Last Friday, we took a trip to a National Museum of the Renaissance, which is housed in an actual Renaissance chateau about 45 minutes from Paris. The chateau itself was beautiful and they have some really cool objects in their collection. One pretty amazing collection was a full tapestry series of the story of David and Bathsheba. Another that everyone loved was this old music box shaped like a gold ship. The little figures move around, play music, etc. It is pretty amazing to see that kind of technological sophistication in an almost 500 year old music box!

That afternoon, NYU organized a lunch for us at an old abbey from the same time period. They rent out a large space for events, and we got to have a wonderful 4 course meal, complete with 2 kinds of wine and a lovely chocolate mousse. Everyone was really impressed by what NYU put together and we were really grateful they care so much about us! Because I thought it was cool, I want to share some of the history. The abbey was built in the late 12th century and was one of the oldest in Europe. Monks lived there for centuries and it was quite famous and. During the French Revolution it was up for grabs as most Church property was seized by the state. The man who bought it basically destroyed the church on the property, taking the stones to build crummy housing for his workers and used the land for his animals. When I read that on a sign and told everyone (we were wondering what it was) everyone was pretty mad the church wasn't there as it was supposed to be beautiful. If you want to see photographs of this trip, go on my Facebook profile and it is the only photo album I have. If you don't know what that is (Nanny) ask my mom or my sister to show them to you. I am being really good on trips and I hope to post more pictures soon!

That Saturday night I had such a crazy encounter! I was walking with my friends to a party and all of a sudden, someone yells "LORI!" in the middle of the street. My friends kept walking but I turned around, and there was my friend Sam from Kutz Camp (about 4 years ago)! He heard English so he turned around and there I was. He is studying abroad in Paris as well, and we have plans to go to Shabbat in the future and just generally be friends and catch up on life. It was totally unexpected for both of us. Such a small world!

My classes are going well so far. I am still a little scared of writing a lot of papers in French, but so far I am doing ok. I participate a lot in class and thinking in French is coming more easily every day. For two of my classes I have to go to the same exhibit. It is about the history of the Universal Expositions (like a World's Fair) that took place in Paris in the late 1800s until 1937. I have already toured it once for my art class, and now I have to go BACK and look at the information for one specific exposition. At least I will know all the information thoroughly...

Last night, our host family wanted to have a special dinner for us before they go away on vacation for 3 weeks. We were allowed to bring a friend from school to come for cocktails and dinner that night. My roomate and I have many mutual friends, and we ended up actually inviting the same girl! We were to lazy to find someone else, so she just came and had a good time with us. She lives by herself in a studio and doesn't have the kind of atmosphere we do, so we wanted her to enjoy real French people and a home-cooked meal. It was a great little break from work and everyone had a wonderful time.

Tomorrow I hope to go to a different synagogue for Shabbat. This one is English-speaking and was founded by an American Conservative rabbi. I have heard it is a really special community and I hope that it is! I am interested to see how their services are and what kind of population they have at services. I am glad that I have been seeing some of Jewish Paris as I kind of miss my Jewish life at home. Finding a place to go for the holidays is important to me so hopefully I will make some new friends!

That's all for now...hopefully something more interesting will happen soon and I will post. I have a cold right now, but I was able to successfully negotiate the pharmacy this morning describing what I wanted (after looking up everything in the dictionary at home) and I hope I will feel better next week!