Je ne veux pas oublier: The Third Place

Things have been pretty normal lately, not much of interest to write about...

I got a couple of my exams back. These are the first indication I have gotten during the whole semester of how I am doing in my classes! Luckily I'm doing fine. My Translation exam came out pretty much as I expected - I got a 15/20 on the French to English part and a 10/20 on the English to French. That may seem pretty bad... but keep in mind that an American A is a 14/20 in France. When they set a curve, the person who did the best gets a 14, not a 20. So a 15 is pretty damn good, and a 10 is a low B. Put them together along with the fact that Tulane has agreed to count the French to English section for more, and I have an A- in Translation. Nice.

My Grammar and History of Language class is the one that I basically though I was going to fail, but I did pretty well there, too. I don't know how I did on the work that I turned in to her, but on the exam I got an 11/10 on the first part (I still don't understand this) and a 6/10 on the second part, which adds up to a 17/20... totally rad. So I'm doing very well in the two classes in which I have received my graded exams. Hopefully my other two exams will go well, too. Seems like they like to make you sweat and think you are going to do horribly and then, presto change-o, A+!

In other news, a girl named Julie is visiting Paris right now. She's from Australia and is traveling the world for three months, or until her money runs out. I met her on Couchsurfing.com. She's staying in a hostel, but she wanted to see some sights with someone who knows the city but speaks English, and so she sent me a message. So we met up on Friday. I took her with me to the Louvre with my conversation class. Most of the guys ditched after an hour, but one of them asked if he could stay and walk around the Louvre with us, and we had a fun time going back and forth between he and I trying to translate descriptions of Egyptian art, including bizarre vocabulary that neither of us knew. Afterwards, Julie and I came back to the Fondation where we tried out the closest thing I could find in France to veggie burgers. They were pretty good, but really squishy, and the buns were lame and fell apart. But we had a good meal, all in all. After that we met Erin at Châtelet and went to Le Troisième Lieu, a bar which I really do enjoy, but I keep meeting weird guys there who seem nice and then turn out to be completely creepy. For example, this is the bar where I threw beer in a guy's face (one of my life goals, completed). But as usual, we met some cool people of various nationalities. Julie, who is from Melbourne, even met another Aussie at the bar!

I've spent the rest of this weekend lazing around and taking advantage of the fact that they have finally re-opened the laundry room at the Fondation. It still costs an arm and a leg, but it's a little cheaper, it's close to home, and you only need to run one dryer cycle to dry your clothes, which is basically priceless in France. Usually I have to pay 1E for ten minutes, and this time I paid 1E50 for nearly an hour and a half of drying.

I have also been trying out some of the vegetarian foods that I bought at this organic, natural, vegetarian store called Naturalia. It's not that I'm going veggie or anything - just trying to eat healthy. But really, I'm just not that into soy products. I tried the aforementioned veggie burger-like things, which were pretty good. But I also had these little star-shaped things made of tofu and veggies as well as tofu hot dogs, and they were both kind of gross. I had to use a lot of ketchup. It doesn't help that there's nothing really yummy like Boca Burgers or Gardenburgers. I think that for my health food I am just going to stick to muesli and yogurt for breakfast, and stir-fried vegetables. Although this store Naturalia is the only place in France where I have found sweet potatoes... I'll have to go back!

So, two more exams and then Italy!

Some random pictures, because they have been sadly absent from my blog lately:

Foucault's pendulum - not the original exactly, because the original would have fallen apart by now, but not really a replica either. More like the real thing with new parts. In it's original home, the Panthéon.

The courtyard of the Louvre at night - not the part that you usually see pictures of, eh?

Paige (who stayed with me through Couchsurfing) and I and some enthusiastic tourists who wanted their picture taken with us. I never did get around to writing about Paige's visit...

Chili cheese fries, a Coke and a milkshake at Breakfast in America, and American diner in Paris. It's the real deal - those are the best chili cheese fries I have ever had.