Ending the First Week

Today is my seventh day in Paris.  I haven't starved and I've had a bed to sleep in every night, so I'm content.

On Sunday morning, the news was full of a planned demonstration that it seemed quite a lot of people were involved in.  I eventually gathered that the demonstration was against a law about gay marriage.  This surprised me, as I had had the idea that France as a whole was extremely liberal.  However, there were thousands and thousands of people getting out there and arguing against this law.  I couldn't understand everything that the demonstrators were saying but I understood the gist of it: A family is best when it has "un homme et une famme" - one man and one woman.  As I made my way to church that morning, I passed many groups of people wearing t-shirts with a stereotypical nulear family on it, preparing for the march.

I attended the church "l'église protestante évangélique des Ternes" - Protestant Evangelical Church on Des Ternes.  Rue des Ternes is the street on which the church is located.  I was directed to the church by a friend of mine who knew the pastor there once.  It was very interesting during the service because the songs, scripture reading, sermon, and everything were in French.  Still, I was able to follow some of it.  I absolutely love singing in other languages, and so that was a real blessing.  After the service, I met with the pastor, who is American.  Many of the people there spoke English, so when I ran into problems with my French they were able to help me out.

I spent my last night at my first hotel and looked around for other options.  Eventually, I was making a decision between a hostel and another, cheaper hotel. The hostel would require me to stay another four nights at the hotel before moving in, since they have a maximum stay of 2 weeks  I would also be in a shared room with potentially 11 other people at the hostel.  The cheaper hotel would let me stay there the entire time I needeed and would of course give me a private room.  Eventually, the added expense of the cheap hotel over the hostel was deemed worth it, and so I moved into the "Hotel Bordeaux" on Monday.  I have a shared bathroom and shower, but that's not a problem for me.

Today (Tuesday) I went and got my student card and am officially now a student at the University of Paris Diderot 7.  Classes start next Monday, and I'm very excited.  I'll try to edit this post with uploaded pictures soemtime today.  However, I must sign off now, as I have a movie to catch.  I'm finally going to see Le Hobbit!

A bientot!