Not much to say!

Actually, I lied. There's alot going on! But I'm going to be super lazy and shuttle you off to my facebook albums page for the picture part of it because boy am I tired of uploading pictures! My computer was not working for a while and when it finally came back on the house internet was gone! So now I finally have access and It's AMAZING. Not having internet can really get to you when it's your only form of communication. ANYWAYS... Here are the links!

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001103&l=b975e&id=1496160021

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001104&l=3edf1&id=1496160021

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001102&l=e7b62&id=1496160021

Am I crazy??

Would someone please tell me why it is that your computer or your car can be broken down, refusing to turn on, flashing bright lights at you, or on FIRE and the second you take it in to the repairman it works better than it ever has. Huh? HUH?

That's what happened today. Not only did I feel like an idiot, but the french man looking at my computer practically slapped a bright red sticker on my forehead that says "Hello, I'm a girl, and I'm American, please discount anything that comes out of my mouth." I tried to tell him, "listen buddy, my computer tells me I have fatal errors in five different programs and I've had the blue screen of death 4 TIMES since I got here. And I'm pretty sure somone is stealing all my private information. Oh and I saw SATAN in my screen saver the other day." Buutt, I think in French that translates to "Exscuse me monsieur could you please tell me how to turn on my monitor? Oh that's what that button does? Tee Hee! wow, you're smart. "

After a couple hours of cool down I still would be afraid to be alone in a dark alley with me, but at least I've calmed down enough to write a post without using foul language. Consider yourselves lucky.

What a weekend!

Here's a little bit of advice... When drunk French men get up in your face and start spouting out vulgar things, the WORST thing you can do is tell them to, exscuse my french, but f*** off... The end result is not pretty. In my case, the end result was a 45 year old man actually winding up and KICKING ME as hard as he could. Good times. I miss the midwest :-(

"Well out here in the middle
you can park it on the street
Step up to the counter;
you nearly always get a seat
Nobody steals. Nobody cheats
Wish you were here my love
Wish you here my love"

as opposed to:

So..I got to class two hours early....

Today I got up at 7, took a shower, and rushed out the door at 8:15 convinced that I'd never make it to class on time. Of course I forgot that on Wednesdays class doesn't start until 11am. So what does that mean? That means I get to update my blog! Here's what's happening over here in France:

• Classes haven't even started and I'm already loaded down with grammar homework. I don't know what that says for the rest of the year, but it doesn't look good folks.
• I got my care package from the family! Thanks fwiend! Needless to say I immediately hid it in a drawer under my bed when I got home so my family wouldn't nag me about the importance of being healthy. Believe me guys, sometimes turkey jerky and gobstoppers are about the healthiest thing on this planet.
• I'm taking a guided tour of the musee d'orsay today. I wish I could get on intellectual and tell you the artists that are housed there and how their work changed the face of impressionistic painting forever, blah, blah, blah, but honestly, I don't know what exactly is IN the musee d'orsay? Cultural faux-pas, I know, I know.
• On Friday my program is hosting a lunch for us IN the eiffel tower! Way cool! Just thought I'd share... ALSO, I'm pretty sure I'm going to the zoo tomorrow. I didn't even know Paris HAD a zoo.
• I'm pretty sure that, despite my former opinion of myself, I'm the least fashionable person on this planet. I swear to you, I got onto the metro the other day in a pair of tennis shoes and I was the ONLY female there who wasn't wearing cute little flats or heels. I kid you not, the homeless lady sitting next to me had on flats.
• I stepped on a plastic bag full of dog doo today. At least I hope it came from a dog. You can never tell here. Obviously there was no lasting damage or embarrassment, but I was pretty horrified.

Annyywayys this was a pretty boring post but I thought I'd update you on how I'm feeling. See you all in 12 weeks!

This weekend...more pictures than words!

This weekend I:

Took the train to Chartres










































Chartres is about an hour and a half from Paris. I'm all for cathedrals man, but we seriously were in that church for FIVE HOURS. I mean...I don't even go to church. This was definitely a spiritual OVERLOAD. I also walked around this labryinth thing just for fun and then afterwards read a plaque that informed me that I had just taken a spritual journey. Oops. That wasn't in my plan for the day. I gotta say though...I feel cleansed.



