La vie en rose

Friday, May 04, 2007







April 2007

A lot has happened since my last post.... busy, busy, busy!

For starters, I'm finished with school! School in France is completely different than in the US. There isn't much participation in class, mainly the professor lecturing and everyone taking notes. There are no required reading materials either - you must be in class to take notes because you never know what will be on the exam. Yes, I said THE exam - there is only one exam at the end of the course and that's your final grade. I'll come back to this.

Shaun and Dave came to Paris mid-March and we had a great time. I took them on the typical Parisian tourist walk through Paris. We concluded their trip with champagne at the Eiffel Tower.


I also had a field trip to the French Supreme Court with my International Organizations class. My professor is a very accomplished lawyer in France and in the EU, so he gave us the grand tour. We were even allowed to sit in on as many court cases as we wanted. There are many courtrooms, and each one has a different purpose: minor offenses, terrorism/crimes against the state, violent crimes, etc. While I enjoyed sitting in on the terrorism case against a member of the ETA, the most memorable was the one where a guy killed his boyfriend the night before with a machete... now, my French is pretty good, but this was so far fetched that I had to ask a French girl beside me to make sure that I correctly understood.... yes, he killed his boyfriend with a machete and chopped him into several pieces.







Shortly after that, Lawrence came to France. It was such a great visit! He'd already been to Paris before, so we didn't have to do the whole tourist thing. We had a great time just wandering around, sitting at cafes and just relaxing. One day, we took the boat tour of Paris. I haven't done it in years, so it was good to see everything from the river. I took Lawrence to see my office at L'Oreal and I even got him to go to the Longchamp store with me! Don't worry, I didn't buy anything :-)
After he left, I had a week of vacation which I spent hanging out in Paris with the French Trackers. We hung out in parks and on the Seine reading books and even went to a couple movies. At the end of the vacation, I went to Madrid to catch up with the Global trackers. That was a GREAT trip! In addition to hanging out in Madrid, I got to know several of my classmates that I didn't really have a chance to hang out with in Columbia. The highlight was definitely our excursion to the weekly bullfight. Six poor bulls were slaughtered. It was a great experience, something you should do once in life.... but not twice. :-)
When I got back from Madrid, I cleaned up and got ready for my guests. A group of Global Trackers came to Paris for a vacation before starting their internships. Luckily, I didn't have classes Monday-Wednesday, so I was able to hang out with them: Lawrence, Tonisha, Paco, Lourdes, Nicole and Matt. We did the typical Parisian tour as well as a bit of shopping. I had 4 people staying at my tiny apartment, and we were surprisingly comfortable. We had dinner at my place one night, and we also did Champagne night at the Eiffel Tower. The last night of their visit, I promised myself that I would stay in and not have a late night since I had my Cultural Management exam the next day. Surprise, surprise... I didn't get home till around midnight. Lawrence stayed up to help me study a bit, then he passed out as usual. After less than 3 hours of sleep, Tonisha and Nicole got up at 5am to leave... then Matt got up to pack his bags... needless to say, I didn't catch anymore zzzzz's. I said good bye to Lawrence and went to school to get in some last minute cramming. The exam was good and bad. As I said before, exams in France are not like they are in the US. After a semester of classes, my entire grade came down to answering one question - yes, I said ONE QUESTION!! I'm so glad Lawrence helped me the night before because that's exactly what the question was on. I wrote 3 pages and started to fall asleep, so I wrapped it up and went home.


All in all, a very tiring end to a GREAT month! I'm gonna miss everyone next fall, I'm sure. I'll definitely try to update my blog more often to keep you guys posted. Thanks for reading!!