Back to Paris, back to work

This morning I took a 5:25 eurostar back from London. Yes, I went to London again. I wasn't planning on frequenting the city so often, but tickets were too cheap to pass up! So, I left Friday morning at 6:43 again, and again, had a wonderful weekend.

Stephen is now living in the dorms, so this time, I got to hang out in a more collegiate environment and meet all his friends! On one hand, I'm slightly jealous of his living in the dorms. Don't get me wrong, I'm still loving my current host family, but he's actually making friends his age from England, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, etc. There are parties every weekend he can go to, and everyone lives close by so he doesn't have the hassle of trying to get people together from all different ends of the city. But, I suppose it's a trade off. In France, without the experience of immersion in my French family, my language skills would definitely not be improving as quickly as they are. So, in the end, I guess I'll just have to enjoy English dorm-life while I visit and French-home-cooking when I'm here.

Friday was a day of relaxation. I got next to no sleep the night before, so the morning started off with a long nap. We spent the afternoon wandering around and doing a little shopping. Jil Sander did a line with the Japanese brand Uni Qlo (their version of the Gap), so I wanted to visit the store and check it out. I walked out very happy with a pair of black skinny jeans for about 20 GBP after my student discount. That evening, we splurged on dinner at an Italian seafood restaurant called Pescatori. It was amazing. After a meal of calamari, hand twisted pasta cooked perfectly al-dente in a pesto sauce with prawns (for me), seafood risotto (for Stephen), a bottle of inexpensive and extremely delicious white wine, espresso, and grappa (for Stephen) we were absolutely stuffed. We made our way back to the dorm where I got to meet some of his friends at a party. However, I was tired and too full of pasta to move, so we turned in early.

Saturday we took a train to Milton-Keaynes, a bus to Buckingham, and finally, after calling a taxi from a grocery store, arrived at Stowe house: a real English country estate. The house is famous for its landscape gardens, which, as you walk through them, are supposed to simulate a journey from life, to death and through the afterlife according to classical tradition. The gardens were truly amazing and we had our own private tour which lasted about an hour and a half. The day was chilly so after our tour, we had tea, scones and cake in the little tea room. When we were finished, we walked by the information desk to see if they could call us a cab back to Buckingham, and, to our surprise, the little old woman working the desk offered to drive us all the way back to Milton-Keaynes when her shift was over! We gladly took her up on the offer, avoiding both the taxi and bus ride, and benefiting from her knowledge of the area's history as we made our way back to the train station. That evening, we grabbed dim sum (including pork buns, one of my all-time favorite foods) from a neighborhood restaurant and met his friends for dessert at Yog (pronounced y-ah-g) the British version of Fro-yo (which, as you might have guessed, the British pronounce y-ah-gurt).

Sunday we had the chance to do what I had been planning to do since my first trip to London: visit the Tate modern. The museum was great: modern, kooky, and all that, without being as inaccessible as the Centre Pompidou (no meat dresses or naked woman-holding-upside-down-chicken-video-art here). That evening, we met up with his friends again for Indian food. Which was very tasty.

Now, I'm back in Paris and it's time to get down to business: Homework. Thus far, I've done a pretty good job putting it off, but class is at 8 a.m. tomorrow so there's no more time for procrastinating!