First day of class!

So got up at 6:30 today. Actually, scratch that, I woke up up 2 paranoid that I'd missed my alarm, and then again at 5:30. When I woke up the third time and heard the market setting up outside, I knew I'd finally gotent it right.

I gave myself some buffer time, just in case, and I'm glad I did. After my breakfast and coffee, I left at 8:15. It only took me about half an hour on the busy metro this time, but when I got to campus at quarter to, I couldn't figure out which building I was supposed to go to. I asked two people, including a secretary (who seemed way too dim-witted to hold the position, sadly, I'm not joking). I finally figured it out and arrived right at 9.

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About my class; it's definitely an interesting one. There are only 12 students, myself included, and half are over the 25, and about 4 of them, WELL over 25. We have a diplomat from South Africa who fluently speaks 6 languages and is learning his 7th, French, a priest-in-training, and a nun. There's one other American girl from Texas, 2 older people who I forget where they're from, a girl from India, 3 from Vietnam, (one of them is the nun) and 2 girls from Japan, one of which shares the same birthday as me. Can you believe this? Another person to add to the growing list...

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My teacher's name is Carole and she seems very friendly. And she speaks clearly! I can actually understand just about everything she said, which brings me to my next point. I may move up a level because I found out that I'm currenly in Elementary 2. And judging by the amount of French spoken by the other students, I feel I may be a little more advanced that them. That being said, I hope that if I do transfer that I'm not then overwhelmed by the other class. But a girl from our ISA group, Anna, is taking Elementary 3 at the same time and days I am, so if I were to switch, I wouldn't have to change my entire schedule, just go to a different class. So I'm going to e-mail ISA soon and hope this all works out.

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After class got out after 3 hours (it went fairly quick! I hope it's like that all the time..) a big group of us found each other in the courtyard and had lunch together. I stuck around for a while even though I was done for the day because after being a bit of a recluse for the weekend and only getting to see a couple people briefly, it was nice to hang out again.

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Eventually I went home and took a short nap. Yes, a short nap! This one somehow mangaged to only be an hour. Mysterious. I still had a quite a bit of the day left after waking and I didn't want to waste it so I went to the nearest Monoprix ( a more moderate-sized grocery store) and bought a few things. I couldn't find any shrimp or crab there, but I'm going to hit up the local poissonerie (fish shop) and see if they do. Strangely enough though, I saw flour tortillas! :)

Even after groceries it was still gorgeous so I grabbed my camera and went for a stroll through my new running path. I ended up just skipping my run altogether today, but at least I got to sit in lovely, beautiful, precious GREEN GRASS. It was heaven. And I got some great shots, including the one of this building with the statues coming out that I've been wanting to photograph for a while, isn't it neat?? PLUS, I can't remember if I mentioned before, but I ran into the first (kinda) Mexican restaurant in Paris. It's Tex-Mex but eh, close enough. Here are the pics!

Sometimes you just gotta stop and smell the flowers...

This pigeon was very curious..

I was craving a carne asada after seeing this place like you wouldn't believe..

Well, sat at a bench for a while enjoying the end of the day before finally heading back. Had some soup and Skyped with Papa, but I'm gonna call it a night here soon because I have class tomorrow from 9-6, with only that 2 hour break in between.

I hope I survive.