Pictures and a quick report

Quick report: I have my first exam tomorrow and I'm so nervous! I don't know what to expect, I hope it'll go well. The day after tomorrow I have 2 exams (because they aren't enough hard if you have only 1/day..)

I got really nice pictures for my friends S so I decided to share them :)

 My first weekend in Pairs! You can see the Eiffel-tower in the background.

From Disneyland! I got to pose with Tweedledum or Tweedledee from Alice in Wonderland.

DisneyLand Paris + my b-day

The entrance

 Hello pumkins!

In my feverish fumbling I've come to you today to talk about DisneyLand Paris <3 We went there with my Erasmus friends on Sunday. There was a special offer for the inhabitants of region of Ile-De-France which said: "30 euros on working days or 40 euros on weekends/ one park". We decided to visit the park this semester and next semester we are going to visit Disney Studios.

I was so excited to go there! I've seen the commercial on the beginning of every Disney movie since I was a child. The glory was diminished a bit by the fact that my throat was hurting and I didn't have any voice in the morning but since I already paid for the tickets I decided to go with my friends.

Sleepin Beauty Castle

We took a train 08H30 from our place to go to Châletes Les Halle and took RER (logal train) A to direction Marne-La-Vallée. The jurney took 1H30 but it was totally worth it. DisneyLand is exactly there when you walk out of the RER station. We saw the entrance gates when we came out and went in. The lines for the tickets were really short and we got in almost immidiately.

In the beginning I was jumping up and down like a little child. To my fortune so where everybody else. The main street of DisneyLand is filled with stores and food places. From one of the stores I bought Minnie ears with one of my friend. I actually wore them the whole day (because I'm such an adult). There was a live band playing music from Disney movies in Town Square. With our group of 10 people we decided to take a group picture in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle so that we could divide into groups and do what we wanted.

We reached the Central Plaza and there was a show going on with the Disney caracters including for example Cruella DeVille, Red Queen, Maleficent and Jafar. We figured that it would be easier to take the picture later so we went for our first ride: Space Mountain: Mission 2 which is a roller coasted with a lot of spinning, turns, breaks and speed. This turned out to be the best ride! It's also the best roller-coaster I've ever been to! My friends visited it 3 times. Usually the wating times to best rides are 45-55min but because it was so early and everyone else were watching the performance we got in in 20 minutes.

To the best rides there was a fast ticket option. It means that you take a piece of paper near the ride and it tells you a time to be at the ride for cutting the line. I think this is a really good invention and it saves you a lot of queuing. I took this fast ticket only once but my friends were using it a lot.

After the first rides we went and took the group picture and then divided up to groups. I went to Fantasyland with an English and a Turkish girl. Fantasyland is the side of the park mostly for little kids but we wanted to see the Disney stuff instead of going to every ride like the others.

My Minnie ears

First we saw the Sleeping Beauty Castle. It was a really pretty place with nice pictures telling the story of the Sleeping Beauty.

In Fantasyland we saw Snow White, Rapunzel, The Mad Hatter and the twins from Alice in Wonderland (whose names I don't remember). We also saw Alice's Curious Labyrinth and Mad Hatter's Tea Cups. Alice's Curious Labyrinth stood by its name by being really weird maze. We actually did get lost with my friends and when it was time to get out it took quite some time to find out way out. There was no line for the labyrinth when we got there so we just walked in. Mad Hatter's Tea Cups was an ok ride - normal tea cups with his name on it. The cups we were sitting in were cute though. The wating time for Tea Cups was aroung 15min.

The Parade

 After we had seen the Fantasyland we saw our friends for eating.The food was really expensive and I've had better, but it's not possible to survive from the day without eating. A couple of my friend were wise and took food with them to the park, which I highly recommend. I also had a little snack with me so that I didn't have to spend a fortune for food in the park.

After eating with my two friends we headed towards Discoveryland. Here we visited Star Tours which I likes really much since I like Star Wars. It was a room with a big screen and the room moved accordingly to what happened in the screen and it made you feel like you were in a spaceship. We wated for 15min to get into this one. We then visited Pirates of the Caribbean in Adventureland. It was a boat trip indoors that was really well made. It was the best pirate ride I've ever been to! When you went indoors it was so well made that I forgot that I was indoors. We queued maybe for 20 min to get to the boat trip. And what's best when we came out from the ride we saw Jack Sparrow! Aftere we purchased fastpass tickets to Buzz Lightyear Blast and went to other end of the park called Frontierland.

In Frontierland we visited Phantom Manor. The beginning was really interesting when they put us into a room that expanded. After that it was just a normal ride in a wagon. It was really nice though. After this it was just running around the park and seeing all the rest of the rides. We visited Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril which was a really nice ride. And we only had to queue for 5min! We practically just walked in there. The second last ride was Peter Pan's Flight which I enjoyed almost the most. It was really unique and well done: in the ride you were in a boat flying over London during night. All the stars and miniatures were really well made. The wating time for this one was 30min but we got in in 20minutes. It would have also been a good ending, but we went to use our fastpass tickets and hit the last ride: Buzz Lightyear Blast. The story behind this ride was of course Toy Story. We had nice weapons and the aim was to get as many points as we can by shooting targets while the wagon was moving. I think that this was a good last ride and left me with a good feeling to go home with.

In all this ride hopping and tunning we managed to see the Disney Parade (most of the pictures are from there). It takes place every day at 5pm. We saw all the caracters and the parade was really enjoyable. I think all the people were acting their caracters really well. Especially Jack Sparrow was so good! And also the Mad Hatter, he was so funny.

