Let's see....Monday, class was cancelled, but you already knew that. On Tuesday I didn't have class like usual. My plan for the day was to go to a cafe or the FNAC to study for my translation test and do homework because of the noise from the construction. I woke up at 8:15 because that's the time they decided to start working on the electricity. I got up, ate, and took a shower. Around 11 the workers stopped...I'm assuming it was their lunch break. My phone started ringing and I wasn't sure who would be calling because a lot of people have class on Tuesdays. It was Luke Ptak! He's was in Paris for the day because he was flying out tomorrow morning to go back home. I can't believe his semester is already over! I swear he just got here. We decided to meet up for lunch at the student cafeteria. However, I wasn't very precise when I told him where to meet me. He was at my metro stop while I was waiting for him at the cafeteria. He sent me a text saying he was there and I was like ummm, no you're not I don't see you. So Luke jumped on the RER to get to where I was. Then, he called me to tell me that he was there but he made a wrong turn and I had to track him down. We finally found each other...it was a little nuts. We ate at the little cafeteria that's downstairs from the main one because we wouldn't be rushed to eat. At the big one on the top floor when it's 2pm they kick you out so they can clean and get ready for dinner. It's really annoying. I like to sit and talk after I'm done eating. I don't like to be rushed out. But whatevs. We talked for a while and he was pretty sad to be leaving because he felt like he just got here. We parted ways and I went back to the apartment to start studying. Me, Jean-Francois and Renee ate dinner together that night. I like when Jean-Francois comes because he always cooks and he's a really good cook. Although I really didn't enjoy dinner that night. He made shrimp, which were over cooked in this sauce which was really good. It would've been really good with rice because it was kind of like a curry but he made spinach instead. Barf. I really don't like spinach. Renee saw it and was like oh, Amy doesn't like spinach. Jean-Francois was like oh I didn't know that and he offered to make something else but I told him it was okay because I didn't want to be rude. I ate the spinach and it was gross.
On Wednesday I had theatre which was pretty boring. I have no idea why either. The professor just kept talking and we didn't even talk about what we were supposed to have read for the day. He's been doing that a lot lately. The translation test was so hard. I wanted to cry. We had to translate 5 phrases, which weren't that bad if you went over the grammer packets she gave us, which I did. However, there were 2 paragraphs from this huge article that we had to translate. Translating isn't that bad when you have an English/French dictionary because the article is in English and if you don't know a word you can always look it up. Well, we weren't allowed to use an English/French dictionary on the exam. We were only allowed a French dictionary. If you think about it there's really no way the French dictionary is going to be a big help to me. What if I don't know the French translation for the English word? I'm pretty much screwed unless the French word happens to be close to the English word spelling wise, because some of them are really similar. When I read the first line of the article I was like oh great...this is going to take me a year in a half to do. There were some words that I didn't know the word for in French which was really annoying. I tried to think of words that were like the other word that I actually knew in French. I did know that there was a possibility that the meaning of the sentance would change because I used a different word but it was better than putting nothing down on the paper. One of the words I didn't know was jungle for example, and I used forrest instead. I was talking about it with Jean-Francois at dinner and he's like well they are kind of similar. I know they are similar but I didn't know the word for jungle so that's the word I used. Turns out the word for jungle is actually jungle....spelt the same way and everything. Jean-Francois thought that was pretty funny...I did not. I hope the professor isn't a tough grader because it was really hard.
Thursday for Costello's class we were meeting at La Defense. Chaniece met at our metro early so we could get there a little bit early because we weren't exactly sure where we were going. We got on the metro at 10:15 and the train just sat there a little while. Then, the conductor came on and said that there was an accident greve (basically meaning someone jumped in front of the train) on the line that we were on and the traffic was going to be disrupted. We sat on the train for 25 minutes before it moved to the next station, where we sat for another 10 minutes. I knew we were going to be pretty late so I called Lizzie to have her tell Costello when she got there. The train finally got to Montparnasse and me and Chaniece decided to get off to get onto another line that would take us to the 1 which we needed to take pretty much to the end of the line. We were about 10-15 minutes late when we got there. Costello wasn't mad because we told him it wasn't our fault at all and he understood which was nice. He talked about the area and stuff and it was cool but it was cold and really windy. We were there until 12:45 ish and then we all got back onto the 1 and took it to Chatelet to talk some about that area. We walked to this area by Les Halles and we walked past this group of black men drinking. They started harrassing us as all the girls walked by...not cool. Costello talked for a bit on this giant staircase that we stood on. He let us go early and apologized for the rude men, but it wasn't his fault.
