Fun with the NGO Design Team

Taryn and me


Laurent our fearless Leader!


Gillian

Sunday Dinner with Kevin & Laura and the girls!

Last night we had dinner with Kevin and Laura, Taryn and Melissa. I made soup from scratch ( I now make up the recipes, and they are good!)

Kevin and Laura visit from Spain!

Friday

Laurent



Matt with his old lady roller cart!

Saturday Night

Las night was a big night for us…I finished my midterms! After many, many hours spent pouring over theorists and my own responses to their various ideologies, Matt and I decided to go out on the town. First we went to a fete thrown by a friend who lives in a very swanky apartment in the 7e (very she-she!) It was a wonderful group of friends in a very beautiful apartment. The food and conversation was incredible. Of course, we forgot the camera so I cannot show you what the fun looked like. I spoke for a while with a French woman about the differences between Americans and the French. I always love these conversations because they are rarely judgmental- they are just plain observant and interesting.

After a few hours of adult conversation we hopped on the Metro and jetted over the 11e to meet some graduate and doctoral students for drinks at a small bar named “ Le Petit Garage.” We met Crina, the organizer of this get together, at a small shindig thrown by one of my younger profs last weekend (she went to Northwestern with him.) We all hung out on couches and spoke about everything from Kant’s categorical imperative to why insurgent country music is cool. It really was tons of fun…but the fun can only take you so far into the night; alas, at about 12:30 Melissa, Taryn, Matt and I headed out to pick up some banana and cinnamon crepes before retiring for the evening. Next time I will remember to bring my camera so you can see what we are up to.

Today will be a lazy Sunday. I plan on reading nothing but trash so as to give my brain a break before I kick it back up for research for my finals that will be due in about 6 weeks.

New Pictures

A typical image from our neighborhood..this is around where we live


Me and Matt chillin


MQ and me


We are cute, n'est pas?

Exam Day

It is exam week. This is a week filled with tons of coffee and study sleepovers. I made soup last night to get us through the week.

Taryn and Melissa LOVE exams- yipee!

I am confused by a word I do not know!

"Our place" at school. This is where we study.

Ponette is afraid of exams...she hides!

Poster Thieves

We had a lovely weekend with all of our friends! Here are some pictures to “tell” you about it!
I just love "my girls." Really they are Matt's girls as well. This is a picture of them (Andi, Taryn, Melissa) having fun on our couch. I still need to get a picture of Mary Quinn to show you all who she is as she is part of our family here as well. Taryn and Melissa slept over last night for a "study night." We all had dinner and fun talking and forgot to actually read anything!

Me and Matt in the "womb" chair.

Poster Matt likes because we never could find the smallest museum in the world, and this is sort of the idea...

Mark and I "stole" this poster for Matt off of the side of a building.

More Pictures of Kat and Mark's Visit

Matt and the two Kellys


Me and Kat


Friends over for drinks


Taryn, Me and Melissa...my family here!


Yummmmmmmmmmmm


Strikers...just kidding, these are Mark and Kat's dogs!



Friends!


Paris even makes its ice cream cones into flowers!


The bus is so much fun when the Metro is on strike...


Me and Ponette in the morning


Ponette

Pictures of our Apartment

Ponette in the morning

Views we see from our windows


Parc below us

The church behind us...in Engligh is it the church of the White Robe


Kitchen

Living Room

Our First Strike

Today is a big day for us…it is our first “greve”! This is a strike. If you did not know, France loves strikes. All of the trains are closed today while the workers protest for better retirement plans. This should be interesting because Kat and Mark return this evening from Brussels to spend the last two days of their trip in Paris- or I should say- they will not be returning? It is difficult to say. Last night class let out early so students could make the last Metro (subway) at 8 PM, or as we like to say here in Paris, 20:00. I still struggle with military time. I walked home (about 40 minutes) with 2 of my friends from school. It was actually nice to have the time to chat about “normal” stuff like boys and hopes and dreams and all that because usually we talk about theory and articles because now that we are academics, that is how we roll.

So anyway, the greve: Not all hope is lost if you own a bike or scooter. Paris instituted a free bike system this summer called Velib. How Velib works: you rent a bike (these bikes all look the same and are very unique looking.) The bike is FREE for the first ½ hour you have it. The purpose of the bike is to quickly get you to your destination, i.e., it is not meant for sight seeing. There are Velib stands all over the place in Paris. They are a great “green” solution to getting around the city. I woke early this morning (7 AM) and looked out at the Velib stand below our kitchen window…it was already empty!



Today I do not have class. Luckily my plan for the day only includes writing for my midterms and attending a lecture that is only bout a 30-minute walk from our house. The lecture is really more a debate about an anthology my favorite professor Raj has put together. The debate is titled, “Cultures et Mondialisation: conflicts e tensions.” That is right, that title is French. There will be some debates in English, but this is France after all, and they speak French! The department head for my Masters is presenting on “Belief between Religion and Media: A Key Factor in Globalized Cultural Conflict.”

Ma and Kat on front of the Bastille Opera House

Kat and I looking cool in Paris!