Pictures!

Okay, I finally took some pictures. They're not great, and I don't have a lot, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if I don't just bite the bullet and post them now, they'll languish on my camera forever. I hate taking pictures, because if I have a camera with me I find that I spend too much time thinking about the pictures I should be taking and not enough time actually looking at the beautiful things I'm seeing.

So, this picture is of the grimacing heads on the Pont Neuf (which means "New Bridge", but thanks to the incredible ancient-ness (ancientry?) of Paris, is actually the oldest bridge in Paris, built in 1606. Go figure.) It is said that the heads represent the friends and ministers of Henri IV - pretty bunch, n'est-ce pas?




This is a random statue near the Pont Neuf - it might be the Vert Gallant, but I am not at all sure. I really just took the pic because of the pretty moon, hence the lack of flash and resultant blurriness.













This is what I had for lunch today. It was in a little café near the Tufts classrooms, and I ordered salade de chèvre, and then it came and was so pretty I couldn't resist taking a photo. It was also delicious.






This is the Eiffel Tower as seen through the window of a moving Métro train. Ligne 6 goes above ground between stations Passy and Cambronne, and there's a minute-long window between buildings and stations and suchlike things where one can see la Tour Eiffel. The novelty of that will never, ever wear off for me. I also like this picture because the train made such a symmetrical wiggle during the exposure time, as you can see in the lights.

Today we had a presentation on Normandy, which is where we're going next weekend on a Tufts trip, and it got me really excited. Good food, beautiful architecture... She described the landscape as similar to New Hampshire, but I think she probably meant Vermont, as it's the obviously superior state. Don't worry, I'll take lots of pictures so you guys can judge for yourselves.

My host family continues to be really, genuinely nice. There is always something going on, and someone else is always home, and dinners tend to be quite chaotic, but it's fun. They're great about correcting me just enough so I learn, but not enough so that I'm feeling constantly nitpicked to death. (Well, except by the youngest boy, who's 15, but I just tell him to shut up in the rudest French I know and he laughs and forgets what he was correcting me about.)