Welcome Back

My second day back in the City of Lights in no way resembled the first. After I woke up I headed out to mandatory meeting talking about all of the trips and activities that are available this semester and waited for them to finish to I could get my hands on the free food they were giving us afterwards, after all thats our only incentive for going to our MANDATORY meetings. Some things I missed about meetings like this include, the free food, the dry humor of Christina Von Koehler as she presents the ballets and operas to us, and Bryan's French translations.

Afterwards a bunch of the freshman guys purchased wine and almost all 200 of us boarded a boat to take a cruise down the Seine. Needless to say they caught the attention of the upper classmen who were overheard wishing they had thought to do that. But the person who gained by far the most attention was Matt's friend from home Brandon. We first spotted him running along the river next to us as we all froze on the upper deck and he followed us up the river and back effectively running three or so miles before our boat actually pulled over and he dramatically jumped from the shore to the deck of our boat. Thats one way to make an entrance.

Here's Brandon Running alongside the boat

I was planning on calling it an early night around nine after I made myself some dinner but I got talked into going out to International a Bar and small band venue that we frequent right down the street from us. We were lucky enough to get there early enough to see two bands playing this time. The first band didn't really do anything for me but the second one called 'Elephanz' was an awesome way to end our night out before heading back to Alex's room to end the night as always. Maybe it was the lyrics, "Not gonna give into the girl next door, I'm just paying attention to the busty whore" that kept me entertained but either way it was a good night.

I Hate the Combination of Travel and Snow

I am writing you this from the comfort of my middle seat on my 3rd flight since leaving Paris, on my way to my third country, and my fourth city, in my second continent. And San Francisco isn't even the final destination! I was unlucky enough to leave Paris on one of their largest snow falls ever (which really only means like 2 inches) but that was enough to delay my flight to the point where I missed my connection in Dublin.

I stayed the night and Dublin and made a new flight to NYC only to find my flight CANCELED by even more snow (this time a legitimate blizzard). Another overnight. This time I was in NYC and visited Mike in Manhattan and narrowly avoided being trapped in by the blizzard.

This morning I woke up to find my flight delayed so I would be missing my original connection in San Francisco. But I have a new flight scheduled now for a little after I land. After 3 days I should be making it to my final destination of Los Angeles. And Frankly I never want to get on a plane again...I've just remembered, my next flight is December 28th to Las Vegas and then on through Philadelphia. 8 days to recover before I have to deal with any more planes. I'm not sure if I'll write before Christmas so Merry Christmas to everyone who reads this. And to all my friends in Paris I hope you are home safely or are in the process of.

Finals are here...

Remember when I decided that I was going to write more often? Well unfortunately I decided that just as finals were creeping up on us and now they are practically here. I admit I'm only writing right now to distract myself from essays I should be writing and studying I should be doing. But once finals are over we have over a month of winter break to look forward to before it's back to the old grind. For some of us this means going home and for others it means leaving to explore other, new places. But for all of us it means a little bit of a break from Paris.

I'm not sure about everyone else but even if I wasn't going home I would definitely be getting out of Paris for part of break and traveling. I love this city but I'm becoming claustrophobic as time goes on. I came here with such high expectations for what the year would hold and I haven't been disappointed, but part of the magic of Paris is the expectation of the city and once that wears off it's time to pack your bags and head somewhere else for a while. So as this blog gets ready for another Hiatus until after next Friday I wish all of my friends here at NYU in Paris good luck on their finals, and send greetings so everyone at home; I'm heading your way soon.

The next time I write will be from the warm (comparatively) weather of Manhattan Beach. But I will leave you with this scene of Oberkampf on a Saturday night, something I will definitely miss over break.

Visitors in Paris

This past week I was lucky enough to have my Sister Emily, my Dad, and Rose visit me in Paris. We did just about everything imaginable from the moment they stepped off the plane until Emily left on Monday. My Dad and Rose are still here for one more day but here are just a few things that we did during their time in Paris.

We stopped in (more than once) at Angelina's for their famous hot chocolate that literally is straight melted, warm chocolate...

We rode a "scarousel" at Place de la Concorde...

We rode the Ferris Wheel...

We looked at Christmas Decorations along the Champs Elysee...

Some of us drank huge things of beer...

We saw a statue holding a vacuum...

And we did just about every other tourist attraction possible. We saw the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame, we went shopping in a real French market, we even accidentally wandered into a French government building trying to find Saint Chapelle. You name it we did it all. It was Emily and Rose's first time in Paris so we got to do everything, and I have to say I may have seen more of Paris in this past week than I have during my three months here so far. The end of their visit marks the very beginning of December which means that in less than 3 weeks I will be landing in LA and seeing my Dad again, but this time in much warmer weather.

It's a Thanksgiving Miracle!

As most of you are probably aware, the holiday Thanksgiving is a purely American idea. So around October when leaves started to fall I, along with the rest of my peers, began to wonder what NYU would do to compensate for Thanksgiving during our stay in France. None of us were entirely delighted when we were told that we actually had classes all day on Thanksgiving. So why was it that on November 26th every student and teacher at NYU was in a cheerful and thankful mood even though we were in school? We were waiting for 9 pm that night when we would all make the trek up the Eiffel Tower to eat a Thanksgiving dinner of epic proportions in one of the Eiffel's two restaurants, 58.

Yep stole this picture from their Website.

As we raced (last minute of course) down the steps of the Trocadero in the pouring rain, we were lucky enough to see the tower light up in a spectacular manner, in honor of the 120th anniversary of it's construction.

Excuse the poor camera work, I was after all running on cobble stones in the rain.

The restaurant was chaos of course as over 200 NYU students and faculty crammed themselves onto the entire second floor of the restaurant and eagerly awaited our Thanksgiving feast. I'm not entirely sure what we expected, but it was certainly not your usual Thanksgiving dinner. Oh there was turkey, and some form of mashed potatoes, but the pumpkin soup and the strange cranberries on a pancake, while delicious, were not something you expect to see on your plate at Thanksgiving. I think the consensus for the most delicious part of the meal was the pumpkin "tart" they served at the end. It tasted exactly like pumpkin pie but it was much more beautiful.

Everyone was in good spirits, the food was delicious, and the wine was flowing freely. So while it may not have been the most traditional Thanksgiving ever, it was certainly one no one in attendance is likely to forget too soon.

Apple Store...Fail

So I took my MacBook to the new Apple Store in the Carousel du Louvre in the hopes of getting it fixed. Unfortunately, just like like every Apple store I have ever been to, it was packed! I ended up making an appointment for Wednesday but it was a cool chance to see the store because it's pretty cool, and I've never been to the Carousel du Louvre before. I even visited the Virgin Mega Store there and learned about the secret Louvre entrance down there. (Ok well it was secret to me) Here's a picture of the store location.

Halloween and Disney in France

I've been living in Paris for the past two months, and during this time I have experienced many differences between my new home here in France, and my home in Pennsylvania. The most recent strange experience I was lucky enough to take part in was Halloween. Halloween is not celebrated with the same sort of enthusiasm as it is in the United States. There is no trick or treating, stores are void of any kind of decoration, and in order to buy a pumpkin (which we did eventually accomplish) we practically had to beg our local market to give us a whole one to carve. Knowing that Halloween would be different here, my friends and I decided we would take a trip to the most magical place in Europe; Disneyland Paris.

Disneyland was just what we needed. Apparently the folks over at Disney have an appreciation for Halloween even across the Atlantic and the entire place was decked out in Halloween themed greatness. Disney provided yet another example of the differences between the United States and France, in the form of it's rides. Oh the rides! I don't think I've ever experienced so many twists, turns, and loops, on any Disney coasters at either of the parks in the United States. Disneyland Paris is maybe a little more intense than the Disney we know and love at home, and it was exemplified by the numerous adults and teenagers that we encountered, not your usual hoards of small children. But that's not to say that they don't have the classics; Dumbo, Small World, and the Snow White. Those are, after all, what make going to Disneyland so much fun. You get to be a kid again.

I certainly felt like a child again as I roamed through Alice in Wonderland's Labyrinth wearing my newly acquired Minnie Mouse Ears. All in all one of the more interesting and memorable Halloweens that I have had in quite a few years actually.

We even arrived home in time to have a real Parisian Halloween outing at Social Club to celebrate our friend's birthday complete with Halloween costumes that we purchased here in Paris. So maybe the French know how to do Halloween after all.

I'll leave you with this short video of some of my friends getting into the spirit of things in a Caucus Race. Wait a minute, this is college?