Parigi!

Well, here I am, all installed at 24 rue de Rocroy in the 10e arrondissement, chez la famille de Chanterac. Paris so far has been huge and overwhelming and really pretty awesome -- which would also be a good way of describing my host family. I've been spending most of my time trying not to get lost on my walk home from the metro (my stop is about two blocks away) and trying to understand my family, all six of them, when they talk at dinner -- that is to say, really quickly, all at the same time, and with their mouths full.
Classes don't start until the 18th, and all we have this week are three "methodology" classes of about 2 hours each, so I and the usual suspects (Emily, Jake, and Kate, who lives on the fifth floor of my apartment building) have been wandering the streets of Paris together trying to get our bearings. So far that's included finding school, finding the Eiffel Tower,
finding Notre Dame, and finding really good ice cream at
Berthillon (I especially enjoyed my pear). I still have no intuitive sense of direction here, although I suppose that will come... right now I'm doing a lot of map consultations, even nervously checking the metro line map to make sure I'm not missing my stop. It's bizarre to think that in just a couple of weeks, I won't even need to look at a map to get to most places -- for instance, the trip from my apartment to Sweet Briar.
I kind of decided what classes I'm taking -- I'll be in Sweet Briar's "atelier d'écriture", an intensive writing class which is supposed to be absolutely wonderful, one or two of three film classes (New Wave, Cocteau/Bresson, or Documentary Theater and Documentary Film), one or two of two literature classes (one about Francophone lit and one about the poetics of violence), and possibly a fifth class -- either one of Sweet Briar's art history classes (I'm especially interested in the one on Impressionism) or a photography class at a studio somewhere in the city. We'll see. The whole signing-up process has been very vague and kind of scary, but I'm sure it will work out just fine, in the end.
I think that's all for now -- Kate and I are about to leave to go on a felafel mission for lunch, and then methodology class number one. In my next entry, I'll try to introduce the members of the host fam (with photos?!).