A parisian evening. Location: Paris.

Just got back to my room from a very full 24 hours. Last night Hal, me and a couple people from school went to see Diplo, the dubstep DJ, at a very fun club. I met up with Elizabeth from home there and some of her new friends which was so fun, especially since I hadn't seen her in 4 months. We danced a ton and got home around 4 AM... just in time for 3 hours of sleep before orientation began again! Good thing the sessions today were not very important.

I'm really liking the staff at CIEE, especially Lucie, the director of my section of the program (the intermediate, Language and Culture section). She's super sweet and encouraging and the perfect person to have her other job as the 24 hour help contact. I'm not sure if she'll be my language teacher, but I know I'll be seeing her a lot since she's in charge of our "bien etre" (well-being). Another great person on staff is a graduate student who did CIEE last year and is helping out with the program. After the program ended today he took me and Hal and our friend Trisha to an awesome Chinese restaurant for dinner and then we got drinks with him and a friend of his from Switzerland. The neighborhood we were in was super funky, as a bunch of artists squatted the empty buildings there and there's a lot of ethnic diversity. It was really nice to explore a new neighborhood and do something as classically Parisian as sitting for hours outside with friends over drinks.

Trisha, Tyler (the grad student) and Hal outside the bar before dinner

The rest of that street

Tomorrow we're going to Vaux le Vicomte, the palace that helped inspire Versailles. It's supposed to rain, though, so let's hope it's not too bad!

Love,
Anj