I was looking forward to working with medicine balls and hand weights, kind of like Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred.  Little did I know that “cardio sculpt” actually implied something completely different.   Nowhere in the description of the class did it say “crazy step aerobics class for advanced steppers.”  By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late; everyone had already welcomed me to the class, thrown a few hand weights at me, and rolled a medicine ball over.  As we started the basic up-down step (I’m sure it has a name…), the instructor looked around at the class and must have noticed the panicked look on my face.  “Do we have any newbies in the class?”  I raised my hand.  “Do we have anybody who is new to stepping?”  I raised my hand.  30 women looked at me, shaking their heads as if to say, oh boy, she doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.

I’ll show them, I thought.  Nodding my head, pumping my fists and lifting those knees high, I was ready to roll.  Then out of nowhere, the 30 women plus instructor began doing the most insane moves.  My jaw dropped as they began L stepping, sashaying and cartwheeling over and around their steps, arms and legs flailing every which way in an apparently controlled motion.

I stumbled out of the room an hour later, sweaty, confused and determined.  Whether or not this determination was directed toward mastering step aerobics or never to set foot in a step class again, I’m still not really sure.

On a non-virtual note, today was such a wonderful summer day.  I slept in, enjoying the cool breeze passing through my window.  After I finally got out of bed, I went to the gym, ran 4 miles and did some light lifting…operation stop-being-a-fatty-and-get-back-into-shape has been firmly under way for 23 days, and I’m already seeing and feeling the results.  My jeans are fitting better, and I have so much more energy.  It’s crazy how much pastries and baguettes can slow you down.  Anyway, after the gym, I made up an egg white omelet, read through my e-mail (it’s never-ending, I swear), and decided to sit outside for a while.  The sky was so blue, and the gorgeous breeze from the morning was still keeping the temperature bearable; I sat out for about two hours, while reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and listening to music.  I truly loved today.

• DENMARK: Copenhagen
• SWEDEN: Stockholm
• NETHERLANDS: Amsterdam, Rotterdam
• SWITZERLAND: Geneva, Zurich, Interlaken
• CZECH REPUBLIC: Prague
• HUNGARY: Budapest
• GREECE: Athens, Thessaloniki, Santorini, Crete
• AUSTRIA: Salzburg, Vienna
• GERMANY: Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, Dresden, Frankfurt, Hamburg
• PORTUGAL: Lisbon

Feel free to fund any and/or all of these trips.  Really.

City With the Best Food: Florence

Most Beautiful Country: Norway

City Where I Felt Most at Home: Galway

Most Romantic City: Venice

Most Impressive Piece of Art: Michelangelo’s David in Florence

Most Physically Exhausting City: London

City I Was Most Surprised By: Rome

Favorite City Overall: Paris

• Hearing French spoken all around me. It truly is a beautiful language, and seems to flow into one’s ears like a melody.
• The endless possibilities of events and activities. Throughout my five-month stay, I did not once find myself with a lack of things to do.  In fact, there was too much to do, and I was not able to even come close to accomplishing all of the things on my to-do list.  There is always some new place to explore, some new pâtisserie to try, some new park to discover.
• Coffee vending machines.  Sciences Po has these scattered throughout its campus, and OH MY GOSH, you can get an amazing little hazelnut cappuccino for a mere 50 centimes!  This may or may not be the only positive memory I have of Sciences Po…
• Bread. I’m pretty sure the expression “bread of life” must have originated in Paris; baguette after baguette blew my mind.  And taste buds.  I see why it is such a pivotal part of life in Paris.
• Pastries. True works of art.  And delicious to boot.  I shall miss my mini-macarons and mille feuilles.
• The architecture.  How is it possible for every single building to be so incredibly beautiful?  Okay, except the Centre Pompidou…if I were to allow that edifice to slide, I believe I would have thousands of Parisians swimming the Atlantic in order to find me, strangle me, revive me, and then strangle me again for saying such a blasphemous thing.
• The central location. I would venture to guess that most major airlines and train companies travel to and from Paris, which made my European excursions significantly easier.
• Art. The Louvre.  Musée d’Orsay.  Musée de l’Orangerie.  All of these, among others.  Scattered on every corner of the city.  There is always more beautiful art to be seen, and I’m going to miss having such easy access to it.
• The speed of the metro.  It is so FAST!  Especially in comparison to Boston’s version, called the T, which moves through the city at a snail’s pace.  I suppose it’s good that the metro flies, however, because I don’t know how long I could stand to be surrounded by so many scowling Parisians.
• The myriad of parks scattered throughout the city. They’re all great, but Jardin du Luxembourg will always feel like home to me.
• The open-air markets.  They’re great!  Fresh produce, friendly vendors, and overall fun experiences.  Who doesn’t love to be cooed at and given free nuts and figs?
• The man who plays bass on the bridge by Notre Dame.  He brought a smile to my face each and every time I passed him by.
• Cheap wine…that actually tastes good. I don’t know if it is possible to find in America, but I doubt it’s possible to find $7 bottles of wine that are both drinkable and tasty.

