Champs-Elysées

I had a small chore this week.  Turns out that all the limited edition Star Wars goods produced by Adidas are sold out all over the states.  I ran across some here in Paris and told Nick... he proceeded to beg me to buy him a pair since he cant get a hold of any in the States.  Since I'm such an excellent sister, before my class on Wednesday I went to the massive Adidas store on the Champs-Elysées to see if they have the shoes.  Here are some photos i took while out and about... yes, they are all of the same thing; the Arc de Triomphe!

Buying Nick shoes

Organization à la Française

The following is my interaction with one of the offices on campus while trying to pay my 200 euro social security fee.  It went down in French, but it's in English for your reading pleasure

Friday Afternoon:

Liz: Hi, I need to sign up and pay for my social security
Man 1: [shrugs] end of the hall, on the left

Liz: Hi, I need to sign up and pay for my social security
Man 2: Back to the front, 1st desk when you enter on the left. But she's not here this afternoon

Liz: Hi again, they said its the woman that sits at the desk facing yours.
Man 1: She's not in today, try Monday

Monday morning:
Liz: Hi, Im back. [motions to desk] Is she in today?
Man: No, only the afternoon.
Liz: But she will be here this afternoon
Man: [shrugs] I think so
Liz: I have class from 1:30-8pm, can I come tomorrow?
Man: She's only here Monday and Thursday, from 1-4:30
Liz: [i need to sign up for this job] Thanks....

So yeah, I cant pay my fees bc the woman is never in. What kind of system is this that only ONE person can handle things and that one person is never in?  Welcome to FRANCE !!

Sunshine in Paris !!

Today was the first day since I've been here that the sun has decided to grace the lovely city of Paris with its presence.  I decided to dust off my camera and take a few pictures of the scenery:

Notre Dame de Paris

A little café on Ile de la cité

Le Pont Neuf

 

The Louvre

The Sales !!

Rue de Rivoli

Walking tour of Paris

Today Nolen [my roommate] called me and asked me if I wanted to join his language school on a walking tour of Paris. I decided that it was probably a good idea since I should really know as much as possible about the city that's my home for the next 5 months.  All I really can vouch for is that it's super cold out and makes me NOT want to walk around at ALL !  I met up w the group at 2pm and we headed to the Pont Neuf [New Bridge, which is actually the oldest bridge in Paris] for the beginning of the tour.

(photo not my own)

We walked through the Louvre courtyards, past the pyramid, around the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, and through the Jardin Tulieries.  We continued on to the Champs-Elysées were we stopped at a few flagship stores and toured an art exhibit above the Louis Vuitton store [after of course balking at the price of the leather goods on display].  While this all sounds short and sweet, we were zigzagging all over the place, popping in and out of hotels and various buildings, and didnt arrive at our final destination, the Arc de Triomphe, until around 6:30pm.  It was informative, cold and exhausting.  Which made it easy to come home, make dinner and veg out in front of the 8pm news.

Here's a map of our route.  It was 5km, which is about 3.1miles... which should only take about an hour or so to walk... but we managed to draw it out to 4.5, with all the stopping and learning :)

Anciennes de Vincennes

Today was the 10th Traversée de Paris [crossing of Paris] by this French car club.  Basically if you have a car thats a classic and older than 1976 you can drive through the streets of Paris and show it off.  I thought it sounded cool so Nolen and I left around 8am to get to the Arc de Triomph to see some old cars drive around the massive round about.  We pretty much stood outside for 30 minutes and saw one car. I was expecting some sort of Parade, but I guess that wasn't the case.  We decided to walk down to Trocadero, by the Eiffel Tower to see the endpoint, and maybe there would be some cars there... We trudged through the slush and about 20 min later made it to the endpoint, which was right in front of the Eiffel Tower.  Picturesque. Except... where were the cars?  We spotted one and there didn't seem to be any more showing up so we decided to call it a day and head home. I couldn't feel my toes and it seemed like we were on a wild goose chase.  As we were leaving a FEW cars pulled up, so I snapped a few shots so the day wasn't a complete waste.