Boule de neige!!

         Huge snowstorm in Paris today! As I was walking over to the Grand Explorer’s park to take some snowy photos, I saw a couple of guys having a snowball fight. As I got closer, I realized that they weren't teenagers, but average adult men in their 40s. One of the guys turned to me all excited and cried "boule de NEIGE!!" (snowball!!) with a big childish grin on his face. I couldn’t help but smile with him.

now for a little back tracking...

BIENVENUE CLAIRE!

         Claire came to Paris! When she got into town she was pooped, so we camped out in my apartment for the day and downloaded the last 2 months of our lives (making a quick outing for a baguette and two pain au chocolat).

         Tuesday, I had to work the whole day, but in the evening we went out to an awesome French restaurant in the financial district called “La Bourse ou La Vie.” Rochelle introduced me to this restaurant in October and I’d been waiting for an excuse to go back.

photo courtesy of Mlle Claire Fieber

         After packing ourselves full of steak au poivre, fries and wine, we went out to a bar to meet my student/friend Antoine and his friends.

         Claire memorized two French sentences before her trip: “Je ne parle pas français” (I don’t speak French) and “Parlez-vous anglais?” (Do you speak English?). These are the essentials. Later on she picked up “I don’t understand” and “Where are the toilets?”
        Antoine’s English is limited and one of the friends who came didn’t speak English at all. This made communication within our party pretty difficult. The non-english speaking friend would get frusturated with all the English and Claire would cycle through her handful of French phrases “uhh yeah, I don’t speak French… umm, where are the toilets?” We managed to enjoy ourselves all the same.

         Wednesday we decided to get in a bunch of sight-seeing, since we still hadn’t done any yet. We started by going to Versailles to see the chateau. For some reason, they’ve put a modern Japanese art exhibit through the rooms of the castle. I would like to know whose idea this was and give them a good shaking. The statues are interesting and cool, but they are terrifically out of place in a 17^th century castle. This is not a case of being “stronger than the sum of their parts.” If anything, they were mutually detracting from the appeal of the other. For example, leading up to the entry of the infamous Hall of Mirrors:

It's hard to tell from this photo, but trust me when I say that the level of detail on this girls boobs was unnecessary.

that's all for now. later y’all!