I decided to walk a little bit while formulating a game plan for the day.  I wasn’t paying much attention, and all of a sudden, I found my right foot in a puddle the size of Lake Eerie and as deep as the unexplored parts of the Atlantic.  Along with the tidal wave-esque splash I created, I must have emitted a surprised yelp, because I looked up and a couple in the café across the street was staring at me, mouths agape.  I saw the woman stifling a laugh, which made me giggle…which (surprise) made her laugh, and she gave me a nod of recognition that seemed to signify, “wow, that’s rough, but I’m glad you’re laughing about it.”

I chuckled to myself all the way down Avenue de l’Opéra, and found myself standing in front of the Louvre.  Since it was still only 8 in the morning, the main square with the pyramids was the picture of tranquility.  The fountains weren’t running, tourists weren’t clogging the paths, and the sun was reflecting off of the water, making it unforgettably picturesque.  I sat and read for a while by the fountain until the crowds appeared about an hour later, and then descended into the museum to pick up a couple of post cards.

It’s mornings like this that I’m happy to call Paris home: the streets are quiet and the sun is low in the sky, casting an angelic light on the buildings and café tables that line them.  What am I going to do in just a few short weeks when this is all over?

A more coherent blog coming…well, I don’t know when it’s coming.  I have less than two weeks left in Paris, and to be frank, I’d rather be out frolicking in streets…but not to worry, I’ll at least give you some more incoherent rambling over the next couple of weeks until I return to AMERICA!

PS: this blog entry by David Lebovitz is basically the summation of my food shopping experience thus far.  THEY NEVER GIVE ME CHANGE, the jerks!  And speculoos…yum.

I sped-walked back, purchased enough tickets for me to get there and for both my brother and I to return, and then ran back downstairs just in time to catch one of the trains headed to CDG.

45 minutes later, I found my brother waiting at the arrivals gate with his bright red North Face and a goofy, exhausted grin on his face.

Moral of the story: the RER is the WORST and MY BROTHER IS OFFICIALLY IN PARIS!  We’re off to do fun and exciting things.  Toodaloo!

But first, a little bit about the exam.  It was for one of my two French electives, the one about sociology and consumption practices.  I was a bit nervous going in, as only three of us were native English speakers and simultaneously struggling-French-speakers.  I studied as best I could from the power point presentations he provided us with, and when I sat down with the test, I was pretty confident I had the material down.  Sure enough, nine of the ten questions were easy, and the last one, although tricky, I’m sure I still managed to get a decent amount of credit for.  It was an intense experience though, only having an hour to answer 10 short-(but long)-answer questions in a language that is not your mother tongue.  The good news: I survived, and didn’t feel terrible afterward.

And now, on to the fun stuff!  My brother is coming all the way from Les États-Unis to visit me!  He should be on a plane as I’m writing this, actually, because he’s due to land at Charles de Gaulle tomorrow morning.  I’m going to pick him up, which requires me using my least favorite forms of public transportation: the RER.  I would honestly rather have run all the way to the airport.  But I digress.

I’ve got a pretty packed itinerary for him…I hope he’s not too jet-lagged, or I’m going to have to inject caffeine and nutella into his veins to pump him up!

Mike will be here until Sunday morning, and then on Monday morning I leave for my rescheduled trip to Spain!  I’ll be visiting Madrid and Barcelona with Nadia, and we’re planning on meeting up with some other BC people along the way.  I won’t return to Paris from Spain until Sunday evening.

Then I will spend a few more days in Paris before heading off to…drumroll, please…NORWAY!  Kelsey and I are SO excited to be going to Bergen, Oslo, and to be taking one of the most beautiful train rides in the world, called Norway in a Nutshell.  Too many good things going on this month!

Okay, but…really?  A Barbie room, here in Paris?  Pretty crazy.  I found out about this monstrosity on the Paris Blog, and couldn’t believe my eyes.

Anyways, there isn’t much going on in my life as of late.  I’ve just been studying for my sociology final and working on getting some more photos up on Facebook.  I can’t believe I have less than one month left in Paris…