Round my hometown...

Round my hometown, memories are fresh

Round my hometown, oh, the people I've met

Are the wonders of my world, are the wonders of my world,

Are the wonders of this world, are the wonders of my...

Adele-Hometown Glory

Yesterday was awesome! We had a quick French class and went to lunch at a fast-food asian restaurant called WokBar.  We returned for a general overview of "things to do" in Paris and were introduced to the Pariscope, a magazine that comes out every Wednesday with all of the coming week's events listed (concerts, movies, theatre, clubs, bars, etc).  I was feeling a little queasy and drowsy, so I ducked out of the group activities early and went home to take some PeptoBismol and nap (basically like hanging out with my two best friends).  My metro station is literally less than 100 meters from where I live.  I took video of me coming out of the metro station and walking home, so you can visualize my daily little stroll:

Please excuse the heavy breathing, I am not used to all this stair climbing and walking everywhere and raininess!  Oh, and I have more video of the metro.  I think that this was at the Belleville station, but I got a quick vid of some metro performers...these guys were intense:

There are bands like this or just individual musicians who stand around in the metro like that and perform.  People drop coins into their baskets as they walk by, but you don't have to.  Since I took video of them I gave them some change.  Alexia told me that most of the metro performers are part of a union and are paid by the French government, so you shouldn't feel terrible for not giving all of them some money for their art.

We celebrated my birthday at an awesome place last night.  The restaurant is called Le Refuge des Fondues, and it's totally quirky.  It's super tiny, just one room (prob 10'x20'), with two long benches going up either side.  If you are sitting between the bench and the wall, you have to climb over the table, because the benches don't move and have no space on the ends.  It's super crowded and loud, because the room is so small.  The restaurant is known for serving wine in baby bottles - we assumed this little quirk came about because wine was getting spilled constantly in regular tall glasses because the tables are so small and crowded, and the management was looking for a solution to this problem.  Well, voilà.  Baby bottles.  I had one baby bottle of white wine; I'm still getting used to the taste.  I have a short LOUD video of us in the restaurant, wherein I am screaming for everyone to say hi to my mom:

If you couldn't tell from the name of the restaurant, it's a fondue place.  SO DELISH.  We got both meat and cheese and everyone shared and enjoyed and drank from baby bottles.  The walls are covered in graffiti and we even saw a signature from an SMU student from awhile ago!  My friends started singing Happy Birthday (or, rather, Joyeuse Anniversaire) to me and suddenly the ENTIRE restaurant was singing!  The Frenchies sitting at the other benches were all standing and clapping and screaming for me.  It was SO cool.  If I would've known that was going to happen I would've gotten video of THAT.

Oh, and I dyed my hair.  I dyed it right before leaving for Paris and I liked the color but wanted it to be more multi-dimensional.  I liked the red that it was, but thought that it was a good color to be in my hair WITH something else.  So I bought a box of hair dye from Monoprix and did it in my room.  So I did look like this (at the castle at Compiègne):

annnd now I look like this (with Chelsea, then Chelsea and Alexia in the elevator at the Abbesses metro station):

The last picture doesn't really show me or my hair that much, but I wanted to give you a visualization of Alexia and Chels, who I've been spending most of my time with.  As I mentioned in the last post, Chelsea is the daughter of a professor at SMU and was born and raised in Dallas.  Alexia was born and raised in Mexico City until coming to high school in Dallas and attending SMU.  She is super well-travelled and knows SO much about the city and getting around (her father is obsessed with Paris and she's visited more than ten times).  Alexia has been in a bunch of my French classes with me and was in the South of France with me last summer.

I guess this post is long enough for now.  I'll post again as soon as stuff happens!  For the rest of the day I'm planning on running some errands with Chels and meeting up with the bigger group later on.  Classes start Monday!

Peace, love, and Paris

Rhiannon