The First Real Day

Well today sucked. At first (only at first). Breakfast with my host mother was good (bread with butter and jam). I then had to be at the Accent Center at 9:30 AM; I was told that 30 minutes was plenty of time to get there, so I left at 9. Getting to the final stop wasn't terrible (there was one stop on the way, but finding my next train wasn't too bad), but getting out of that stop was impossible. There are signs pointing in the directions of the different exits, but there wasn't one for my exit, which only exacerbated my situation as it was already 9:27ish when I got off the train. After doing a lap around the station (without getting a definitive answer as to where I had to go), I thought I was on to something. I tried to exit from an entrance (I would have sworn that I had seen someone do it), but that didn't work. I then pressed a button for help but I just got yelled at (not very helpful). I just decided to follow the directions for the exits with the numbers closest to my exit, and somehow that brought me to my exit.

After that stressful morning, we had a small orientation, where I got a new pick up line (COCA COLA?!?! [two things: this is supposed to be spoken in a French accent, and this allegedly happened to the person giving our orientation presentation]). Following that, we got to buy umbrellas (half of us, because it was raining) and cell phones (all of us, but we were already split off into two different groups). After getting that stuff, we were free to go.

While walking down the street, someone (I don't recall who) saw a cafe that seemed to give a good deal, so we decided to go in (though apparently some of the group decided to blaze their own trail in a different direction) and ate. People had to buy some electrical converters because they neglected to bring any, so we went to this one store that someone had heard about/went to on a previous trip to Paris/on this trip(??). The same person (I'm declining to use names because I doubt any of my fellow students will read this blog post since they're living much of it/I doubt anyone reading this will know who they are) also realized her umbrella was broken so she decided to get a new one (second time umbrellas have been mentioned--could it be a sign? nahhhh). We still had plenty of time afterwards and we also had passes that would get us into art museums for free, so we decided to go to the Centre Pompidou (which was within walking distance).

Unfortunately for me, my umbrella broke on the way. The top portion (canopy, ribs, etc) just flew off of the pole. It was hilarious.

The Centre Pompidou was pretty cool. Some of the art was above me head, and only reminded me of female genitalia:

My current hypothesis is that it relates to a newborn's exit from the birth canal, but  I could be wrong (and it's just straight up a vagina)

Other stuff was really cool, like this one:

IT'S A NEWLY WED COUPLE RIDING A GIANT CHICKEN, BEING SERENADED BY A GOAT-VIOLIN (or viola/cello) HYBRID. AND THERE'S AN UPSIDE DOWN SOUL-LESS (ginger) WOOD-NYMPH HOLDING SOME CANDLES (setting the mood I'm assuming). WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?!?!?

If you care to see more of the pictures, they're on my Facebook (and again, if you aren't Facebook friends with me, why are you reading this?).

To be read by J.P. Senter (and/or anyone who is interested in surrealism/art): if/when you read this, I need you to go on Facebook and tell me which one is the Miró (just look through the album, though it's possible that it's not one of the two I pointed out/you may not know, but I know you're fond of him (well I think you are), so I'm going to go ahead and trust your judgement on it)

The best part of today, though, was getting to know a lot of the people I didn't know well (ok, so that was pretty much everyone). I was pretty nervous about meeting people (mainly because I'm usually too lazy to socialize with new people), but everyone on the trip (at least everyone with whom I had wandered around Paris with) is super nice (you know I'm sincere because I previously mentioned that I doubt that anyone of them will even read this blog).

I just remembered this, but I had something called an "Indian Tonic" today. It reminded me of Sprite, but orange-y (I think).

Also, if you are going to comment on this post (or any other post), make sure you identify yourself, because if you don't, I won't have any idea as to who you are, and it makes it look like some random stranger is creeping on my blog (and I hope I've made my opinion about random people reading my blog very clear).

I also apologize for any spelling/grammatical errors. I was going to read this over, but I realized that, quite frankly, I don't care anymore.

Au revoir tout le monde!