I have no written in days and there is sooo much to catch up on...needless to say this will be a long entry. Where do I begin...I guess with the first day. Well July 7 started off like all the rest: getting up way to eary for French class. We mainly just when over verb conjugations and got to know each other a bit more. After French Lauren and I went to go eat lunch at this really cute place, called the American Cafe, just out side of St Chapelle and the Palais du Justice. Let me tell you something, the French invented people watching. I love how all the chairs at a resteraunte face out to the street so you can watch people. It's magnificent! So, after lunch we met up with our class at the St. Chapelle: a private Chapelle built and used by the king of France. It was absolutely gorgeous! It had the most beautiful, intricut stained glass I have seen to date. The walls were painted and had the Fleur de Lis everywhere. King Louis (can't remember which one exactly) had his initials amongst the Fleur de lis as well. It was a cute two story little chapelle, and the bottom belonged to the servants. The servant'f floor has included all that has been mentioned...the Royal floor, the second floor, was that X 10!!! The walls were practically made out of the stained glass, and what was wall was beautifully painted and marked with fleur de lis. It was a beautiful building, and trying to describe it in this entry would be impossible. Unfortunately, the high alter of the second floor was under renovation, so we did not get to see that, but even without it, it was beautiful. We made our way to the Place Dauphine, a little medeival square that has been turned a bit modern. The best part about it was that Napoleon built the facade of a the government building at the far end of the square. We didnt spend to much time at this square because there wasnt really much to look at any longer, and then class was dismissed. A few of us, Kyra, Emily, Jenna, and myself, stayed behind to go see the conciergierie, a prison, and the prison that held Marie Anoinnette before she met Madame la guillotine. We walked down some stairs and into this huge atrium, there were windows but they were small and high up. It would have been really creepy in the days of Marie Antoinnette. Then we walked down a couple hall ways with recreated cells. It creeped me out a bit because in them were plastic figures, and some of them were really sick looking and bleeding. When we came to the reconstructed cell of Marie Antoinnette, I have to admit it was a bit dissappointing...it is so played up by people that I suppose I was expecting to much. You'll have to see for yourself. Then we found ourselves in a small chapelle that had a few monuments dedicated to important people including Louis VXI. There was also a huge list of all those that had been recorded as victums of Madame la Guillotine. The best part, best is probably not the right world...was the little garden to the side. It was a cute little square garden with a fountain and a stone table...cute...until you found out some very chilling information. The garden was called "The Woman's Courtyard." The women were allowed to walk around and the table was for eating, and they could wash there cloths in the fountain. And then, there was the "corner of twelve." a celled off triangle at the far end of the courtyard, where 12 women at a time would wait for the cart that would come to take them to meet the guillotine. We walked inside that corner and shut the gate on ourselves and looked out at the rest of the courtyard...i have to honestly say, it was not a pleasant feeling, and to think that so many women had had their last goodbyes in that very corner...extremely chilling. The day was drawing to an end, but was not over yet...the four of us made our way to the Reine River to meet the rest of our group. Little did we know that where we met was actually on the bridge that Princess Diana had sadly crashed and died. We all had a little moment of silence as we read the notes and messages left for her around the memorial. It was touching. Then we took the River Reines boat tour and saw things from the Eiffel Tower to the L'Orangerie to the Louvre, to the Grande Palais. We than split up into even smaller groups again and headed off the watch the semi-final between Spain and Germany. It took forever to find a place, we ended up having to get on the metro and going to Pont Neuf. We found a cute little bar that was playing it and had a bite to eat (a croque msr-ham and cheese sandwhich with melted cheese on top and a salad) and I also had a Carlsburg and watched the game. SPAIN WON! It was a good game though. Then finally, we had to head home.

The next day was a lot simpler, and a lot less filled, but still lots of fun. Started off in French class, and worked on the conjugations of irregular verbs. The are a lot more complicated than i remember them being from French class as OU. But my prof. (who actually told us to call her by her first name, which is odd to me ha) make it a lot more easy and fun. The art and arch class was really fun because we were meeting at the l'Orangerie to see impressionist art, and monet's waterlilies. It was not an easy place to find because the signs made absolutely no sense. Within one block, two signs pointed at each other and the only thing in between them was another street and the metro. We finally just decided wo walk around the place de la Concorde until we could find our prof. and we found her outside the Tuileriese Garden (B-E-A-U-tiful)! When we went inside we got these cool headphones so that we could wander away from the group and still hear what was being said by our prof. It was really funny at times because she'd see something that had nothing to do with art and point it out. Like this one time she mentioned a growling baby, and no one knew what she was talking about but we all got a laught out of it. Impressionist art is nowhere near to being my favorite, but Monet's waterlilies is a beautiful piece of work...or I guess I should say pieces of work. I can't even describe it, and the pictures I took don't come near to catching how amazing it really is. The lighting and architecture of the building was specifically made to fit with the painting, and words and a picture just don't capture that. GO SEE IT. I didn't like much of the rest of what was in the museum, but it was worth it to see Monet's masterpiece. After class I headed home and did some homework because we planned to all meet up and Montparnasse and 830 to do go see Twilight: Eclipse. The wibsite was wrong, the movie started at 730 and 1020 at every movie theatre. It was not fun trying to find the movie theatre either...we all ended up going to different ones because there were almost 10 in the small area we were in. We finally found each other and had a quick drink at a bar and caught the 1020 show. It was a relaly cute movie, and I had fun watching it in a foreign country. It was in English, but there were French subtitles. The theater was about half and half though. Good movie, not great...but fun. We didn't get out til after midnight and had to pretty much sprint to get to the metro on time. We did make it, sweaty and out of breath...but it was worth it.
When I got home it was close to one, and I couldnt sleep very well so was up til almost two just starring into space...the next day I would be drinking a bit of coffee in the morning for a pick-me-upper.