Wine is cheaper than water: celebrating your 21st birthday in a foreign country

Yesterday was my birthday....big whoop. The day started off by grabbing some more delish breakfast....right. Delish my butt...I'm tired of it already and it's only the 5th day here. Anyways, we left the foyer for my school: l'institut catholique de paris (ILCF). It's only a short walk through the Luxembourg gardens to get to the school which is nice, not that I'll be living in this part of town. When we got to school I was kinda disappointed. There were so many Americans there. It was like walking into a small class at the U of I. I was like ummm where are all the Frenchies? Apparently, the real "french" students don't go to this school because it is an international school for international students. If you're smart enough, which I am not, you can go to school with the french students. We had an oral exam to take and I was expecting it to be like all the other oral exams I've taken at school. It was nothing like that at all. I was in a room with about 7 other students, each had their own teacher/administrator to talk to. I walked in with this lady, she asked me where I was from and what my hobby's were and then she looked at my schedule and goes yep, everything's good (except in French). Then we walked out and I was done.

I was supposed to get an id card (sort of like my i-card) for school which gets me into the library, cafeteria, and best of all ...ALL THE MUSEUMS IN PARIS FOR FREEEEE!!!!!! ANY TIME I WANT! yay. Well, the pictures that I was REQUIRED to turn in for my study abroad applications didn't make it to the school....go figure. They're probably lost in a drawer somewhere waiting to be found. So I had to give Dr. Costello a picture of me and now I'm just waiting on my id. After our "exam" we were free to do whatever we wanted until 2. Everyone else wanted to go shopping at H&M and I 1) don't have any extra money to be spending on things I don't really need, like more clothes and 2) I don't want to go to a store that I can find in the majority of malls in America. So I left them and followed Dr. Costello back towards the Luxembourg gardens.

Here's a few pics from the gardens. I took these from my iPhone. There are more on my camera but I haven't had the chance to upload them yet. The garden is really cool. There were a lot of kids there and I was like umm shouldn't you be in school? well, french kids only go to school Monday-Tuesday and then Thursday-Friday. Sometimes they go to school on Saturday mornings but not all the time. Those lucky jerks!! I sat at one of the benches for a while and this lady sitting a few benches away decided to share her pastry with the birds. I HATE birds, so now there are all these birds flying around me. I thought I was going to have a panic attack or catch bird flu or something, so I left. I saw a group of people doing Tai Chi. It was kinda funny looking but oh well. There was this large pond with a statue in the middle and they had these little sailboats that you could rent and play with them in the pond. I thought about renting one but you could only rent it for an hour or half an hour, and I didn't have that much time. I left the garden and finally stopped at an atm to get some cash. I then got this delish pastry called pain au chocolat and a coffee for 2 euros (left). I then went to the fanprix (a small, inexpensive grocery store and bought some things. The wine was of course for my birthday. I then discovered that wine in France is much, much cheaper than bottled water...weird, I know. The bottle cost me 3.50 ish Euros. A bottle of water is around 4 euros. I bought a bottle of water at the airport in Switzerland and have just refilled the bottle with tap water (i guess it's safe to drink now). I also bought a diet coke and a sandwich because I haven't had a diet coke in days....I was starting to go crazy. After our meeting in the afternoon which was about swine flu (awesome) we left the dorm and took the metro to the louvre. We lost 2 people on the metro, but thankfully they got on the next train and met up with us. We entered into the louvre from the underground entrance. If you've read "The DaVinci Code" this is where one of the glass pyramids is inverted (the point points towards the ground) and it's "supposedly" where the virgin mary is buried. So of course there were a million people taking pictures of that. We had the same guide in the Louvre as we did the day before at the other museum. I really like him. He's so knowable. We learned about how the louvre was originally a chateaux and slowly became bigger and bigger and then they decided to make it a museum. I had to take all of my pictures from the louvre with my iPhone because flash isn't allowed in the museum, and my camera suck without flash. Here are a few pics from the louvre. The first picture is the biggest painting in the louvre. I'm not exactly what is is called but it's when god or is it jesus? turns the water into wine. The next picture is of course is Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is not that impressive in real life. It's very small and it's behind like tons of protective stuff. It's very dark as well. Tons of people crowd around it. You are only allowed to go so close to the painting, and if your flash goes off the guard yells at you. It's cool but it's not that impressive. The next is a statue of Diane I think Louis XIV (14) was obsessed with her or something. I have a picture of Venus (the statue w/o the arms) but it's not on here. The next is the Winged Victory of Samothrace (Nike Victory). It is very impressive. It sits atop a huge flight of stairs and just stares at you as you walk up to it. It's probably one of my favorite things in the louvre. Last is the glass pyramid that is now one of the entrances of the Louvre. Many Parisians hated the pyramid for a long time (it was designed and built in the late 80's) they thought it was an eye sore (they thought the same about the eiffel tower too when it was first built) but now it's one of the top attractions in Paris. We were told that if you were to spend 3 seconds looking at all of the works of art in the Louvre it would take you over 3 months day and night to look at everything. We only saw a few things and I was so tired. It's also really hot in there so that sucks.

After the Louvre I headed back to the dorm with 2 other kids. I ate my dinner on the terrace and when everyone came back we cracked open the wine and celebrated my birthday. They were so nice and bought me some desserts! Although I only ate the brownie because the other ones were weird, but it was the thought that counts. They even had a candle and sang happy birthday. It was nice. Here's the view from the terrace at sunset on my birthday. The other picture is of the eiffel tower at night. At 9pm every night it sparkles for 3 minutes and does so on the hour. It's really cool. After awhile I went back down to my room to call home. I then got really home sick. It's just hard being so far away from home :( I'm hoping it gets better once school starts but right now I'm having a hard time. I am happy that I came because I think I would hate myself if I chickened out at the last minute and didn't end up going. Today we've got a meeting at 2pm. We had the whole morning free so I took advantage of it and slept in. It was nice. I realized yesterday that turning 21 here in Paris is not a big deal. I didn't even get carded when I bought my wine. I really wanted someone to check my id but they really don't care. I guess I'll have to wait until I get home to get carded. That's all for now, we're going to the centre pompidou (a mondern museum) after our meeting and then I'll probably come back here, get some dinner and figure out how to do laundry before I leave on Sunday. Also, my hairdryer broke yesterday so I have to buy a new one tomorrow....great. So until later,

A bientot