No School Tomorrow!!

That's right, my vigorous 3-day school week is over and it's officially the weekend. Today has been spent mostly getting ahead on studying though in preparation for my trip to England tomorrow! Who knew you had to study in a study abroad program? Turns out taxation isn't a walk in the Tuileries Garden. But it's still pretty interesting and way less complex than a 10-week course at UCLA would have been.

Yesterday was the first of our organized walking tours with the program. We took the Metro as a 40-person group and all I have to say is I felt so bad for the poor French people trying to get on with their daily lives that ran into our giant glom at the station. I sort of felt like I was on a kindergarten field trip following the leader, sticking to the buddy system, and repeating the colors and numbers of the metro lines over and over again. As an already seasoned Metro-rider, I found this quite nettlesome.

My buddy system and I in the Metro tunnels.

Our first stop--l'Hotel des Invalides. It is home to the French Army Museum and, more famously, Napoleon's tomb. It was odd going through the World War II section of the army museum because I'm so used to seeing everything from the American perspective rather than the French perspective. I did my best to read all of the information (it was all in French), but shortly I got a headache from scrutinizing every single word in order to translate. One thing I did learn is that the French like tassles on their army headwear. One helmet was decorated with long platinum blonde strands erupting from the top. It reminded me of a Barbie. 

Des Invalides. The French sure do have cool buildings.

Napoleon's tomb. Talk about a complex.

The picture of Napoleon's tomb was taken from the second story of the crypt looking down. It was kind of creepy looking at the coffin on the pedestal. I kept picturing a shriveled midget inside. Not really the most pleasant of images. I wonder what he is wearing in there.

Then we head over to the Rodin Museum around the corner. If you have no idea who that is, don't feel bad because I didn't either. But he was the dude who trademarked "the Thinker" pose in sculpture.

When I look at this the only visual that comes to mind is Winnie the Pooh saying "Think, think, think..."

Am I right?

Rodin also apparently had a legit house that-surprise!-they turned into a museum. The sculptures inside were pretty angsty and all naked, so I think I would have rather seen all his furniture and stuff instead. But the views of the gardens (where the Thinker statue is) from the upper balcony were magnificent. 

Caught by the paparazzi. 

After we finished walking through the museum we were free to go, so some friends and I decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower which wasn't too far away. It's probably one of my favorite things here, I could visit it a million times and never get bored of the sight. Yesterday was especially sunny, lighting up all the greenery of the parkway leading up to the Tower. French people and tourists alike were lounging on the grass all over. It was a pretty sweet sight.

My calf muscles will be bulging by the end of this trip with the amount of walking I do daily.

At the end of the night we took a relaxing stroll to the Seine to hang out along the banks like the other young French folk. I felt like less of a tourist when the river cruise boats sailed by and the passengers were taking our picture as if we were the locals. 

Don't let the amount of light deceive you, it was probably around 9:30pm. It never gets dark here for some reason.

So that's the really fast, lazy version of what the last two days have been like. I'm feeling an evening nap creeping over me, and I think I'm about to let myself succumb to it. Bonne nuit errybody.