Très cool!

I live with a little old lady, Madame Laffont in the 13th arrondissement. I call her Madame, but her first name is Marie Claude It is a very modern quarter and has one of the China towns in it. I live on the 9th floor of an apt . The apt is small, but cute. She has a teeny kitchen which is attached to the living room. Then a small doorway goes into her bedroom so there isnt any real barrier between her room and the kitchen/tv room. Because she doesnt wake up until after i leave for school I eat breakfast at her house, in my room. I have a refrigerator and a microwave which is really nice! She has provided me with muesli, a coffee pot, coffee, yogurt and milk. I am on my own for the rest of my meals, except for on Tuesday nights when I eat with her. Last Tuesday she made pork chops in celery and tomatoes. She eats every lunch and dinner with wine and finishes a meal with cheese--they have a different one in france for every day. Then comes dessert. I live right by two metro stops so thats cool. You can get anwhere on the Metro--it takes about 35 minutes and i make just one change to get to school. I went to the movies on sunday night--''Reviens-moi'' (''Atonement'' in the US) with English as the lang and French subtitles. On Monday 6 of us girls went to dinnner at a sushi restaurant in the 7th arrondissement. As we left the restaurant, we were walking down a hill toward the metro and just above the trees, we could see the top half of the Eiffel TOwer. At just that moment, the clock struck 11 and on the hour all the lights on the tower go into this beautiful flashing sparkling mode. So we just stopped and watched for awhile. So beautiful.
On the metro home, this drunk French man approached Hayley and me and harassed us:
''Americans. F* America...W. BUsh. F* Bush!!''
cool.
Two nights ago I went on a walking tour of Belleville, this cool eccentric part of the city where a lot of artists live. We had a guide who explained to us the murals and graffitti and their artists. We stopped in a studio of this artist, Pedro, who does stencils and spray paints them. Famous people, Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, Beethoven, and others. THey all have cool backgrounds/frames that he paints them onto. My favorite was Rosa Parks sprayed onto a map of the RER bus system in Paris.
We stopped in a café for hot chocolate and then walked out to a beautiful view of the entire city.
Then a few friends and I went to a cute/chic/happenin restaurant where a poetry reading was going on. We sat out on the street even though it was pretty cold. I had this incredible sandwich with 3 cheeses and tomatoes.

My friends are from colorado, atlanta, austin and minnesota. they go to GWU, UC Boulder and UMinn. My classes start on Monday for real. We are just doing intensive French right now and it is good i am learning a lot.

The French women are all so beautiful and chic. They usually wear skinny pants: dark jeans or dress pants, all of them are extremely thin and over 5'5'' i'd say. tthey also wear really cute tops and really cute coats. always heels usually boots up to the knee.
Last night was the most fun night so far! Madame had 3 of her good lady friends over for a New Years dinner party and invited me to join them. We had champage with the caandied/choc pecans I brought from home, then 4 types of ham that she insisted I try (Rox and Di would have been SOL), then this old-fashioned French dish--like a sliced potato and sour cream pie thing with crust covering it? i dont know but I helped her make it :), then salad, of course 3 types of cheese and bread and then pumpkin pie for dessert. She was all excited that she made an American dessert and the ladies were impressed--they'd never heard of it before! It was really good on homemade crust. The conversation was so interesting and I kept up as best I could. Madale thinks Sarkozy is ''un dictateur'' haha that's new. The other ladies are all very cool. One's from Algeria, one is really into art and musuems and the other has a granddaughter my age!
Then I met 10 American kids at this bar just a few Metro stops from my house. It apparently is super old-- from the Revolution? It was blasting Spanish music and totally happenin. They were a blast and we got shots on the house from the bartender. Then as we were getting ready to leave, one bartender hollers at us and sprays us with a bottle of champagne! haha so fun.
Love you all!! take care