C'est le weekend!

Last night Monique and I went to the market and bought fresh mozzarella, cut it up and made a dish out of it with tomatoes. We haven't had many vegetables since we have been here, so I boiled some green beans, broccoli and peas. We had some wine with it, and for desert Sariah brought Mango ice cream that was really good. I agree with you Dad, we need some protein - so hopefully we will get some meat tonight. We've been eating a lot of oatmeal and finished it off this morning, so I think we'll pick up some more of that. Laura and Kate brought some healthy granola bars which are full of nuts, so that's also been nice to have. We have had some eggs a few mornings and made omelets a few nights ago.
Last night we went to the laundromat and did a load of laundry, it is just right outside the door of our apartment building. We then came home and played cards - we've kept a running score of the different card games we've been playing.
You would think that by now we could figure out how to get to and from school, but every time we get lost. It's kind of strange to me, because I feel completely lost everyday. We haven't taken the same way twice yet, we always start out going the right direction, but the streets aren't on a grid and although we start off in the right direction they turn and by the end we're totally in the wrong spot. We can't seem to remember the right way to go, and have to pull out our map after we get going down the wrong street, I'm sure by the end of the month we'll have figured it out. Today we forgot the map, but managed to get back on track and were just a couple minutes late for class. The other night I started getting worried after Kate and Laura should have been home from school for about 45 minutes, they were going to hurry home so we could go out. It ended up taking them almost an hour and a half to get home because they got so turned around. Sariah got lost last night when she came for dinner also, it took her about an hour. It's really difficult because the streets don't last long, they then turn into other streets or fork, or you come to a dead end. Plus there are quite a few streets with similar names - different versions. We haven't taken the metro yet (only the RER when we first got into town) we're getting to know the city by street names and this way we see a whole lot more of it.
Today in class we talked about restaurants, expositions, agricultural resources of different countries, different places to shop and things at a supermarche. She told us that the big sales throughout France start on June 19th (definitely excited about that!).
During class we walked down to the open air market and Cecile gave us 2 assignments that we needed to finish within 20 minutes. Our first one was to find 3 items that are rouge, verts, blancs, violets, jaunes et orange and write them down. For the second assignment we needed to see how many items we could barter for and get with just the 2 euros that she gave us. I went to a stand and told the guy that we were playing a game- nous jouons un jeu, un competition, and we needed many things for 2 euro. He didn't seem too happy about it all, but I ended up getting une fraise, une carise, une amande, un raison et un abricot for 20 cents! Monique spent the rest of the money on fruits de la mere- it really stank when we brought it back to class. But it was really fun. The guy she bought it from thought something was so funny and kept laughing the whole time and then went to tell his coworkers about it - maybe something came out wrong, I don't know.
On our way home from school I had heard that they sell the fruit for really cheap when they start shutting down, so we stopped by. Got a whole bunch of great things - 3 cantaloupe, a bag of apples, part of a watermelon, a carton of apricots, 2 cartons of strawberries and a pineapple for 2 euros - that was bargaining! She kept wanting to sell each thing for a euro, but then we would say no (cause we didn't want to walk for 25 minutes with it) then she'd throw in something else, then we would say 50 cents? and she'd agree and so on - 4 times! We told Kate and Laura we would buy some fruit for a snack before we went to the Louvre tonight, and we got a pretty good deal for it all!
Monique and I just got back from doing some sketches, we sketched our street and courtyard. It's a little intimidating when people walk by and stop to look - especially when they're talking and we don't understand what they're saying. Our place would be a good location for the another version of Rear Window - it's a great place to people-watch.