So, okay. After we went to the Louvre, even though I had made plans to meet up with two of the other girls I went with that day later, in the end I was tired so I decided to just go to sleep around 7 p.m. (I blame the jetlag). You know how I mentioned both my host parents are gone? Around 9 or 10 p.m. I'm definitely woken up by the sounds of guests arriving. Yes, that's right. My host brother and sister threw a party. Without even telling me the tiniest detail of it, so of course I couldn't get any sleep the whole night long (not really feeling either like getting dressed and going to talk to some strangers in French). At first I was partly amused...

...but it stopped being amusing when I woke up Saturday morning to look at the clock and see that it was TEN AM WHEN I HAD TO BE SOMEWHERE AT 9 TO TAKE A PLACEMENT TEST. I set an alarm but I don't even remember it going off because I was so tired due to NOT BEING ABLE TO SLEEP BECAUSE OF THE LOUD TALKING. The more that I think about it, the more this really bugs me. How dare they not even tell me they were doing this??? Did they think I wouldn't have been cool with it, so they just... didn't mention it?! GREAT PLAN, GUYS. I really, really wish I had known beforehand. So I overslept, and I had to call IES to tell them I was going to be late and why, and I missed the first part of the nice lunch everyone had following the test because I was making mine up. At least they brought me a delicious ham and cheese sandwich, and I still made dessert, and snagged a pretty amusing table. Bertrand, IES Paris's field trip guy, is totally the new Shin-san. It's hilarious the counterparts I'm finding...

Rosa, the housing director, also asked me if I wanted to leave this host family due to the whole party thing, since all the staff knows about it, but I said no... 90% because of the cat, maybe. But I also like the location of the apartment, and this isn't a horrible incident, just really annoying. Even though I am dearly wishing I had chosen apartment housing... I almost wanted to say "yes, but can I be put in an apartment instead?" I just don't think I'm cut out for long-term host family living... I need to be secure in my own space. sigh. I'm going to try and roll with this, but I'm totally yearning for the situation last semester, minus Endo-san of course... She also asked me if I wanted to have IES call my host parents and tell them about the party, but I said no to that. No, I won't rat you out, inconsiderate host siblings of mine...

After that we got tickets for a bus tour of Paris, and Bertrand was my group's leader for that, which involved some of the people from the Louvre excursion. We went to Notre Dame to begin the tour, but about half of us decided not to bother catching the bus and just explore Notre Dame and the surrounding areas. Which we did, we walked around the cathedral, went to Shakespeare & Company bookstore which was so cool, explored the back alleys, which is the Latin Quarter, in search of a cheap cafe (yeah, right). We finally found a good one, and we were there enjoying coffees/beverages for a while, it was really fun.


Notre Dame




It was extremely windy as we were standing outside the cathedral trying to figure out where to go next!



Then we wanted dinner, but didn't want to pay too much, so we went to one of the student cafeterias IES told us about, in the Cité Universitaire. It was interesting; definitely cheap, that's for sure!! Then we went to the Bastille, which is so cool, a really great hangout place. I keep trying to match up the different parts of Paris with the parts of Tokyo. Like, Champs Elysées is kind of Omotesando on a bigger scale, Latin Quarter is maybe the back streets of Harajuku. I'll figure out more later. Anyway, so we hung out there, then we decided we'd go over to Marc's host family's house because they're out of town, and spend the night there until the trains started running (normally I would go home instead of staying out all night, but they told us a bunch of horror stories and I was afraid of getting home on my own). So we went over there, and woww, his host family's house is AMAZING. It's in an apartment building, but occupies two floors, with this huge backyard... it is so nice! We all just walked around in awe.

Us at Marc's

Today I took an afternoon nap, and Isis joined me (best cat ever!). But now it's dinnertime and I don't know if I'm eating with my family, because I only get 2 dinners a week with them (ridiculous) and have to get the rest on my own, and I don't know if this is one of those nights. If it is then I have to go out and get my own food, which I really don't want to do, as it just got pretty cold in Paris (it had been fairly warm up 'til now), plus there are no conbinis here that would make it easy (god bless the Japanese and how they know some of us just want an impersonal buying experience)... this might just be the next in a string of nights in which I am too lazy/scared to go get food, so I just eat some chocolate and essentially starve. Which is lame.
And now, thanks to trying to lock the keypad on my phone last night and accidentally LOCKING THE SIM CARD and I can't unlock it without the PUK code, which I can only get by calling my service provider, WHEN THIS WAS MY ONLY PHONE and I really don't want to explain to my host family why I need to use their phone... if anyone is trying to call me, I can't get it. rrrrrr! I was only trying to lock the keypad, not input a code, which apparently after 3 wrong tries means the WHOLE PHONE GETS LOCKED. I hate non-flip phones...

(later)
I've just come back from dinner (yay, didn't have to go get my own food!)... much better than last time. First, food was great, but then--somehow my host mom has found out about the party, and is not that happy that it happened, but she's also not going to punish her kids, who were both trying to convince her that "it's normal!" and stuff. Then my host dad came home, and when he found out, he just smiled, and they were all "See? He understands!!" and my host mom looked all exasperated and I was just like "..Yeah, I understand too" and they were all "HA, SEE!" So, I'm satisfied. I believe if this ever happens again, I will be told. Good. :)

Here's some pictures of my room in my homestay: