Ah! Paris! C'est la vie!

Bonjour!
So I have been in Paris since yesterday evening. My hostel is right next to the Moulin Rouge and about a million places to eat, so it has a very good location. Right now it's almost  midnight, and I am exhausted after walking around for 12 hours straight today. I woke up very early to start my day. I was going to go to the Louvre, but it ended up that it's closed on Tuesdays! So I went on to the Jardin des Tuileries - The Royal Garden. It was beautiful! I also walked to Pont Neuf, Pont des Arts, Saint Germain Cathedral, the Obelisque, the Hotel des Invalides, Parc du Champs de Mars (in front of the Eiffel Tower), the Eiffel Tower, Jardins du Trocadero, the Arc de Triomphe. I love it here. There is so much to see and do with a ton of wonderful sights. There was an amazing market, in front of the Eiffel Tower on the Jardins du Trocadero. It had all kinds products from purses to scarves to jewelry and of food from sausages to cheese to crepes to hot wine! I ate chicken Paella for dinner as I sat in front of the Eiffel Tower, and then I had hot wine (or vino brulé as it is in Italy which I had for the first time this past Sunday, and it's incredible!), vin chaud as it's called here.

The worst things about Paris so far as I have seen are, of course, the excessive smoking of cigarettes which I despise, the annoying vendors that walk around trying to sell you the same thing over and over, and the petitioners (I don't really know what they're doing, but they go around asking people for signatures and donations for something I don't even know of). Like when I went to the Locks of Love bridge (Pont des Arts), I was literally harassed by five people at the same time as they tried to get me to sign something and give them money. They were pushing me and shoving their papers in my face... No. Not a fan. Other than that, I love Paris. The architecture is spectacular of course. I still have 2 more full days of Paris until I leave on Friday for my next destination. Tomorrow I plan I using my ticket for the Louvre that I already bought last night online, going to see Notre Dame, the opera house and the Sacree Couer which is a 10 minute walk from my hostel. Then on Thursday... Versailles maybe? I would like to see it. I can't believe that I've only been here for a little more than 24 hours and I have already taken almost 400 pictures! Poor Raul (my camera for those of you who don't know)... he will be so exhausted by the end of this month.

I'm going to sleep now. so my already sore body can rest for another long day of touristy adventures tomorrow. Bonne nuit mes amis!
 

Sanctuary

The last week of school is this week. I have 3 finals to take, and I really need to study for every single of one of them. The internet that usually appears at our apartment as decided to not let us on anymore... so whenever I need to access one of my books, which is entirely online, I have to go to school. Considering how much I hate the school, that was obviously not an option. So today, after doing a Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban workout that I made myself, I decided to venture out of my apartment on a blind search for a cafe, that is open on Sundays, has free wifi, a bathroom, and good coffee and food. After trekking up and around and down and across the Porto Nuova area... Alas! I find a place called Exki Cafe, and it fits every single one of my criteria. Here I shall stay until I complete i miei compiti italiani (my Italian homework) as well as an extensive amount of  Business Law and E-commerce. I am so happy that I have found this place. It is no Starbucks, but it will surely do. 
I wanted to send a couple of packages to America for a few special people, but I found out it will cost me 60 euro to send a package that is 5 kilo! Che cazzo!? Sorry guys... but I still have things to buy before I leave on the 17th! I got the majority of them when I went shopping Friday with Jillian. She showed me a store on Via Roma that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg to buy something. After shopping we ran into some USAC girls, and we all went to dinner. Once I got home, I had to leave again, because I was invited to my Brazilian friend's birthday party. It was really fun! There were so many people, though and the majority of them were Brazilian and Argentinian! So to speak, I had to use my broken Italian or my rusty Spanish, but it's good because i got to practice :) I'm getting better at it, but there are still a lot of words that I don't know. By the end of the night, I was mixing my Italian and Spanish into multilingual sentences. Talent.
Alright, now that I have updated all of my goings-on, I really do need to do homework. Ciao! 

School -_-

I just finished a powerpoint for my European Union class tomorrow. My all time faaaaavorite class. And today I just had my presentation for E-commerce which went pretty well I think. Our professor really liked ours for what I could tell, and next week we have our finals... 3 for me since I'm auditing Elementary Italian 2. And once I finish my finals, I leave on the 17th for... well, I'm going to wait until after I've been :) I cannot wait to be out of school for a whole month.
So I babysat on Monday and Tuesday as per usual, and I bought Matteo two new books in English, The Hobbit and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He loves them! We used to read this one book in English of his, but we both reeally hate it, so I got him ones that we'll both like. Also, his parents, Angela and Georgio, invited me to go with them to their cabin in the mountains! How cool is that? Pretty cool I'd say. I've never actually been to the mountains when there's snow. I hope I can go with them. Tuesday night I ate dinner with them. We had soup, salad, fish, fruit and wine, course. 

This is a short one, because I'm exhausted and I have to wake up early in the morning for Italian, again.

Buonanotte! I will try to write a longer, more informative one next time.