Anyway, it's halfway through my 4th week and Paris. The official change-over time has passed and we now have a new professor teaching us. And by teaching, this new professor means showing us around Paris and taking us places :) We have only SEVEN teaching-in-the-classroom days scheduled for the remaining three weeks. The rest of the days we have excursions and events to go to. Luckily for all of you back home, it makes for a more interesting read than 'I went to class and went to bed...the end' :)
However, it makes my post longer, so maybe I'll push myself to post more often. But anyway! For this week I of course have to start with my mom's visit to Paris! I didn't quite believe that she was actually coming till I saw her coming out of the gate. I admit I got a little teary, it was so good to have a little bit of home come to me! And she brought me a new suitcase!! Well, a borrowed one, thank you Jill and Trudy!! I will bring it back safe and sound. She also brought some very sweet messages including a wonderful card from Jordan! I love her too and will hurry home as fast as I can :DMom got here around noon, so we had some time to play before we passed out from exhaustion. After a slight confusion with the travelocity people, we decided to just stay at the MIJE since it's so well-situated. I took mom to Notre Dame,
a bit sneakily so she would be surprised :) We went through the entire thing which was new for me since I'd only been to mass. After, we went to a very nice french restaurant called Chez Julien. Mom said that she had the best gazpacho she'd ever had in her whole life and I had a wonderful pepper-sauce steak. After that we went to go get some ice cream since it was VERY hot. On the way however, we got distracted by a singer that was performing by the Seine. We stopped for a good 45 minutes, he was that good. He was from Haiti I believe and had a beautiful voice. I recorded several segments of it, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to publish them before I have the magnificent internet of my home :) After that, we finally got our ice cream and headed home since it was pretty late.The next day was mom's birthday!! Yay! Happy Birthday to her! We played to mom's interests and took her to the largest flea market in the entire world. It's just like a big yard sale! :D It was an adventure to say the least. Since it's so large you have to find all the different parts and we got somewhat lost several times. You also had to dig past the people trying to sell anything they can to the people looking for antiques. But it was fun nevertheless. 
The most interesting point for me at least happened when we encountered a shop keeper that was so eager to be our friend that he started interrogating us about anything and everything. When he heard we were from America he asked about the president and when mom told him she'd voted for him the shopkeeper actually lifted her off the ground!We returned to the MIJE for a break (we very much needed one by then, very tired). We decided to visit the Eiffel Tower for mom's birthday, which I feel was a great choice. I hadn't been up the tower yet, just under it after the before-mentioned US football game I went to.
As we walked up, besides being amazing, it also started its on-the-hour sparkling which was the perfect 'Happy Birthday' 
moment. Going to the top was also an amazing experience as well and being up there at night is just magical.One thing we discovered in Paris was that it's very difficult to eat at nice restaurants and be a tourist at the same time. We weren't hungry at the start of our Eiffel Tower trip and most places weren't open yet anyway, but when we got back, it was almost midnight and all the places were closed! My feeling of failure at not giving mom a proper birthday dinner was offset by the fun we had scrounging for everything we could find in our suitcases. So we ended up with a feast of cookies, peanut butter crackers, apples, and trail-mix bars. I however did not fail to light a candle and make mom blow it out :)
The next day we headed to lunch in an area of town suggested by our friend Paul. We enjoyed a very nice lunch even though we forgot that most shops are closed on Sunday. Afterward we headed to the Louvre.
