The last two days have been very hectic!

Yesterday, we went to Diderot early to sign up for classes. The system here in France is much different from the system used at UMASS. For one thing, the entire process is done without a computer. Basically, you walk into a room full of nothing but paper upon paper upon paper of course listings. If you find a class that you like you write it down on a sheet. This was the first time that a lot of us had seen the course times/dates so that made it an interesting experience. After about 2.5 hours of finding courses, the API kids went to sign up for classes officially only to find out that we are not yet considered students at the university! However, that problem should be fixed by the end of the week and it will not affect our class selection. In the end, it looks like I will be taking French History of the twentieth and twenty-first century, a translations course [where we translate text from French to English], a musical cinema course, a constitutional law class, a cooking course [required for API and taught by our resident director, Anne-Marie], and the teaching internship. It will be a lot of work, but should be fun! The good thing is that I am taking classes with people I know, so I wont be all alone. In the evening I went shopping and to a crêperie with TJ, Ellen, Marissa, and Annie.

Today for stage we had to go on two museum tours. The first was the historical museum of Paris called the Musée Carnavalet. The tour was long, and although there were some interesting things I wasn't too impressed with the museum as a whole. Then, after a quick lunch at the bagel shop by API, we went to the Louvre again. This time we explored the Egyptian section, which is the largest collection in the world! It was very impressive and I had a great time (even though I had my doubts about going a second time)!

Oh- funny story.

Yesterday on the way to sign up for classes Ellen and I grabbed a quick breakfast at a cafe near Diderot. We were walking past an academic building when all of a sudden we look up into a classroom window to see a completely naked French man!! The two of us starred in shock and started laughing at which point he tried to hide behind a pole [which was not very helpful]. Why there was a naked man in the academic building of Diderot I could not tell you...the thought is that he lost a bet. Never a dull moment in Paris!


I'm going to post a link for some photos that I've taken over the last week and a half. I'm not sure if it will work so let me know!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036025&id=1238850156&l=f429bfd3e2

bisous