if you're american in the kitchen and chinese in the bedroom, then what are you in the bathroom? european.

[me and tiffykins making s'mores. with forks. in the middle of a living room. because that's how we do in france. and yes, i know my hair is basically beyonce-worthy. maybe she's born with it. maybe it's maybelline.]

so last wednesday started off with my fine arts class. at le louvre. as in that one famous museum? yeah. i went there. more like i made that place my classroom, b. 

but really though, it was my classroom.

our teacher's name is bernard. we call him bernie. he's basically one of my favorite people ever on account of the fact that he's 1.) hilarious, 2.) refreshing, and 3.) inspiring. and he let's us call him bernie. and with that, comes nicknames from me...bernie mac...mac daddy....knick knack paddy whack....moving on.

so yeah, the louvre. we are studying italian renaissance right now, so we looked at a lot of paintings and sculptures from the 13th century [give or take a century or two], which were really interesting, of course. especially because they're the real deal.

a few pieces:

[lets just say i am forever grateful for that loincloth being there. i am not mature enough for these exhibits.]

[all these people for the mona lisa. literally, that picture is the size of a piece of paper, and only really became famous when it was stolen. and yet, they still obsess. move on people, i want a picture of mona!]

[this painting was huge. it was probably close to twenty feet tall. also, i may or may not have good measurement perception.]

[you're walkin' along, enjoying the painting. you see this one...aww, what a cute little baby. look how nice all their faces lo...what the....what's wrong with that random creeper in the back??]

[there are no words. other than my dreams will forever be haunted and when i have a baby, i will constantly be looking over my shoulder for this psycho.]

[we had kelly take a picture in front of it because she has a huge obsession with children. it gets weird sometimes. this is her in her natural state. that baby stealer.]

the museum was really cool though. we were there for three hours and barely scratched the surface of that place. so overwhelming. but i'm excited to spend many more hours there, wandering around and getting lost.

after class, a couple of us headed over to rice and beans, that super delicious mexican food place we became obsessed with last week. seriously people, i've had to talk myself out of not getting it for dinner every night, it's that good. i find myself craving it in the late hours of the night, which is not healthy, because then i take it out on whatever i can get my hands on in this house. which is always nothing :[ anyways, i got the same pork burrito that i got the week before. it's hard, because they do have tacos there, which would be yummy to try, but it's so hard to say no to that burrito. it's basically saying no to my other half. and that's wrong to do. maybe one day i'll gain the strength to stray and sneak over to the taco's house for a taste. booty calllll. okay, this metaphor is getting waaay out of control. moving on.

after rice and beans, i was walking with kelly and morning to get them fro-yo [don't worry, i didn't get any. i've had enough of that in america to last me for the rest of my life.] but i did manage to find an amorino on the way. and kelly found dr. pepper. dr. pepper that i have been craving my whole time here [don't ask me why, i never craved it as much in america, distance really does make the heart grow fonder]. sad day though because i tried it and it tastes like chapstick. probably because they take out that delicious high fructose corn syrup over here. booooo europe, booooo.

after that, we decided to do a paris walk, which basically took us through the luxembourg gardens. we were supposed to be walking around and viewing nature, but we were just too dang tired. so we sat down and people watched. and took notes. and took pictures. and took children, whaaa? nope. but we wanted to. i swear, french children are so much cuter than american children [not really, but kinda]. i think it's when they yell "papa!" or "bonjour!" or basically say anything in french that makes me swoon in a non-pedophile-i'm-not-a-creep way.

[how cute are all these men playing botchi ball in the park? oh yeah, and that little stinker boy in the red cap on the bench. will you be my son?]

after spending a couple hours in the gardens and some walking around shopping in stores [didn't get anything, be proud folks], we decided to call it a day and head home. it's been really hot here lately and we were so tired from being on most of the day [those museums take it out of you], and me and tiff had dinner with our host family soon, which i was excited about because she said she was making us that american dinner. i was heavily hoping for some frites.

[hoooooh yeah. it wasn't frites, but it was dang good. and you better believe i slathered that thing with the carmelized onions, and toasted my bun, and packed it with as many veggies as it could carry.]

it was absolutely delicious! and it made me feel like i was at home again having a bbq with the family. that's madame percin in the background. we ate quickly and then moved over into the living room to make s'more on the fire with manu.

my favorite thing about manu [and least favorite thing] is that whenever he's around his mom, he's super snappy at her because she'll be nagging him like a mom should and then he'll tease her or talk all loud in french and they'll start arguing. it's way funny and me and tiff always laugh. but i do, at the same time, wanna scold him because he is kind of a brat to his mom, and it's very rude. i mean, it's none of my business. but if he was my kid, i'd slap his face off. in the most not-calling-child-services way though.

anyways, me and tiff thought it'd be funny to get some undercover footage of them fighting. the lighting isn't really good because madame turned off the lights for the fire while we were making s'more, but you can still hear it. this is them arguing because she was asking him to get her paper for the fire and he started ripping up her magazines to use instead. and he was teasing about ripping up books she likes too, i guess. it's just a funny video over all :]

[if anyone's seen "el dorado"<--don't laugh, i have nieces and nephews, doesn't he sound like one of the main guys on that movie? i love it.]

we were also helping him with his english hw that night and his mom was snapping at him and us because we weren't translating it right. yeah okay, because we don't speak english....? it's just fun to hear them go back and forth.

okay, onto the more important stuff. the food, duh.

[french take on american s'mores.]

2 dark chocolate petit ecolier + one marshmellow that is slowly cooked and then fire-burned for the last couple seconds=get in my belly baby. it really was good, but was also very rich at the same time. but that's okay, we lika da juice over here. and by that, i mean it was still yummy and satisfying.]

funny story: tiff will sometimes blank on spellings. i don't know why, but it's really funny when it happens. anyways, i think we were correcting either madame or manu on the word "bought" because they said it wrong, or something like that. and tiff goes "yeah, it's bought, b-a-u-g-h-t". i thought she was kidding at first and then busted up laughing when i realized she was serious. man i love that tiffykins. in a straight way, cass, don't worry.

it was a really fun night being able to laugh with madame and manu and tiff. i'm actually starting to like madame more, and i think it's because we're both starting to make more of an effort. i can see that she's trying to reach out to us, and i don't want to be stingy and give her no love back, so i'm going to try and talk more in french like she likes and ask her more questions about her life. because everybody loves talking about themselves, right?

except me. i never talk about myself.