Ma Chambre

1st window that overlooks Rue Massenet. My desk and part of my host parent's book collection to the right. My host father went to school in Switzerland for a few years so he speaks fluent Swiss-German and has a lot of German books.

This is the 2nd window that faces the neighbor.

These are photos of my bedroom. It's very nice (and more spacious than my usual room at school). I have the 3rd floor of the house to myself - 2 bedrooms, an office and a bathroom - but sometimes my host parents come up to use the computer in the office. My host father - who is more like a grandfather - came to pick me up today at the BU campus, but needed Jihane and I to help him with one of my massive bags (64lbs!). We drove around the Eiffel Tower and headed towards the "bourgeois" or "upper-crust" neighborhood of the 16th disctrict. You can tell the people come from money due to their luxurious fur coats, designer everything and nice cars. However, this being said, it seems my host parents are very modest and don't flaunt their money. Monsieur Villeroy helped me carry all my bags up the stairs (even "le monstre" as he named my heaviest one!).

After unpacking and settling in, Madame came in to introduce herself. She speaks very fast and makes sure to get within 6 inches of your face (a little intimidating), but she's very very nice and inviting. For lunch she made something similar to a fat asparagus, but soaked in vinigar, wrapped with ham and melted cheese on top. Sounds weird but it tasted good. For dessert we ate mango (one of their favorite fruit) and it was good, surprisingly, since I usually don't like it.

Later in the evening, I went around the neighborhood and did a little grocery shopping since I'll have to cook for myself the next few months (if you have any good and easy recipies, please send me some!). I live right by a few streets filled with boutiques (i.e. Morgan, Zara, United Colors of Benetton, MAC) and pastry shops. Also, there is an open air market with fresh fruit, seafood, meats, cheese, wine, etc. I went when the sun was already down so I'll take pictures another time so you can see the market better. And of course, there was a McDonalds on the corner of the road. My best two buys of the night were a baguette (for only .85 euro) and a apricot/raspberry jam that's very delicious.