Whoever heard of an "AZERTY" keyboard?

We went to the Palais de Versailles Tuesday afternoon with the group after our Sorbonne class (it's basically the Disneyland of European tourism--no, the actual Disney Paris park is probably NOT as crowded). It's amazing how easy it is to get around everywhere here--we just hopped on an RER train for 20 minutes and were in Versailles before we knew it.

Versailles is extremely crowded, and you'll hear approximately 8349028402 languages at once. The majestic sights at the chateau's entrance include a spectacular ornamental gilded fence, Asian tourists and 50 tour buses. Inside, it's even more crowded. We waited in line for a while to receive some headphones for our recorded guided tour of the palace (I chickened out and got an English narrator instead of French--plus facile! Plus, the British accent was calming in such chaos).

Versailles basically consists of room after room of 17th-century paintings of important (i.e. pretentious) people and Roman gods, along with gilded everything. The ceilings, walls, fireplaces, windows, doors--EVERYTHING is gold. The tour consists of approximately 20 rooms of this (each one appearing mostly the same as the last but used for a different purpose--a room for war, a room for peace, a room for signing documents, a room where the king waited for people to ask him for favors, etc.). Even the calm English tour guide sounded a little sick of the procession toward the end: "Here is another room, quite similar to the last, where the queen would do something quite similar to what she did back there..."

The Hall of Mirrors IS pretty fabulous, although I felt bad for the 5-year-old French schoolchildren touring the place--just bring the poor kids to the zoo (if it was hard for ME to engage myself in that place, I can't imagine what it must have been like for them)!

There was also a gallery of paintings of wars and battles. The curators had juxtapositioned these with photos from modern wars, which was kind of interesting. I got scolded for taking pictures.

By the time we finished the indoor tour, I was wandering around with only one other guy from my program. The place is so crowded it would have been impossible for us all to stay together. We wandered out to the gardens, which are expansive and amazing--they mainly consist of fountains and carefully crafted shrubbery, but I assure you, they're pretty badass.

Somehow we ran into several other people from Carolina (this was seriously a miracle), and we all walked through the gardens together. Then we got some gelato and sat on the side of a pond, watching people row around it in cute little boats. I really wanted to rent one because that would have been adorable, but we were getting tired and sunburned and wanted to head back to Paris.

The next morning we had class again at the Sorbonne, which is really nice. I feel like I'm in the perfect level--I've seen all the grammar we're studying, but it's good to have a refresher; I haven't taken a language class in a long time in favor of French lit. Also the professor makes us feel comfortable enough to ask questions. I'll have to give a 15-minute presentation on something French at some point during the semester; I wanted to do Simone de Beauvoir (obvi), but another girl snatched her up first, so now I think I'll present on orientalism in 19th-century French art and literature & its connection to the objectification of women. Or something like that.

Arden and I took a leisurely walk in the afternoon since we didn't have class. We went to the Gibert Joseph (basically like a Barnes & Noble, except books are way cheap here!!) and bought some contemporary French novels just for pleasure reading. Then we had our first Monoprix experience (it's a French department store kind of like Target; we had an epic search for face wash and ultimately had to just ask an employee where to find it--Neutrogena = jackpot!). We made our way down to the Seine; I bought a little present for ma mere at one of the stalls along the river. We sat for a while on one of Paris's many bridges and then relaxed in the Tuileries gardens before we made our way back to the Foyer.

This lovely afternoon was followed by our ridiculous reading assignment--over 100 pages of scholarly evaluations of French court culture circa 1680, followed by the world's first super hero narrative (some guy who "rescued" people from their moral inadequacies). There were also some letters by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson about their perceptions of the French court, which were interesting.

Today we had French class again (shocking!). Afterward we went to the Resto for lunch with Cieran, this Irish guy we met in class. He's a music major from Dublin and has a fabulous accent. It was really funny to compare cultures (and easy since we all speak English)--we chatted about the metric system, big cities, beer, etc. It was a nice time.

Came back to the Foyer, finished my reading/kind of took a nap, and went to culture class, which was long. It's not super boring, but three hours a day is enough for any subject.

We went to a free concert at the Sorbonne this evening. It was a pretty unique genre--Nordic music played by a French viola/classical accordion duo. Only like 10 people showed up aside from us, which was funny. The accordionist was about our age and super gorgeous; I was kind of in love. The group's composer was there as well. He was a tall Finnish guy with long, stringy blond hair that was parted in the center and went all the way to his waist. When he spoke (in English), his Finnish accent made him sound like a robot. I think Scandinavian accents might just do that to you.

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant on the way home. I ordered chop suey chicken, which I didn't realize was basically a salad with pulled-apart chicken in it...disappointing. Also they charged us 5 euro for a side of fried rice.

Tomorrow we're heading to the Louvre after class--it's free for students from 6-10 on Friday nights (and seeing as we have no social life of which to speak, we have nothing better to do than look at art all evening; I'm psyched!). Saturday morning our train leaves for Brussels at 6:55 a.m., and we're returning to Paris at 11:35 p.m. Sunday evening. It should be a nice trip; our hostel (http://www.chab.be/) & train tickets cost a grand total of only $130 American! We're planning to see the Grand Place, the Manneken de Pis and the Atomium, as well as eat lots of chocolate and waffles and moules-frites (yeah, I'm going to be brave and try the mussels; they're a specialty). We'll probably also have a few Stella Artois ;)

By the way, the Irish guy didn't know the word for "pancakes." Europeans are just so...foreign.

Or maybe I am.