JYF Orientation

Bon soir tout le monde!
Although I've only been here a few days, I'm starting to feel at home in Paris!  The metro is easy to use, and I wandered around my arrondissment this morning so that I could find my way.  Yesterday was a petit gouter (little snack) with the other kids in the program at le Musee de la Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine.  Everyone seems very nice and good at French.  I walked through the musem with some of the students, and then we walked around the Eiffel Tower, which was conveniently right next to le musee.  The sky was perfectly blue and we all kept saying how lucky we are to spend an entire semester here.  As we were heading back to the metro we saw some couples getting married taking pictures in front of the tower.  Adorable, but they looked cold! Then Tour Eiffel lit up with its twinkle light display.  C'etait magnifique! 

This afternoon I ate my first lunch at a cafe.  I had un tartine normande avec une salade(aka toasted French bread with ham, potatoes, and camembert).  YUM!

I loaded some minutes onto my cell, and walked around the Luxembourg Gardens and the Saint Sulpice church before going to my orientation meeting with another JYF student.  I'll post more pictures of the gardens when it's springtime!

Trying to blend in with the Parisennes at Le Palais de Luxembourg....all black and converse!

Saint Sulpice

And I have to say I'm pretty impressed with my French!  I understand about 90%-95% of what my host family says to me and they seem to understand what I say as well as my lame jokes and small troubles.  We haven't tried any deep philosophical or scientific conversations, but I understood most of what they were saying about their upcoming presidential elections yesterday.  My host mom was laughing at me this evening because I had to ask here where the lights were in the lobby of the apartment building.  For three nights in a row, I could not find les lumieres, so I used my cell phone to climb the stairs.  Three nights of tripping upstairs was enough for me.  All in all, another wonderful and beautiful day in Paris.  Tomorrow is my first writing workshop with Sweet Briar, hopefully it goes well!