Christel and I somehow woke up. eventually. This is my face in the morning.
A girl took 25 minutes in the shower, which was un peu annoying, but whatever. After getting dressed I grabbed the second half of my galette jambon fromage for breakfast and we headed to port d'orleans to grab the metro to ISEP, the school of engineering where we would be having our classes. I was basically a walking dead zombie, but Christel guided us in the right direction, and after a switch on the metro, we made it to ISEP about 20 minutes early. A good sign of redemption after coming to the welcome dinner an hour and a half late, although there was no one there to appreciate it. We had a wonderful introduction to the french healthcare system by Laurence, our teacher.
We then set off to the bus for an hour long trip to the American Hospital of Paris (Hopital Americain de Paris) in the super chic suburb of Paris called Neuilly. I tried to take some pictures of the sites as we went but I ended up taking a power nap probably about 20 minutes in, after becoming more tired over the course of the class in the morning. But I woke up to the beautiful buildings of Neuilly. Neuilly is basically the pretty biddy of Parisien suburbs, and looked very high end. The hospital itself was very cool too. An American woman working in the development department took us have our free lunch ( I dont think people realize how excited medical students are for free things, especially lunch. Needless to say, this woman was after my own heart). Here's a sweet pic of our classy lunch.
I actually didn't even end up eating it all (still fachee avec moi-meme about that), but it was so good. Then one of the hospital administrateurs, Dr. Dumonts came in and talked to us a bit about the history of the Hospital, and how it works in France. Interestingly enough, there are 8 posts available to American doctors at the hospital (meaning that they don't have to have the european/french qualifications to work in the hospital), but they can rarely fill them. This is generally because it is hard to find Americans who are completely fluent in french, and can work with the patients at the hospital (although it is an american hospital, only about 3% of the patient base is american). We then went to the different wards and places. We went to the maternity ward where the chief mid wife (sage femme) showed us around. In France, midwifery is way more revered than I feel it is in america. But here, you dont really even need an obstetrician to have a baby, just a midwife. I usually think of the midwives in the Mindy Project, so it was cool to see real ones at the hospital and what they do. Also, the maternity was DANK (in the good way). It was basically like a five star hotel room, with a sweet attached room. It almost made me wanna have a baby, and we all know how i feel about pregnancy.
After the American hospital tour, Christel, Susan and I decided to head direction Champs-Elysees, and eventually end up at the Louvre. We got of at the Grand Palais stop and ended spending some time at the exhibits at the Grand Palais. We eventually started walking down the Champs-Elysees, trying hard to avert our eyes from all the SOLDES (sales) signs everywhere. I also thought that the Arc de Triomphe wouldn't be so far away, so we got pretty close, but my feet started hurting. We stopped in a starbucks to try and skimp some wifi (pronouced weefee), but it didnt really work. But then Christel bought the most heavenly macaroons and I literally forgot all of the problems in the world. THAT good. I then decided that I probably couldn't walk anymore/needed to make some google voice calls to the states at a good hour, so I left the girls and headed to the metro.
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| Christel and Susan |
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| Me and Susan |
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| Roomies! |
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| Grand Palais! Or Petit Palais....I can't remember now |
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| St. Barbe |
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| Barbe and I have zero time for your nonsense |
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| view from a bridge |
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| being silly |
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| All the signs were there, we really should have known that Suarez would try to bite someone lol |
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| manna from heaven |
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| As close as I got to the Arc de Triomphe. But like, I'll obviously be back. I got time |
After a delay getting home (there was an RER train stuck at the Cite U exit. typique), I got home and did my phone calls and emails. Somehow it rolled around to 9pm, but of course, the sun doesn't go down until its hot and ready at 10, so my body didn't understand it, and was suddenly hungry for dinner (again, typique). Christel had just gotten home, and we raced to the maison internationale (which is gorgeous by the way) because we heard there was a special cafe in there with student prices that closed at 21h30. LIES. It closed at 9. But as a reward, we ended up discovering the grand pelouse, the big lawn on the other side of the maison internationale. It was beautiful, and I felt like I was staring down at a huge version of the Lawn. We got food at the crepe and panini stand near by and went back to the grand pelouse to enjoy our food. It really is such a convivial space. Everyone was just chilling, having picnics, playing guitars and singing, and just being perfect.
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| Grande pelouse! |
We ventured back to our room, and I put on a sweater before going to meet my friend Lin from high school for a drink and hang out sesh. Lin and I went to boarding school together, and we haven't actually seen each other in 5 years, cray! Anyway, she passed a huge exam today for her course because she is a beast! She took me to meet some of her friends in the American House where she lived this past year, who were all very lovely and shared some of their food with us. We then went to this cute bar called Fleurus and just caught up a bit on life and everything. Little did I realize that we had ventured out around midnight and then I ended up back at my room around 1:30 or 2. And then of course, for no reason whatsoever, both Christel and I stayed up until around 3. I'm pretty sure I was looking up cheap flights to Croatia or Venice or something haha. But all in all a really really good day :)
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| hai Lin! |
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