Mes adventures en France: And the Beat Goes On

Another week is gone already – time has learnt to fly! This week was the beginning of my French course meaning the real work begins.

On Monday we had an oral exam and on Tuesday we began classes. I understand that they place students into French levels all the time; however, I’m not convinced that their placement system is completely accurate. The levels are as follows: Beginner, Elementary 1,2, & 3, Intermediate 1,2,& 3 and that’s all that you need to worry about. My written test score was Intermediate 2 and my oral exam score was Elementary 3 – it was a bad day migraine wise and I’m atrocious at interviews. My problem with their placement system is that they put me in Elementary 3 instead of averaging the scores and putting me in Intermediate 1. The class I’m in is extremely easy and we’re reviewing things I’ve known for years. I am still learning though – our teacher wants the best from us so I’m digesting a lot of vocab and different ways to say the same thing. Switching classes has been done, but the tragedy is that there’s no extra room in the Intermediate 1 class, so our professor is going to see what she can do about giving us extra work and us getting the Intermediate 1 credit. It’s been a tad stressful.

On the topic of stressful, three weeks in, half way through my adventure, I had my homesickness spell or “I hate French moment.” I’ve been doing fine (with the exception of crowds - I loathe crowds) up until now; it was just one of those bad days and seeing as I’m in a different country, I wanted home. I’d had a disappointing conversation with my French professor in the morning about the wrong level situation and when I decided to walk to my Art class, I turned the wrong way and walked for over an hour straight instead of the 20 minutes that the journey was supposed to take. I wasn’t in the right French class, my feet hurt and I was late for my Art class – clearly France was to blame for my misfortune. Anyways my spell lasted all of 1 hour; when I arrived at art class, I wasn’t the last one there and the professor hardly noticed I’d arrived late, my feet learnt to live and the French situation would have to work out somehow. I’m not even sure that qualifies as homesickness . . . but I’ll count it anyways. It’ll be another of my life experiences.

This week in Art class we visited the St. Chapelle – the royalty built this church for their private worshiping purposes (apparently Notre-Dame wasn’t grand enough,) the Concergerie – a prison type place, Notre Dame and the Louvre.

St. Chapelle

Inside St. Chapelle. Gorgeous stained glass windows. I want to know why they're so high nobody can see them properly!

King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette's names on the roster of people beheaded during the revolution. The last name "Capet" was given to them because they were stripped of the royal honor of not having a last name.

This reminds me of the Phantom of the Opera chandelier :) I found it in Notre-Dame.

Famous pyramid of the Louvre. The American architect's modern design caused controversy amongst the French.

Dedication of the new "Grand Louvre" to President Mitterand, whose grand vision saw numerous changes throughout Paris.

This is how the Louvre used to look back when it was a fortress protecting Paris' western border.

Venus de Milo

Winged Victory

Napoleon III's receiving chambers.

Professor Clark: **sarcastically** "Can you imagine wearing these royal jewels?"

Female student: "YESSS!"

I really liked this painting. Fighting in all directions amongst the angels.

Look how strong I am ;)

Finally this weekend’s adventure was a trip to Versailles. I'd just been there with Christine, so my prior experience allowed me to skim the boring stuff and investigate the cool stuff. Unfortunately it was absolutely packed there and we had an hour's wait to get in and once we were inside the chateau, getting from room to room was slow going. But we had a great time at the Hameau de la Riene (Queen's Hamlet,) a fantastic lunch and delicious natural ice cream!

Ice cubes in my Orangina!! (Ice cubes are a novelty in Europe fyi)

Awesome fountain!

These fish knew we were there and were dying for us to feed them. Their yellow mouths that they kept opening above water in hope of food landing in there were quite fascinating.