You simply cannot visit Paris and not see the majesty within those walls. We had a very pleasant surprise that it was free!! I'd forgotten that it was the first Sunday of the month, which is the day that all of the museums in the city are free :D So we got to see all that we wanted to see and then some. There are plenty of pictures and I posted most of them on Facebook if you care to check it out. I particularly enjoyed sharing the experience of seeing the Victory of Samothrace with mom since it's my favorite.After a break at the MIJE we decided to go on a Seine river cruise! Sure it may be touristy, but it's so popular for a reason. We enjoyed it thoroughly and it's a wonderful way to lear
n about the city. It's particularly beautiful if you wait till the night. It does however make picture-taking difficult since you are moving, but we managed a couple times.The next day was mom's last day in Paris. We had breakfast at a little cafe we walked to and went shopping for a bit. I got some shoes that I'm very excited about since they are the kind that's popular in Paris but not yet in America. After that we got mom's stuff from the MIJE and headed to the metro. Writing it all down seems like it was so short but it felt like a whole week! Goodness knows I was exhausted and took a nap as soon as I saw her on her way. I'm so grateful that she was able to visit me, it made a big difference in my outlook at this trip. I'm enjoying myself even more since I know that home is still there waiting for me, whenever I return.
The rest of Monday I didn't do anything too monumental other than hang out with the other LBAT people for a while. Tuesday was our first day with our new professor and she seems like she's going to be a great person to learn from. She's very fun and excited about everything, but she seems a bit scatterbrained. For instance, she was wearing her shirt inside-out today haha. But in my opinion, a bit of cooky-ness makes for the best teachers. On Tuesday we were supposed to visit La Defense which is the business district directly outside of Paris. You can see it if you get pretty high up with it's skyscrapers. It kinda looks like Buckhead does from Atlanta. However, apparently some cable had snapped in an elevator that we were going to take to a VERY high floor so we just aren't going to go this summer.
A bit of a shame, but we got to go to the Orsay Museum early instead! I very much enjoyed the museum, impressionist is one of my favorite styles of painting. Unfortunately they don't let you take any pictures within the museum so I don't have any pictures to show for it, but just trust me that I enjoyed it more since I didn't have to worry about getting the best picture possible. After the museum we did a report on our favorite artist, much like we did for the Louvre. I did Degas since I adore his dancer paintings/sculptures. That evening I enjoyed having a long chat with Brandon since we hadn't talked much during the weekend, but other than that, not much happened.Today may have been one of my favorite days thus far. We went on an excursion to the Maison du Vitrail which is a type of glass art.
It's like the stained glass you see in churches with the metal separating the different pieces. This man runs this business out of his house basically (which was beautiful! Very much like what I hope my future home will be like). And this man is apparently the best in the business since he and his team gets calls to fix panes in famous churches from all over France like Notre Dame. 
He gave us an explanation of the process and different types of glass, which I somewhat understood since it was all in French. But he showed us how to break glass cleanly (and let us try it ourselves!) and the thousands of types of glass they had in stock. It was beautiful and very impressive.
After the tour and some shopping in the store, we went to lunch at an Indian restaurant which was a very nice change. I got mango lassi which is one of my favorite dessert/drink so I was VERY excited! We headed back to the MIJE and I worked on my homework till it was time for our other adventure of the day.
We had TWO excursions today which was very exciting. We also went to a mini-play at the Theatre de la Huchette, which is probably the smalles
t theater that I've ever been in. It seated probably about 20 people, if that. The play was entirely in french of course, so I had some trouble following, but I could understand parts. It probably didn't help that the author had decided to make a statement about language in general and the actors slowly started speaking gibberish haha. But it was very fun and amusing. On the way back from the theater I was reminded of my love of books in the form of the English book store Shakespeare and Co. I've heard good things about it, but it's truly amazing. There are books EVERYwhere in no particular order at all. And the entire second floor is just for reading, the books aren't even for sale. I loved every bit of it and will probably go back there very soon.Tomorrow will be an adventure to say the least. We have to wake up at 5 am, that's right 5! We are going to a Parisian market that all the restaurants get their food from. We can't even eat breakfast at the MIJE since they don't serve breakfast that early. We are having breakfast at some point while we are there. So needless to say, I need to head to bed now so that I don't die in 5 hours when I wake up. Luckily we can take a nap at 12 when we get back :) So, that's all for now I think. I love you all. If I forgot anything I'll include it in my next post which I PROMISE will be before next week begins.
Love to all,
Austin
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