Churches, cheese sandwiches, and free hugs

I'm finally on a normal sleeping schedule, I know how to get home without getting lost, I managed to order without embarrassing myself at several restaurants, took a lot of pictures, and finally bought shampoo. I would call this weekend a success. 

Yesterday (Saturday) I slept in until about 11:30. Forgetting that my host mom was having friends over for lunch I opened my door to go down the hall to the bathroom (still in my PJs and fuzzy pink slippers) and was promptly introduced to a women whose name I don't remember. She probably thought there was something wrong with me. I am pretty dysfunctional in English when I wake up, let alone in French. After getting ready and trying unsuccessfully to sneak out without anymore awkward encounters, I took the metro to meet some people from my group at la fontaine (fountain) St. Michel. 

We saw the outside of the Notre Dame and walked around the area a bit. We went to a famous ice cream place...of course I don't remember the name...and I got red peach ice cream. It was super good! The line for Notre Dame was too long so we decided to go to Sainte-Chapelle instead. It's a smaller chapel with amazing stained glass. 

These pictures don't do it justice. It was bright and beautiful with fleurs de lis everywhere--my favorite!

After seeing Sainte-Chapelle we thought we would try to get in Notre Dame again, but the line was still really long. We did happen to see a band playing Beatles songs on the plaza out front. There were also about 10 people with "Free Hugs" signs. I did not get a free hug, but I did take a picture. 

By this time it was 5pm and I hadn't eaten anything except for a sort of chocolate pudding yogurt thing at 11:30 (oh and the ice cream...balanced meals). A couple of us decided to find a cafe for dinner, but they wanted to find the Longchamp store first to buy purses. We had no idea where to go and ended up walking around in circles for a while. After about an hour and a half my stomach was protesting so one girl and I left to find a cafe. After passing several cafes that were too expensive, too touristy, too intimidating, too crowded etc. we finally found one that would work. I ordered a sandwich with camembert and un carafe d'eau (a little vase/pitcher of tap water). The sandwich was really good! It's actually socially acceptable to get a cheese sandwich here, which is awesome for me! No more weird looks from the people at the sandwich station in the marketplace. 

(I forgot to take a picture until I was half way done)

After dinner I went to meet up with some other friends for drinks. Today (Sunday) my host mom took me to see the local farmer's market type thing that is right by the apartment. It's open on Thursday and Sunday and sells fruit, vegetables, meat, cheese, pastries, and bread. It was really interesting but kind of a nightmare for a vegetarian...lots of dead animals (what I call meat). After looking around at the market for a while I went down the street to the grocery store to buy some toiletries that I had to take out of my suitcase at the airport to meet the 50lbs limit. Most stores and restaurants in France are closed on Sunday, so this one was very crowded. After taking forever to decide what to buy (as always) I checked out and headed home with my purchases to have lunch with my host mom and her adult son.

After lunch I set out to find the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Paris (part of the Unitarian Universal Church, which is less a church and more a spiritual group, that I go to in Phoenix and Pasadena). I knew exactly how to get to the metro stop, but once I exited the metro I couldn't find the street it was on anywhere. I asked some people on the street for directions. They were super nice and practically walked me there. The service the same and different from what I'm used to. It's a fellowship, so they don't have a "minister." Everyone kind of takes turns playing different roles and speaking in front of the group. It was pretty much all Americans so it was nice to be able to speak English and not worry about blending in for the afternoon. I took the bus for the first time on the way home and that was an experience... It was so incredibly crowded that when I first got on I was just inside the doors when we took off. At each stop everyone moves a bit toward the back of the bus, but you always have to make sure that you have something to hold on to because with the starts and stops you can easily fall over if you aren't hanging on (unfortunately I learned this the hard way by almost falling on an older woman who consequently glared at me). I'm supposed to take the bus to class every day but at this point I prefer the metro...we'll see. 

Tomorrow we're starting our week of intensive language classes and continuing with orientation. I'll leave you with one more picture. This was actually from Friday night on the coaster at the restaurant we were at. It's my first French pun! 

(the direct translation is "the divine little glass",

 but un verre du vin is a glass of wine so it's a little play on words)

FYI I'm going to be putting all my pictures up on Flickr because I have way to many to put them all here. I'll post the website in the comments when I finish setting it up. 

Thanks for continuing to read! I love feedback of any kind!