Week 7: Studying, cooking, ping pong... and the Happiest Place on Earth!

This week has been a wake-up call to me. I have still been busy with traveling and school, but I’ve started to really look at how much money I’m spending and where I’m spending it, and realizing that I have to clamp down a bit. Even though this time in Europe is about both studying and traveling, I still have to keep a budget. On a positive note, other than that slight preoccupation with keeping a budget, I have still been having a heck of a good time here in Europe! J

Classes have been going pretty well. I have of course been taking to some courses more favorably than others (French as a Foreign Language and French to English Translation) and others have not been so easy for me (17^th and 19^th century literature courses, Didactics of French). I have now had my first French midterm, with many more to come, and so I have some studying and coursework to do. On the whole, academics have been treating me well so far, and I look forward to what’s to come (except for exams, of course).

As usual, I had friends over this week and I made dinner. It was fun to collaborate and have some delicious parmesan eggplant stacks with Maria!

Cooking some delicious, healthy dinner with Maria! :)

During the week, in addition to attending classes, I also went to a lecture given by a professional translator about her career, ran for a little under five miles (about 7.3 kilometers), and played lots and lots of ping pong. The translation career lecture was particularly interesting to me because as I’ve mentioned before on my blog, I am starting to consider translation as a career opportunity in my future, and the woman who spoke described lots of different aspects of her job, such as for whom you work (which tends to be either a translation agency or freelancing for yourself), different types of translation (generally speaking, literary or technical), and average wage rate (which apparently is 40 cents per word). Tuesday brought a nice run, which was the longest I had run since my 5.4km (3.35-mile) run last week, which took me further down the road to running a 10K next week, but since then, my foot has been hurting a little, and so I’ve decided to lay off running for a few days. As for ping pong, it’s a nightly occurrence here in my residence, which is why I joke with people that if I bring just one skill away from the entirety of this study abroad experience, it will be the ability to play ping pong pretty well! J In all seriousness though, a lot of us international students here have taken up ping pong as a way to hang out and have fun with friends, and we even invite guests over to join in the fun.

Yep, I play ping pong on a regular basis now. Watch out for more ping pong photos in the future! :)

And for the big event of the week: I have finally been to Disneyland! And, to boot, it’s Euro Disney! (Disneyland Paris, to be precise.) What a fun day Saturday was! A group of friends and I got on the metro at 6:00AM to make it to the bus station where we would catch our bus, and from there For rides, we went on Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan, and Thunder Mountain, and we also took the time to make our way around just about the whole park and see most of the sights (and get some souvenirs!). We even got to take a group picture with Goofy, and watch the lovely end of the day parade! See all the photos on Facebook!

Our gang for the day! Yay for international friends! :)

Sleeping Beauty's Castle!

Our first ride of the day!

Group photo with Goofy!

The finale of the parade: classic Disney characters!
(Donald Duck, Chip & Dale, Goofy, and of course Minnie & Mickey!)

Sunday was a great wrap-up to the week: I finally got to Mass, and I had brunch with some French friends. It feels a little shameful to say that it’s the first Sunday I’ve actually attended Mass since I’ve been here, but unfortunately it’s true. Nonetheless, I have plans to continue going, and I’m now familiar with at least one Mass in the area. After Mass, a few French friends came over and brought authentic French food for us to eat! (Thank you Manon!) And then of course there was more ping pong in the evening, because we can’t get enough here J

Looking forward, I’m still planning where I’ll be over fall break, which is the week of October 27 to November 2, and planning out my weekend trips and such. So far a trip to Italy is in the works with Grace, and I’m hoping to find my way to Slovakia and Poland as well. I just have to keep in mind my budget, and keep up with having a great French experience in Europe. Wish me luck, and as always, à bientôt!