PEOPLE

Ahem. I have now been abroad for nearly seven weeks, which is much longer than I have ever been out of the country before. Curious. Nothing vastly exciting to report on the news front. I finished my first novel for class (not ever, but in Paris), went to Notre Dame and Ste. Chappelle, and climbed every single stair possibly available to me on Sacré Coeur. I've also been realizing that as much as I still feel like I don't know this city very well at all, I'm getting around oh-so-much easier than even a week ago -- my "Plan de Paris" consultations are getting fewer and farther between, and I can identify which subway lines to take in which directions to various places pretty easily (not everywhere, but most places in the center of the city, along the Seine, and around my neighboorhood).
I met the girl I'll be tutoring on Monday, and she's really great -- her name's Charlotte, and she's a good friend of my host sister. She's definitely the kind of friend I myself would have had in high school -- she's following the language/literature class at lycée, hates math and science, wants to be a 3-D animator, is funny and smart and interesting. I'm really excited to hang out with her.
In other news, I just made banana bread, which I messed up the recipe for (WAY too much butter) but which I think still came out ok. I made myself an omelette for dinner the other night, and my host mom was so impressed with my stove skillllllllz that I felt compelled to demonstrate further competency, even though I've never been very good at baking. We'll see. It tastes good, at any rate. And too much butter never hurt anything, as far as I'm concerned.
I've been getting suspicious comments about the lack of people in my photographs, so I'll make a few more introductions. You've already met Emily and Jake, so here are some others.

This is my friend Hilary from high school. She is not actually a new friend, but she came to visit Paris last weekend, so I had a photograph of her easily available. Here, she is taking a picture of the gargoyles on the side of Notre Dame.













This is Rachel. She goes to Bennington College, so we talk about missing Vermont sometimes. Here she is giving a big thumbs-up to a fish-inside-another-fish statue outside the Paris museum of natural history. She is pretty great, and lives about a ten minute walk away from me, which is nice.













This is Maddy. She goes to Kenyon College, plays the bassoon, and enjoys tea houses and art. Here she is on the beaches of Normandy.











I think that's going to be all for now. I apparently have received a package, so I'm going to go down to the Sweet Briar offices to retrieve that. I hope you have enjoyed my people-photography. In a last, spiteful gesture, I leave you with a faintly blurry picture of the Seine at night. No people whatsoever, but a pretty, lit-up Eiffel Tower.