When we left the park around 8H30 I had a fever and when we got home around 10H30 I was really dead. On monday morning I was really sick too, I was totally in my own universe in the morning.. But I wouldn't have missed DisneyLand for anything!!

And then to other things: today was my birthday. I'm still a bit sick, but today I went to my lessons unlike on monday and tuesday. The highlight of today was when four of my friends came to my door singing "joyeux anniversaire" with a cake! It was such a surprise, I was in my pyjamas and all :) They really made this day feel like my birthday.

We are having partial exams in 2 weeks and I'm starting to be really stressed about them.. I really feel like my French is not strong enough to do them. But I'll try my best and I'll study so hard!!

By the way people are telling me every day that they can hear how my French is getting better :) yesterday I went to a pharmacy with a German girl and when I talked with the pharmacist she said "Wow! Impressive!". She has heard my weak attemps of talking French at first so I really liked it. Also today I practised with my tenses for telling the future and the past and instantly one of my French friends told me that she can hear the difference. It's really couraging to hear people tell you that you are improving. So all you people there studying some language, go and talk with a native speaker! :P

I think this was most of the stuff I wanted to say :) take care and kisses! Enjoy the pictures I took for you.

The Mad Hatter

On top of the Minnie ears I bought lollipops :) I'm a sugar tooth..

All problems solved

Or at least most of them :)

Finally I took some pictures so that this blog doesn't seem so boring!

Anyhow. Finally I got my student card! Oh my what a fight was to get it. For getting one you need
- 2 pictues
- copy of your learning agreement
-copy of your student card in your home Uni
-copy of your European Health Insurance card
-paper signed telling that they can or can not use your information for research

Well I gave them all this ages ago but there was some woman who really knew her work handeling my papers and they started asking me for "insurance civil". Of course I didn't know what this is and I started finding out where I can get it. Many calls to my mom to Finland and discussions with Erasmus students  later I found out that my responsibility insurance is my European Health Insurance card.
 
  So last Friday I returned to the office pissed and ready to fight for my student card because all the stuff with my courses and such were in halt because I didn't have a student card. Luckily there was some other woman now looking over my papers. She just opened my file, said "Oh but you have all papers needed here" and gave me my student card. Now it's fine but back then I was really upset with the system. I'm just a little student, they can't expect me to know everything and defend myself!

Techno Parade 2011

Last weekend I visited Techno Parade Paris 2011. It was crazy! In the middle of the day big truks were driving around the streats with music so lound that you needed earplugs. People walked behind these cars and danced. With my friends were followed one truck dancing for some time. My friends continued to follow the parade while I parted to see two of my friends that I know from Finland. Both of them have been to exchange near Paris earlier so they showed me places that I should know! We visited Basilique du Sacré-Cœur and Avenue des Champs-Élysées. We also walked around Paris shopping a little.

Tehcno Parade 2011

Basilique du Sacré-Cœur

I can really recomend Sacré-Cœur to everyone! The view over Paris is amazing. Unfortunately you can't see La Tour Eiffel but you can get a picture of what a big place Paris is. Also of course people have to see Champs-Élysées and Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. I've already been on top of Arc de Triomphe so we didn't have to go up there but I really liked the shops at Champs-Élysées. We visited the shops on Sunday and they all were open! Good to know because in Orsay where I live everything is closed during Sundays. Some other good thing to know is that Also  the all-day ticket for under 26-years-olds is 7e. With that you can travel as much as you want around the city with any public transport. Also it's good to know that most of the museums and such (Louvre, Arc de Triomphe..) are free for less than 25 years-olds European citizens. I'm going to visit all the museums!

View from Basilique du Sacré-Cœur

Macarons and the little box from Ladurée

One place woth visiting is Ladurée. It's a shop that makes the best macarons. It's so cute! There is one at Champs-Élysées but we visited the shop nearer to Louvre so that we didn't have to queue so much. This is the link for their site. I bought eight macarons with the cutest little box. From Champs-Élysées I bought books when we visited a huge Virgin store there. I think this is really good for my French.

I really see that my French is getting better and better all the time. At lectures I think I can understand well what the teacher is telling. My speaking of French is really slow and my prononciation needs practise but I'll manage. I'm hoping to meet some nice French people to speak with. It's really hard to get to know them especially because this Uni doesn't have an ESN (Erasmus Student Network) section. It's really sad that we exchange students are on our own but I'm sure we'll find things to do ;)










 Next us Erasmus students were thinking of visiting Château de Versailles and Disneyland Paris! I so can't wait for that! When I finally get my Imagine R card like other students we can go there for free during weekends.

My Imagine R card is going to be the following:
free traveling in zones 4 and 5 during workdays and free traveling to everywhere during weekends and holidays. This costs around 34e / months. I know some students who are taking the card for zones 1 to 5 but I didn't think it's necessery because with my courses I don't have time to run to Paris every day. The card for all the zones costs more than 70e/month.

 With two of my Eramsus friends we visited Le Jardin de Luxembourg. It's (on top of all the other places) worth visiting. There was a live band playing when we were there so it was really nice.









We also visited Moulin Rouge. I'd love to see a performance there! Also this street is worth checking out: the street is full of porn stores. The metro stop is Blanche or the next one from that. The Sacré-Cœur is also really near to this place so they can bee seen at the same time.


I think I'll go study some words in French :) Bisous!