I have finally arrived in Paris.

Thursday night – our last night in Tours – Sara and I met a few of the other students down at the Loire, where everyone was drinking cheap wine and there was a collection of French hippies playing guitars and smoking.

Some French boys (I think boys? They looked like they were 17 or 18) came up to us and ask us for a light (it’s the universal pick-up line). Of course, none of us smoke, so we always say no. Some of us have bad accents though, so when we respond they know we’re foreign right away. “Are you English?” they asked us in French. “Are you French?” I asked them in English. They were really confused. One of the guys laughed and said, “Yes, yes, I live in French.” Then we were nice to them and told them that yes, we were English, from England.

Then we went to one of the cafes in the old quarter to get tea. We went to a tea salon called “La Casbah” and the man heated up our mint tea (which is normally delicious, had been absolutely delicious at a Hookah bar a few nights before) in the microwave. Not only did I not appreciate that he poured it from a pot into a cup to be microwaved, but I also didn’t like the fact that the cup was plastic. It was only one euro, so I guess (in French terms, where nothing is free), you get what you pay for.

So right now I am with my family. I live on the 7th floor of a gorgeous building, where when you walk out you have a view of the Eiffel tower. It seems to me exactly where Woody Allen would live if he was transported from New York to Paris; large rooms, lots of books, old-fashioned but very east coast big-city apartment-ish. If that makes any sense. They have three kids: Raphäelle, Mathilde, and Juliette; they are adorable and have been really nice to me. All three of them speak English, except that Juliette understands rather than speaks very often; last night, in fact, we watched “” together in English (with English subtitles). Madame Noiville (that is the mother), told me that she loves English, and actually lived in Georgetown for 9 months once when her husband (M. Hirsch) had an internship/short job as a lobbyist there.

Madame Noiville is a journalist, in charge of the culture/literary section of Le Monde, which, if you don’t know, is pretty much the French newspaper. She also speaks English and travels all of the time (for example, next week she will be in New Zealand for 11 days, during which her mother will come to stay with us).

M. Hirsch is the President of Emmäus Europe, which is a non-profit which fights poverty, homelessness, etc. He’s written some books and stuff and is a fellow at several organizations in DC (I found this out from google). He came to pick us up last night from the Alliance Française, but other than that I’m not sure if I’ll see him too much. Both of the parents seem very busy; Madame Noiville even had an interview with a Polish woman last night – an author, I think? – which she forgot about until the last minute.

My room, like I said, necessitates some stair climbing, but otherwise it seems fine. I have my own shower, sink, bed, shelves etc. for clothes, and a window out onto the street. I’m not sure how much time I will actually spend up there (particularly since I haven’t succeeded in getting wireless yet, and there is no TV, so I have no connection to the outside world), but I am living next to some really interesting people. The girl who lives next to me is Chinese, and her boyfriend is her in France with her. She has a TV (which is important). On the other side, there are two people: a Swiss guy and a German girl, both of whom speak French. They have the same entrance, but I think different rooms. The only thing that is kind of irritating is the bathroom, which is communal and necessitates me living my room, but that’s okay – at least it’s not far at all.

Today, when I woke up, no one was in the house. One of the daughters had school in the morning (she just got back) and Juliette, the youngest, has a broken arm (they went mountain climbing this summer and one of her sisters fell on her), so she just got back from the radiologist, which she went to all alone.

As for me, I’m typing this in the kitchen. I just finished a breakfast of muslei cereal, cocoa puff-like things, and yogurt and sugar. I'm going to finish "The Parent Trap" with my host sister and her dad, who just got home.