and sister left for Paris.  We stayed there with a friend of my host mom, about 20 minutes from downtown Paris by train.  It was awesome!  Saw lots and lots of touristy stuff, and did a good bit of shopping too!  I'll get some pictures up later hopefully, as I'm not chez moi right now.  Anyways, Paris.. Got to see Montmartre, the Sacré Coeur, Notre Dame, Les Halles (Shopping!), the Champs Elysées, the big stores like Printemps and Galeries Lafayette with their Christmas lights and windows, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay (museum of 1800s-1900s art), and of course the Eiffel Tower.  The day that we went to the Eiffel Tour it was really really cold-so cold there was no line at all to go up when there's usually an hour or two wait, and we could only go up one floor because the other levels were closed.  The big 'oops' of Paris came when my host sister took us to a store called Abercombie.  It was supposed to be AbercRombie as in the clothes store, but google maps suggested Abercombie, a store for old ladies!  It was pretty funny.  Paris was cool because it was so easy to get places either walking or with the Metro.   And the shopping-let's just say there's a reason Paris is the fashion capital of the world! 

Since the end of my school I've been in serious French mode.. yes there was touristy stuff in English in Paris but I've been thinking a lot in French and it's French French French.. One night coming home from Paris on the train my host fam. wanted to talk English, and I had more trouble than them because I kept mixing in French words!  It was bad..  I also had trouble when I first started talking to family on Saturday, don't know if you guys noticed but it wasn't a very good English day!  I also had an akward moment when we were visiting a chateau in the Loire.. there were Asian tourists who said 'Sorry' for being in the way of my picture, and I responded.. 'C'est pas grave' which is obviously French.  The next time they said something I responded in English and it felt really weird! 

That leads me obviously to the Loire.. The morning of the 24th we picked up my host dad from the train station and drive a long time towards the East.  We stopped at the chateau Chambord, which was amazing, and then to my host family's family for Christmas Eve and a week long visit that is still in progress.. but that's a story for next time! 

Bye, Love you all!