Rollerbladers at the Grande Palais.

A space invader.

Paris from a boat.

Me when I got my bags

A sunset from my window.

Underground

My room.

It is 6:46 am. The air is crisp and the silence is virgin to the shreading sounds of motor scooters and police sirens. The side walk, dew covered pavement, feeling my gentle steps on its back. The baking bread fills my nostrils, and if the bakery is open, I'll get my self a "pain au chocolat" for my long multiple train ride to work.
I hope trains at Bastille. The stations walls our covered with paintings and moldings of this event. I wait at the far end of the platform. It will be easier to catch the next train that way.
I switch at chatelet, my least favorite station. It's busy, crowded, dirty, hot, and it smells like old rubber. But you can't beat its convienence. I take the RER B Line towards Mitry Claye. I get off at Vert Gallant. My right foot is running towards my bus before my left foot detaches from the train. If I miss this bus, it could be decades of minutes before the next one. I'm in a town called Tremblay. It is cold in Tremblay at 8 in the morning.
Bus. I avoid making eye contact with my students. Especially the girls. Don't want them getting the wrong idea. (How do I hold authority?) I'll say a hello or two to students I see, or a how are ya (They don't quite understand my accent yet). The bus driver has a lead foot. The turns are hard. My hands are heavy.
Work. I heqd strait to the teachers lounge. Never thought I'd be hanging out in one of those. Never thought I'd be back in high school so soon. "Bonjour. Bonjour." The spanish teacher comes in, "Ahola." (OO LA LA) And then all the English teachers who love taking advantage that they finally get to practice their english with someone who speaks the freakin language.
The bell rings. It's less of a bell and more of a sonic tone. A sound that lets me know it is time to down my coffee quick, dive into the sea of moving adolecents, and divide my attention between 15 roudy students who often refuse to speak to me in english despite my end less efforts to be as clear as possible. They have been taking the language for 3 years already.
My day goes as follows. I try to speak with them, sometimes to them, and sometimes, on a good day, with a certain group, I just listen to what they have to say. Those are usually the Terminale, seniors in American stantdards.
Some classes are harder than others, and some of these kids just don't want to learn. And I remember my days at the desk, were we as frustrating? Other classes are small, 3 to 4 students. They tend to converse more without the distraction of their peers, peers being a word often teach. I try to get them to tell me a little about where they are from, who they are, what they like. It is always the same response, Prison Break. "Michael Scoffield, he is a beautiful man", the ladies say. What am I gonna do with these kids.
I eat lunch with theachers. The food is great and the teachers are nice, and we get an hour and one half. Not a bad lunch break at all and I pay less than the teachers, 2.50euro. Lunch includes a salad, an entree, bread, and a desert. I usually talk to a teacher after lunch outside. They like to hear about what Americans are thinking.
When the last sonic tone hits, I hit the Salle de Profs. Say my good byes, and I am out the gate.
Bus, RER B, Metro Line 1 to Line 8.
18:46. I'm on my way home.

What Up!
This is your MAIN man coming at you all the way from Paris. How you all doing out there...alright? Good good...hey Tomas I like the shirt you got on. Pretty cool. Common Greg, lets keep it clean huh. Alright Mikey! MOICKEEEEEE!!!

Check this cool looking french key board symbol: §
it looks even cooler on the key board.

Listen, my mom wants so,e pics qnd is mad because she cant get on to my face book. Im going to get those things up soon as soon as I get time and enough web power, ill probably post a lot.

I lost some electricity for the night so I a, living by candle light, it is only because we have been stealing electricity too, but they Found out, so they left us in the dark. My french is getting better though, so I was able to get them to turn it on tomorrow, so lifes isnt to tough.

I finally decided on a university. It is one of the worst ghettos of Paris and looks like some inner city highschool. I mean taggings in the class rooms, broken windows, blood stained floors, and plenty of cigarette smoking hash addicts. My kinda place. I love it there. The kids all seem real cool and if you want to do cinema and not just read about it in books or watch movies and write 10 page papers in french, if you want to take a directing class or a theater class where you learn french through acting, that is the place to go.

Dispite being in a bad hood, it is full of culture, mostly North Afircan culture, and is supposedly a flourishing area for multimedia resources like studios and such.

There is a guy looking at porn at the computer station next to me...strange.

I think that means it is time for me to go. Im tired anyways and tomorrow I gotta figure out my work scheduel with my boss/teacher. Then I have to register for classes which means going to 8 different offices with a little piece of paper asking, Est-ce que je peut enregistrer pour mes cours ici?

See ya

Chez Moi

So McDonalds internet isn't strong enough for me to get these pics up. I was able to put some pics of my trip to the Catacolmbs 60 feet under Paris. We spent a night there partying pretty hard.

It went like this. We met some dirty guys at a really cool bar by my apt. I said, "why are you guys dirty?" They had just surfaced from the tunnels. "Oh, I heard about that, I wanna go." I said. So that next friday, we went.

In the middle of a crowded Parisian street, infront of a nice restaurant, 16 of us, including our guides who were all geared up and looked like miners, popped open a manhole and climbed down a 60 foot tall ladder. What we did was highly illegal and we would probably be in jail right now if we had been caught by the cops. We weren't. HAHA.

Now underground we roamed, traveling through tunnels with low ceilings that would get lower as we walked. Crawling through holes, trekking through rivers of sewer water. Getting dirty, wet, and excited.

Making blinds turns, holding tight to out flashlights and candles, we followed our guides to the rhythm of their singing. We trusted their maps and their insticts.

At one turn, we met some other guys who were just hanging out. Our guides and other men and women who like hanging out in the catacolmbs are called Cataphils.

We reached a room that had been inforced and redone by the many of men who had visited and partied in the darkness. And there we stayed, drank, ate fondu, sang, danced, and explored until 5 am.

We did not reach the surface of Paris till around 7.

It was amaizing and one of the best Parisian experiences I have had yet. You can see the pictures on my facebook website.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018588&id=11701635&ref=mf

hope it works. soon i will get the ther pictures up.

take care