January, exams, parents and vacations.

Alright, so if you read the title, you have a basic understanding of what's coming. If you don't have time or you're not interested, I have two things to say to you: 1) What are you doing even looking at this? and 2) Be content with the title and read no further. However, if you are interested in knowing a bit more of each of the above-listed words, read below for their explanations. 


January. It's a month in our calendar. It happens to be the first month and it starts with a "J" whether you spell it in English or French (janvier). I happen to think it's a pretty good month. Back home temperatures are cold, there is snow (generally) and it contains my birthday. Here it's not as cold, sometimes a little rainy, but still contains my birthday, so it's still good. It's also been almost a whole month since I wrote, most of January, and that's a little longer than I ever planned on leaving this. I'll try to do better next month. The other news for January is that it's when the Redeemer group usually arrives in Paris. This year Paris had the pleasure of having some of us for 4 months already before January, and we have gained another 3 girls now. They arrived on Thursday, are quickly growing accustomed to life here and are wading through that disastrous bog called the "décalage horaire" (time difference). 

The Pantheon in January still boasting its Christmas trees. 

This is where the "grands hommes" de la France are buried.

Some of my classmates at the end of our end-of-exams crêperie evening.

Basilique St. Denis

A grey Sunday afternoon mini-excursion with Rachel. 

The Basilique is owned by the State and is also the home to the Royal necropolis. This picture, thus the front of the basilique, is deceiving; it's actually very large.

I was wandering around finding a couple hotels the other day and found myself on a bridge looking at the back of Notre Dame, so I took a picture.

Exams. So for the first two weeks that we were back from Christmas vacation we still had grammar and phonetics classes but we wrote our conference exams. I found the first two very easy. On January 15 we wrote the unfriendly grammar exam. It consisted of the following sections: grammar, oral comprehension, written comprehension and a short essay. We were given three hours and I don't think I stayed the whole time. It was not fun. We will find out our results on February 7, I believe. The interesting thing about the exam is that it was written at the "Maison des examens." This is a very large building consisting of exam rooms. In my understanding, all university students in Paris write their exams there. The stop on the RER is called "La Place" and when we got there the lady announced the stop as "La Place, Maison des examens." Can't miss it even if you want to. ;) The following week I had one more conference exam to write, this time it wasn't so much fun, and then Thursday the 20th was my oral exam and that one went well. So now I'm registered for the next semester, I'll find out how I did on the 7th, and classes begin again on the 11th of February. 


Parents. My parents arrived in Paris this morning. I've been looking forward to them coming and now they are here. Today I met them at the airport and once we made it into Paris I showed them my room at the residence. Then we headed to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur to get all the exercise we would need for the day (seriously, climbing those steps once a day would put me great shape, I think!). Oh, and we saw a good view of the city from there. ;) We then made our way to the Arc de Triomphe and marveled at its size and detail. We saw Champs Elysees (not the highlight, but it happened). We saw the Eiffel Tower from multiple views today, but the plan is still to go look at it up close tomorrow. (I can't send them back home without being able to say they went to the Eiffel Tower.) We ate lupper at the lovely little Italian restaurant around the corner from my residence and then we took their stuff to the hotel where I left them for the evening because I had the Jeunes Adultes group at church to attend. I have a full schedule for us tomorrow and I'm quite sure we can do it all, thanks to the Metro. 

Mom & Dad climbing the steps of Montmartre to see Sacre Coeur and a view of Paris. 

If you really look here, you can see the Eiffel tower above the rooftops and just to the right of the little tree trunk. This is from somewhere on Montmartre.

Vacations. I am very excited to go to Geneva on Thursday/Friday and then to Italy for a week. It's not nearly as warm there as it would be if it was June, but that should suit me just fine. I'm looking forward to seeing new countryside again and to see some interesting cities. We'll be checking out Geneva, Venice and Florence and its surrounding area (including Siena). I'm quite excited. Also, my ex-roommate Rachel (who is now an au pair and living with a family) and I have begun plans to go to Scotland for part of our Easter break! I am SO excited for that! If you're interested, take a look at this site and you'll see part of what we're looking into: http://www.timberbush-tours.co.uk/glasgow_tours/three_days/skye.html I hope to also make it back to Holland sometime during the Easter holidays, hopefully to visit the family once more before I head back to Canada (and pick up some more goodies).
I love vacations. I do miss camping, though, and would love to do that at least once this coming summer. There's something great about not worrying about train schedules, hostels, or getting around a city and instead sitting around a campsite reading a book all day. Both kinds of vacations are great for different reasons. 


A couple other thoughts I've had lately can be found in The Crown from Redeemer. 


And I think that's about it for now. January hasn't been an overly exciting month so far, really. I'm just thankful for a break again. I know we just had one (Christmas) but like I said, I love vacations! It's a good time. ;) 


2 sleeps until I turn 22. :)


Blessings for your week,


~Lynette