la tour eiffel picnic

I just finished my second and last french test. It was as ridiculous as I thought it would be. There was a section where you had to write a letter to your friend about something. I didn't understand what the something part of the sentence meant in french. When I asked my teacher to explain what he wanted us to do my he basically laughed in my face and asked if I wanted him to just take the whole test for me. Yes pierre, me asking you to explain the essay prompt is the same thing as me asking you to take the entire test for me. I miss my amazing farsi teacher, she actually had a heart. I just rolled my eyes at pierre and walked away.

Another great test moment was when he first passed it out and I noticed the last page where he listed ten words and asked us to write sentences using them, to that show the fact that we understand what the words meant. I swear to god I had never seen one of those words before in my life. It's as if he opened the dictionary randomly ten times and picked nouns, adjectives and verbs to put on the test. I couldn't stop myself from asking him where we had seen these words outloud in front of the class. Pierre (that's my teacher's name if its not obvious yet) just smiled while the rest of the class agreed with me. It was the biggest joke but I'm done and that's all that matters. Only twelve pages of essays are standing between me and break. That's twelve too many pages but I will/have to do it somehow. At least I will be an expert on the history of handbags as well as monet and warhol's paintings that were done in series.

Our plan was to go to this outlet mall outside of paris near disneyland paris today after class but thanks to the rer strike (the rer is the train that connects paris to all its' suburbs like versailles) we weren't able to go. Since it was actually sunny outside when I got home I thought that it would be a good idea to finally have a picnic in front of the eiffel tower. I realize that the smart choice would have been to have our little picnic in september when it was actually warm but dorene and I tend to procrastinate so it was either now or never.

Our picnic consisted of quiche (we bought two from the local amazing boulangerie), balsamic vinegar flavored chips (they're our favorite and on the back it says to enjoy it as an appetizer or during a picnic so we had to bring some), creme caramel, some cookies, water and two mini bottles of wine (with twist off tops because we had already left and had forgotten the bottle opener at home.) Dorene found this plastic table cloth in a closet in our apartment so we even had something to sit on.

We took the metro to the bottom of the champs de mars (the park that is below the eiffel tower, where I ran around during my first and only run in paris.) We took some pictures from far away because well we didn't have any pictures from that angle and one can never have too many pictures with the eiffel tower.

All of the middle grass sections in that park were fenced off but of course somehow we found the one and only middle section that wasn't. We felt like crazies being the only people daring enough to sit in the one unfenced part but we did it and survived. Not going to lie though, we kept waiting for some officer to come tell us to move and fine us for having alcohol (apparently it's illegal to drink in public there.) Good thing we decided to picnic in the middle of december when there was no one around to ticket us.

We had our delicious quiches and drank our super cute wines and then took some pictures. I really couldn't believe that I was actually sitting there eating a quiche and looking at the eiffel tower. I realize that it's really there but it just hasn't registered yet. Too bad I'm leaving before it actually sinks in.

We had to take pictures drinking out a wine bottle in front of the eiffel tower because of what our program director, gabriel, said the first week we were here. He was telling us about all the things american tourists do that we shouldn't do so that we can be true parisians and have other parisians respect us. And drinking straight from the bottle in front of the tower was a big don't but of course all dorene and I thought was, oh my god amazing idea!

Dorene had brought straws because she thought it was classier to drink her mini twist off cap wine bottle using a straw. I didn't understand it but obviously went with it.

After quiches, it was time for creme caramel and more pictures, jumping this time.

Even though we spent a good minute or two jumping by this point both of us were absolutely freezing but it was entirely worth it. We walked up to the eiffel tower, walked under it, and crossed over to below trocadero to another parisian christmas market. In case you lost count this was my third christmas market, my first was on the champs elysees and my second was at la defense.

There was a little ice skating rink there too which was just too cool. It was about the size of two small pools but you can't ask for a rink with a better view.

Once we got to the top of trocadero, where we were last friday, we decided to take a few more pictures, just in case.

If you didn't notice already, I had purposely brought my longchamps eiffel tower bag to the picnic because well it needed to see the big momma. Apparently nordstrom just brought a black and white version of my bag with a long strap so I had to make my lovely blue one a little more special.

Once we were completely frozen (I don't know why I felt it was okay to just wear a peacoat versus my normal down jacket) we hopped on the metro and came home. We napped a bit (thank you wine), watched some friends and had dinner. We have a full day (and night!!) ahead of us tomorrow so trust me we needed the down time.