Visited Montparnasse Cemetary in Paris:
































This was seriously one of the most gorgeous cemeteries ever! Jean Paul Sartres and Charles Baudelaire were buried here along with tons of other famous people. The really cool thing though is just wandering around this beautiful place. I found so many touching gravestones and messages to family and friends. My absolute favorite was this amazing sculpture of a woman being carried off by death and as she is descending she is holding on to the precipice of the earth with one hand and blowing a kiss to her lover who is standing on a rock sobbing. It choked me up.

Visited the catacombs:

I gotta say the catacombs were pretty grim. Like, hundreds and hundreds of feet of bone lined tunnels way underground. Not only do you have to be trapped in a tiny space with thousands of bones, but you have to get down there via this neverending spiral staircase and THEN you have to walk through maybe a mile and a half of dark tunnels to GET to the bone tunnels. It was like taking a walk in and out of hell. Enormously creepy.
The entrance actually said "Stop! Here is the empire of the dead."
Then we had to walk back UP the tiny spiral staircase. Still, overall, I'd say it was a successful day.



































AND rode the metro...alot...
And I would just like to add a little message to the, I kid you not, BRASS BAND that woke me up this morning:

What the hell, guys?

P.P.S

A restaurant served me FISH. PUREE.

It looked like this:

I can't think of anything worse. In the whole world. Ever.

Sound Familiar?

Dear Paris,

How can there be so much food here and so little to eat???

I went from eating this:

To eating this:

Seriously guys, eat some meat.

Love,

Callie

PS.

TO THE MAN WHO FARTED ON ME ON THE SIDEWALK:

Could you have possibly waited until AFTER I passed you to let that out? I'm pretty sure by the sound of that thing that it involved some effort on your behalf. You totally could have held it. Have some pride, man.

Observations:

Paris Smells Like Stinky Cheese

Maybe it's the fact that my beautiful parisian window overlooks an open air fish/cheese/meat market. Maybe it's the fact that the dogs poop on the street and no one tries to avoid getting it on their shoes? Maybe it's the fact that there are so many people crammed into this space that one can't help but radiate any one of various ripe scents. I smell goat cheese, brie, camembert, toe cheese, armpit cheese, cheesy tourists, cheesy slogans... you get my point. So despite all the romance and joie de vivre and pretty buildings, shops, streets, rivers, skylines, and whatever else might be lovely and attractive about Paris...it still smells like fish, B.O., dog doo and cheese.And yet, here I am. I guess that's a testament to what's nice about it!

No Matter How loud Your Music is you Can't Drown out this City!

Taking the metro this morning I turned my music up as loud as I could just to give myself a little taste of home and try to make it a little easier to ignore the creepo in the chair next to me. Even with James McMurtry trying his hardest to bring my head back to Missouri and Middle America, the constant rythym of the metro wheels and the opening and closing of the doors and the people yelling and teenagers singing and hobos begging and the street musicians playing forms this kind of background symphony. I wish I could rerecord it. It would be the soundtrack to Transitional Callie. Someday my adulthood will be written into a tune that blends gentle hearted midwest country with parisian street performers.

The Real Paris is TINY

If you actually get into the real guts of this city, everything comes down to size. You know, where people really live and work? Where tourists try to avoid because it's too "iffy" and french people tend to congregate because there aren't any tourists? As a tourist in Paris you get off the giant plane and take the LONGEST ride into the city past the 30 story apartment buildings and down the 6 lane highways. Than you stand there next to the eiffel tower with your chest puffed out, and you have finally found something as big and proud as your ego. Let me tell you though, the deeper you get, the more life gets boiled down into the pure essentials. On the surface it's tiny rooms and tiny coffees and tiny toilets and tiny cars, beds, chairs, meals! But the main thing I've realized after all this, as I look through my giant window onto the tiny street below, is that sometimes it's good to be a little smaller...you can actually see the view.