Cooking in Paris !

Yes, I cooked in Paris. Actually I took a cooking class for the first time ever! Today I had an after school activity at Tours de Cuisine with my fellow MICEFA students from California. I really didn't know what we were going to make but I told people on Twitter to keep their fingers crossed for me since I tend to burn things when I cook. Luckily that wasn't the case today. After a couple of minutes of figuring out where exactly I was in the 11th arrondissement, Beatriz and I finally found Tours de Cuisine in a small street. We were the second group of people to get there and the rest arrived a little later since they also had trouble finding the place as well. Once everyone was there we found out what we were going to make- DESSERTS! Beatriz and I decided to make mousse de framboise (raspberry mousse) and pâtes à tartelettes (tarte crust) both which ended up being delicious.

Jaywalking in Paris

A French pedestrian crossing sign, much less obnoxious than the yellow ones we have in the States.

For those who are not familiar with this term it means its a reckless way of crossing the street. Growing up in Tijuana I rarely used the crosswalk to cross the street, you're basically taught to look both ways a couple times just to make sure there aren't any cars coming your way and if there are just run!

Les livraisons | Deliveries

Source autoblogger.fr

As an American I'm used to having delivery guys be polite and on time, while I think they do that because of the tip at the end of the delivery, I still generally find them easy people to work with. This past Monday we were supposed to get our beds delivered from 11h-14h. We were hoping that they would arrive early so Beatriz and I wouldn't be too late to our mandatory orientation but that wasn't the case. Once 14h came around and there was still no delivery guy, we decided to run to the metro to get to the orientation late- turns out the delivery guy arrived at 14h30. I had to call Conforama and to see when they were going to reschedule the livraison or delivery.

First week in Paris

By the way, are palmiers normally the size of people's head? Or am I just in foodie heaven?

Je t'adore, Boulangerie Huré.

The plants are on fire?

Picture belongs to SGEHagelstein on Flickr.

Around 2:00am today, just about when I was about to knock out I heard a sirens and didn't think much of them because its kinda normal for sirens to echo around here and sound a lot closer than they actually are but this time it was different. I saw blue lights flashing in the living room so I decided to take a peak outside. I saw that there was not one but two firetrucks outside!

The Welcome Dinner

 This Sunday was the day I met my fellow CSU IP classmates studying abroad in Paris. Beatriz and I arrived where everyone is staying at (we opted out of the temporary housing since we already had an apartment) promptly at 4pm but when we arrived there was no one there so we thought we had entered the wrong building. Slowly but surely people started arriving from their walks or making their way down to the lobby. Beatriz and I shortly met the MICEFA program coordinator, Melissa, who is pretty cool and very easy to talk to. What I noticed once everyone was downstairs is that everyone was in their little groups, kinda like in high school- you're in a new unfamiliar setting so when you find someone who you feel comfortable with you just want to hang out with them. You get what I mean?

Journey to Paris

As promised here's the vlog documenting the physical journey to Paris. I'm going to take you from San Diego all the way to Paris.

Opening a French Bank Account

On Wednesday I started to go to various cellphone companies asking for information on their plans and what I immediately realized is that in order to get a phone contract you need a French bank account. The last thing I wanted was to open another bank account since I had just opened one at Bank of America but as we kept searching for a good cellphone plan I realized that there was no choice but to open a bank account in France.

First 2 days in Paris

Today I'm going to share some pictures from my first two day in Paris with my parents. Hope you enjoy!

Welcome to Paris

Well I've already been here for two days but this is the first time that I've found time to sit in front of my laptop to give you all an update on how I've been doing. I know I promised a vlog at the airport but there was barely any waiting time in between flights that the only things I did were go Facebook and tweet. My parents, my best friend/roommate Beatriz, and I arrived to Paris at 11:35am on August 16th.

Last day in San Diego

Here's a little video that I filmed on the last day in San Diego. I am feeling about a million different things at the moment so I really felt like just telling you how I'm feeling at the moment. Now I'm off to enjoy my last couple of hours here and then at night I'm going to In-n-Out. I have to enjoy my last burger there in a while. By this time tomorrow I'll be on a plane to Paris!

EF Tours Reunion

Today I had dinner with half of my classmates that went to France with me in 2008. I have to admit I thought it was going to be awkward because I had not seen the majority since my high school graduation but I have to say that the dinner was a lot of fun.

Going back to my roots

Literally. Today I went back to my natural hair color, dark brown. For the past year and a half I've dyed my hair colors that are lighter than my natural hair so its a bit weird for me to see it so dark once again. I also cut my hair, I didn't think I was going to get a lot of my hair cut off but cutting all the bleached hair left me with hair just above my shoulders which doesn't bother me at all since I enjoy shorter hair. If you want dip dyed hair and you naturally have dark hair think twice before doing it because you will damage your hair a lot. Despite losing my long hair (well long in my opinion) I'm extremely happy with how my hair turned out and it turns out that I had the exact same cut back when I was 2 years-old.

Breakfast in Tijuana

This morning my mom and I went to have breakfast in Tijuana with my grandma, two of my aunts, and a couple cousins- it was mi "desayuno de despedida" or my goodbye breakfast.

Tips and thoughts about France from an 18 year-old Laura

Today I spent the majority of the day cleaning out the other half of my room with my mom and throwing out even more old school work. One of the papers I found was a questionnaire that my high school French teacher made my classmates and I fill out about our trip to France, the following are my responses. Keep in mind I was 18 years-old and didn't know as much about France as I do now.

One more week to go!

Francis and my mom's cockatiels.

The last week in San Diego has arrived! And I seriously can't believe that the day I've been waiting for since I came back from my trip to France is only 7 days away. Since my last post a couple things have happened. I helped my parents buy things for their trip and we got a new addition to the family- a little lost Yorkie which my mom named Francis because I'm leaving to France. We've been desperately looking around my neighborhood for "lost Yorkie" flyer since the dog didn't have a dog tag at all and today we finally found one but that poster was for another Yorkie which was fortunately found.