bon week-end!

as far as first weekends in paris go, i'd say this one was quite eventful, in ways both good and bad. on friday, after french in the morning, i went to one of the enormous fancy department stores in paris that takes up an entire block of the city, Printemps. i didn't end up buying anything because it was mostly extremely expensive, even with the gigantic markdowns of the annual sale that is going on in all of paris right now, but it was still fun and exiting to pretend like i was shopping. while i was gleefully cavorting around the store, however, i ended up missing an impromptu meeting of my contemporary art class that was supposed to take place that afternoon and that i had accidentally forgotten about. whoops. i had planned on being more organized and less forgetful while being here, but that didn't last very long...oh well, hopefully i won't be taken to the guillotine and beheaded right away. i think they wait until you have missed 2 or 3 classes without an excuse to do that.

     the entire program went out for a nice dinner at a restaurant in the Bastille that evening, which was quite amazing. i had duck confit avec pommes de terre and a petite salade, which was pretty much amazing. i also tried escargot, which turned out to be quite scrumptious as well. i could only tell i was eating a snail by the slightly dirt-flavored aftertaste that reminded me of earthworms. for dessert i had some kind of floating marshmallow stew concoction that was delicious. the only complaint i had about the whole affair was that we certainly were not given enough free wine. there was only enough for 2 glasses per person! it seemed a bit tacky to me, as i was hoping for a pleasant buzz at no cost to me before hitting the bars. 

    a group of us went to a few different bars in the area after the dinner, the first of which contained too many ironic moustaches for me to tolerate, and the last of which was indian-themed, and felt as though it was the exact temperature and humidity of india in july. authentic, i suppose. we went home sort of early and i went to sleep thinking that all was well until i woke up early the next morning having contracted some kind of violent stomach virus that could not possibly have been hangover-induced as i consumed approximately 4 drinks in a 6 hour time span with a copious cushioning of food. so saturday, consequently, was spent mostly in bed with intermittent trips to the w. c. for vomiting. i managed to pull myself together enough to go out with molly and sara for a little while that evening to a cute little cafe where i just drank water and ate potato chips, and went to bed early that night. 

    and then today, waking up feeling refreshed and a million times better, i went to a flea/food market down the street that literally spanned half a mile and sold all kinds of dirty junk and old fur and scary tribal looking things and silverware and portraits of old dead people and it was pretty much amazing. i think im going to have to go back a few more times before i will actually be able to sift through all the junk and find some actual treasures. it was just a bit overwhelming. the food market on the other side of the street was even better, i spent about 6 euro on apples, clementines, peppers, carrots, and nuts. there was also tons of cheese and meats (many of which were scary and still had heads and limbs attached) and fresh fish and basically everything you would ever want to eat for really cheap. i will be returning there.

unfortunately, i have forgotten to bring my camera with me this whole weekend, so i have no pictorial evidence of anything i have done, but i'm sure nobody wanted to see pictures of me dry heaving into a garbage can anyways. i promise to capture some really spectacular moments in the near future.