I originally had plans to go to Morocco with my program during the break, but the dates of the trip had to be moved to some issues booking the plane tickets. Unfortunately I can't go during the new dates because I had already scheduled a group presentation :(
So because I thought I had plans, I didn't look into going to other countries during the break, and when I did find out, most of the tickets to places had already shot up in price, so I just stayed and hung out in Paris this week! I mean there are definitely worse places to be lol
I kicked of the break with a good start! Some friends and I went to the Salon du Chocolat, which is an event, entirely devoted to chocolate, where all sorts of different vendors from around the world come! There were also demonstrations and exhibitions like a fashion show. Let me tell you, I have never seen so much chocolate in my life! There were mounds of it, fountains of it, drinks with it, basically chocolate in every form you could possibly imagine! I definitely hope heaven is something like that!
So while it was definitely awesome to see so much chocolate, there were a TON of people there to see it! It was truly difficult to move around having to push your way through people to navigate the different booths. So because of that, I really didn't buy all that much chocolate, but we still got to taste a good bit! I did buy some dark chocolate orange and Grand Marnier truffles to bring back to my family though! Here are some pictures from the event so you can appreciate the enormous amounts of chocolate we got to see/ smell/ taste :)
Les petits negres: Marshmallow filled chocolate. Delicious!
Truffles
"Would you marry me?" For this delicious chocolate, absolutely! lol
Chocolate Eiffel Tower
Chocolate Flowers
Sunday I got a chance to visit the Hillsong church here with my friend Debbie. It was really really awesome, well once we finally found it! We got lost and missed most of the opening set of worship, but once we found it, it was great! They translated the service into both English and French and it was cool to hear some song I knew, except the French version!
I've also done a lot of shopping and exploring this week. We went and wandered around Montmartre, the Saint-Michel area, as well as one of the big malls. We also randomly ended up in a bar that is apparently famous! Harry's Bar. They have pendants from colleges all around the U.S. I actually found out it was famous watching an episode of the Gilmore Girls where the go to Paris and that's where Lorelai says she wants to go lol. I was so excited to see a little taste of home!
Roll Tide!
So besides various excursions this week, I have also had some excitement with my host family. So while I've been here I have been living with a mom, her 24 year old son, and a girl that's here doing an internship from Nice. The mom, however, has another apartment so she doesn't really live there all the time and when she does come just sleeps on a blow up mattress in the living room. Because of this, she leaves every weekend and her son throws parties. Now sometimes I'm up for a good party as much as the next person, but sometimes it's 4am and I just want to be able to sleep! There were also some other issues there, but I'll save you my complaints and just say that overall it was not a situation I was happy with or what I thought I signed up for. For those that know me, you know it takes a lot for me to want to do conflict. But after the party that lasted until 9:30 am this weekend, I finally went and talked to my program about my concerns. That was Monday, then Thursday they called me in and told me they had a new host family for me and I moved Friday! My program told me just to not tell the 1st host mother that I was moving and they would deal with her anger, so that was fun trying to pack all the enormous amounts of stuff I brought in secret. But thankfully it all worked out. I'm really excited about my new host family and so far they have been wonderful!
One more piece of excitement from this week, in case we're not Facebook friends, I ran into Robin Williams at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore this week! It was really surreal! I looked, like surely that can't be him, then looked again, and then he spoke and it was like WOAH that's Robin Williams! Turns out he is here on his honeymoon. It's definitely true that you never know what/who you're going to see in Paris!
Thanks for reading!
Callie
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