Something fun from the weekend. Location: Paris.

I'm pretty wiped out, but I thought I'd write about something I did this weekend that was particularly fun before I go to bed.

As I've mentioned and as you can see from pictures, the little street I live on is pretty damn cute. The people who live here are also incredibly neighborly and Rue Emile Desvaux is definitely a community. This past Friday night, my block had a movie night outside. All the neighbors got together and organized it- someone got a huge screen to project on, someone brought a bunch of benches, everyone brought a ton of wine. Of course, no one has real backyards because we do still live in Paris and not the suburbs, so they blocked off the dead end in front of my house for the evening. When Hal and I first got there, everyone was hanging out and talking and drinking while Looney Tunes played for the kids with French subtitles. I would have loved to watch Looney Tunes out there all night, honestly, because I didn't understand a whole lot of the movie. Around 11:30, they put on a classic black and white French movie comparable to The Little Rascals. Hal and I stayed for about half of it before we decided it was freezing and we were barely able to understand all of the kids in the movie with their slang and mumbling. The evening was trop gentille, though, and enough to keep me around here rather than going out clubbing with friends. I love living here because of how incredibly diverse my neighborhood is and how accessible things are in the city. But it's also really nice that the block I live on is super safe and a real community. Especially since the language and culture here are still pretty foreign to me,  it helps to be having such a wonderful experience with my host family and such a warm home. Most people in the program aren't nearly as happy as I am with their host families for one reason or another. I definitely got lucky. This Thursday my host father actually invited Hal to join us for dinner. It's things like that that are absolutely not required of them, but my host family does anyway to make me feel welcome.

Okay off to bed now.
Love,
Anj