Time really does fly when you are having a BLAST!!! I've gotten really bad about keeping up with this thing. A full week behind now. I'm going to try and get caught back up tonight, but don't hold me to that. A whole lot has happened and I don't know if my fingers or my internet connection will last that long.

So today's entry should be filled with AWESOMENESS because it includes the 13th and 14th--You shall find out momentarily. So, the day of the 13th began like every other day here in Paris: waking up early for French class. I cannot remember what we did in French on the 13th, but we did have another good time. It's a very informal, hands-on type of class. I feel like I'm talking to a friend instead of a teacher which it makes it more comfortable and easier to lend a voice to the room. We did ask Isabelle, our teacher, what was going on that night because it was the night before Bastille Day which is supposed to be one crazy night. She mentioned a bunch of Bals des Pompiers which are fireman's parties pretty much. When we got to our Art and Architecture class everyone was talking about them as well...so I was in, needless to say. Fireman and men in uniform...you'd be in too. But before I could go to the Bal I had to go through another Art and Arch class-which actually turned out to be one of my favorite. We spent the class at Les Invalides-the place where broken soldiers were held to keep them out of sight of the public. It was really quite an impressive place. BUT! There were military men EVERYWHERE! It was awesome...they were taking pictures near the cannons and guns and helicoptors, and so i took pictures of them doing that. We unfortunately couldnt see it all because it was under renovation, but there was a really cool statue of Napoleon in the front. We spend a good amount of time in the Chapelle at Les Invidales, and guess who is buried there? Yes, one of my favorite people in history...NAPOLEON! His grave is MASSIVE-just like his ego haha. He has his own crpyt in the Chapelle, that surrounded by sculptures and pictures of him as caesar like and being all knowing and divine-he's a facinating character even in death! LOL!!! There was a bunch of other people buried there too including his two brothers, but not nearly as monumentally as him. On the other side of a glass...uh...thing ha...is the Upper Class Chapelle. It is beautiful! My favorite so far...it was open and light with it's white stone and surprisingly gentle feel to it. I really like it. After class I went back to look into a trip to Belgium for an extended time. Then I got ready for the Bal des Pompier. BEST NIGHT EVER!!!!! It was seriously the most fun I've had here in Paris so far. It took a really long time to get in, but it was totally worth it. We waited in line for over 2 hours, and a few fights broke out next to us, but we made some friends with some guys and they kept us away from the fights and stuff. So when we got in, it was a massive party in a little fenced off aread that was outside. People were up dancing on bars and the firemen and soldiers were everywhere dancing and taking their shirts off. There was champagne everywhere. A random guy came over to me and the girls and gave us glasses and Cara even got the rest of the bottle haha. Then I met Jonathan and danced with him. He was really nice, didnt speak english all that well, but enough so that I understood him...he said my French was good, I just laughed at that...but at least he understood me. Me and the girls stayed until about 3 am just dancing the night away! When we left we started walking towards the Champs Elysees because the metro doesnt start up until 530. We found a few other people we knew at a bar so we stopped and had a bite to eat with them. We got to the metro after that and took it to the Champs Elysees---we got there around 545am...and had to wait until the Bastille Day Parade to start. We had a tip that said it started at 8 so we got some breakfast and coffee and waited not expecting to be there that long...oh nooo...it didnt start til 10!!! We were all sooo tired by the time we finally saw men mounted on horses coming down the Champs Elysees. The stuff actually started at 910, but we couldnt actually see anything until 10. Then rain clouds started getting close and me and the girls were having real trouble staying away. We decided to stay for the aviation fly by-a total of 79 military aircrafts. We got to see the back of Sarkosy's head, and a bunch of military men marching and on horses. Then the plains flew by in some really awesome formations. After the flyby it started to Rain Cats and Dogs! Me Liz and Cara started sprinting to find the nearest metro, they had shut off the ones alont the Champs Elysees so we had to go farther and got absolutely drenched in the cute cloths we had been wearing from the night before. But we made it fun of course haha. When I finally got back to the house I took a 6 hour nap and almost missed the fireworks, but they were loud enough that they woke me up, and i watched the end of it from my window. It ended with a great day, because after dinner (which was full of english because madame wasnt hungry and howard ate with us) I booked my tickets to Belgium!!! YAY!!!!

So the next day at school was brutal. It was a very rude awakening after not having that much sleep. Plus, we had a mini-test-it turned out not to be to hard though so it wasn't to bad. We worked on Passe Compose in French too, which I remember from Class at OU so it wasnt a hard time. Art and Arch was a bit harder because we had a long day at the Musee d'Orsay...not my my favorite by any means but there were a lot of really amazing pieces. It was a lot of impressionist art and some post-impressionist--commonly names such as courbet, courdet, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, and Van Gough. It was a really cool place, a train station that had been turned into a museum. A lot of cool pieces but some of it got really funky. I'm not thrilled that we are heading into modern art--definatly not my cup of tea. Also during class as we saw some paintings about vampires, it got really frustrating because people started debating about twilight and how it's an evil book...I'm not a huge fan of it, but I like it...but I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion and it just got really irritating. After class, a lot of us were so tired from the Bal and Bastille day that we all just went home and called in early.

Friday the 16th was actually very laid back- in french class we just worked on the Passe Compose a bit more, but in the form of a crime/murder mystery. It was actually funny- I used Kyra and My story about Fernando being in the Italian Mofira- the class found it funny so that's good. After class I went to the ISA office with Liz to print off all my tickets and reservations for belgium. I also looked into some extra travel- i've added Brussel's, Bruge, Ghent, and Antwerp to my itenerary! YAY! After that I just went home to pack for the Loire Valley!!! It was a very relaxing and lazy thursday and Friday after Bastille day, which was nice and very much needed!