When I got to school I went to the classroom which was locked so I sat in the hallway and ate my lunch. John showed up :) and we talked for a while when Diane showed up. Chaniece walked in next and was being a fool and then Jacqueline was even worse. HAHAH. But, they did give me some balsamic vinegar and salt chips which are AMAZING. Madame came and opened the door for us. I was walking to where I usually sit when Chaniece and Jacqueline are like no, Amy come sit over here....where she, Chaniece, and John were sitting. I sat in between John and Diane. Class was just a mess, I really don't want to say anything more about it except that it was probably the best class I've been too, but that might have just been because I changed seats... Oh, I got at 16.25 / 20 on my exam! YAY!!!!
That night I went to the Opera to see the ballet called 
Hommage a Jerome Robbins at l'Opera Garnier which is the really fancy opera house. OH MY GOD it was AMAZING!!!!! It was so much better than the Nutcracker. I LOVED IT!!! The dancers were from le ballet de l'opera national de Paris (the Ballet troop of Paris). There were 4 dances all danced with the National Orchestra of Paris. Words cannot describe how amazing it was. Not only were the dances amazing, the building itself is so beautiful. Please Google it because c'est tres magnifique!! Our seats were really good on the 2nd floor (3rd if you want to be American about it) in this thing called a loge. It was basically a private box that had to opened up by the usher. It was so cool. I felt like Abraham Lincoln when he went to that play the night John Wilkes Booth shot him because he was in a private room too. I know that's pretty morbid, but it's the first thing I thought of. I'm so weird. Anyways, it was awesome. Here's a picture of me that Lizzie took (THANKS LIZZIE!!) at the Opera. We were on the 3rd floor. Check out my shoes!!!! Oh and I don't know why I'm slouching...my bad.
Hommage a Jerome Robbins at l'Opera Garnier which is the really fancy opera house. OH MY GOD it was AMAZING!!!!! It was so much better than the Nutcracker. I LOVED IT!!! The dancers were from le ballet de l'opera national de Paris (the Ballet troop of Paris). There were 4 dances all danced with the National Orchestra of Paris. Words cannot describe how amazing it was. Not only were the dances amazing, the building itself is so beautiful. Please Google it because c'est tres magnifique!! Our seats were really good on the 2nd floor (3rd if you want to be American about it) in this thing called a loge. It was basically a private box that had to opened up by the usher. It was so cool. I felt like Abraham Lincoln when he went to that play the night John Wilkes Booth shot him because he was in a private room too. I know that's pretty morbid, but it's the first thing I thought of. I'm so weird. Anyways, it was awesome. Here's a picture of me that Lizzie took (THANKS LIZZIE!!) at the Opera. We were on the 3rd floor. Check out my shoes!!!! Oh and I don't know why I'm slouching...my bad.Today I had theatre and I had to sit in the back by myself and no one sat next to me. Although, when Krista was giving her presentation, Benoit was sitting across from me and I got to see the grades everyone has gotten on their presentaitons. I'm happy to say that I have the best grade...14/15 WHAT UP! Nice right? Everyone who has done a presentation has told me that they basically copied the exact format I used for my speech. I'm just like well, I'm glad I can help you out...it's cool though. I really don't care. Class was good except for the part when with 30 minutes to go I had to pee so bad. I didn't want to get up and go because I was all the way in the back of the room and I would feel awkward getting up. So I held it and then booked it out of there when class ended. Chaniece was meeting up with me and Colie to go to lunch down the street so while we waited for her, me, Colie, Erin and Beth were all talking to Sean (the resident advisor) we were joking around with him about his desk because it's so small and I said that it was like a little Tykes desk because he's really short, shorter than me...hahaha it was really funny. Then Sean goes, okay Amy Fountain....and I was like haha don't mock my last name, it's a cool last name, I know. Ha. Good times. Chaniece showed up and Beth joined us for lunch at the cafe down the street. We were there for an hour and a half eating and talking. Afterwards, me Chaniece and Colie went to the bookstore because Chaniece needed to buy a book for class. After a stop at Starbucks that took longer than it should have we went home.
It's been a really good week so I'm hoping that this weekend in the Loire Valley goes well. Costello sent us an email about all the stuff we'll be doing and it seems pretty cool. We're having a group dinner tomorrow night where we won't be served wine. LAME. Costello said that when the state of Illinois audited the University's study abroad expenses, they said that we couldn't write off wine for dinner. Sean said that he'd rather have us drink the wine at dinner because they can control how much we have but oh well, the state ruined that. It's supposed to rain this weekend but maybe it'll miss us (crosses fingers!) I probably won't update on Sunday when I get back because I'm not exactly sure when we'll get back to Paris. It all depends on traffic. So maybe Monday or Tuesday I'll update. Have a good weekend and GO HAWKS!!!
Bisous
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