Dinner with friends and Semi-sleepovers

This Friday, after class I spent my afternoon shopping in the little shops outside the Louvre to look for gifts for the people I needed to get gifts for, and thankfully I found something for everyone, so it was nice to get that done. I also had some pretty intersting encounters with the shopowners. Some of them spoke to me in French, which was nice, but others spoke to me in English after hearing my accent which in some cases was really funny because their English was not as good as my French. This lady saw me looking around and she said in a heavy accent, "Are you looking for something nice for yourself or something for others? Here, we have nice mirrors." And I said, "I'm just looking for gifts for others." Then she asks, "Man or woman?" And I said "Woman." Then she asks, "How old is your woman?" (yeah, my woman). And I said "My age." And then she said "Oh you mean girl." Then I said, "Yeah technically" but I don't think she understood that, so I took that opportunity to leave.
After shopping, I went out to dinner with Michael, Katie, and Erika. We were going to meet up with Michael's French friend, Baptiste, who he had hosted at his house in the US three years ago. Coincidentally, Michael ran into Furman students in the Louvre who were on the Furman Italy and England trips earlier that afternoon. They were traveling that weekend in Paris and Michael just happens to run into them--it was so strange. So Michael invited them to have dinner with us--there were three guys: Josh, Jason, and Will. Josh and Jason were music majors on the music trip in Italy and Will was on the England trip. So we all met up and went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant that Baptiste knew about. The dinner group was so random, but it was so much fun. Baptiste was so funny--he spoke English the entire evening because not everyone could speak French, and it was so cute. His English was pretty good for the most part but sometimes he had trouble conveying certain things and came up with the funniest ways to say it. He told us some funny stories too--he told us about his experience in the U.S. with Michael and his family and how he missed Dr. Peppar and Mountain Dew. Then he told us stories about his drunken escapades in Berlin with his friends and one of his crazy ex girlfriends. He was really entertaining. It was also fun talking to the other guys about their experiences abroad since we've all experienced many of the same things to some extent. It was a really fun evening.

The next day, a group of us met up with Dr. Patton to visit St. Dennis and the catacombs. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit the sewers, so we missed out on that. We first went to the St. Dennis basilica. It was a beautiful, gothic church that housed the tombs of many of France's kings and queens. There weren't really bodies there, just the statues of the kings and queens, but it was really cool to see the tombs of the kings and queens we've been learning about. We then went into the crypt of the church, which actually did have some of the bones of the kings and queens housed in the walls. Unfortunately, the bodies of France's kings and queens were dug up and thrown into mass graves by the revolutionaries during the French revolution, so once the bones were recovered, it was impossible to tell who was who. We did see the heart of Louis XVI's and Marie Antoinette's oldest son, which was pretty cool. After visiting all the tombs and walking around the basilica, we ate lunch, and then continued to the catacombs to actually see some bones. This visit was really cool because everything was underground and dimly lit. For a while, we just walked through a bunch of underground pathways before we actually got to the part of the visit where the bones were housed. Once we got to that part, an inscription above the room that had all the bones told us that we were entering "the temple of death." Once we got in, there were just thousands and thousands of bones just piled up all around you. Having skulls and leg and arm bones stacked up all around you in a dark underground cavern created a pretty creepy effect, but at the same time, it was really interesting. A lot of the bones came from victims of epidemics and the majority of the bones were about 200 to 225 years old. It was ridiculous how many bones there were--I feel like I walked a good mile underground surrounded by bones. I was pretty glad to see daylight again, but that was definitely a very interesting visit.
After the catacombs, I went back to Versailles, hung out at my house for a bit, and then met Enna, Roz, and Lubaina at Super U to buy junk food. We decided in the catacombs that we were going to have a movie night (watching Love Actually) and pigging out, so I was really excited for this. We bought pizza, ice cream, and candy and headed over to Enna's house to watch the movie. It was so fun because we just got to hang out and eat crap and watch a good movie. It felt like a sleepover (except without the actual sleeping over), and it was nice to do that since I haven't done that in a long time. Michele also came over and joined us, so it was really fun, and it was good to see Love Actually again since Christmas will be here soon.
Sunday, a group of us met up with Dr. Patton again to visit the domain of Marie Antoinette at Versailles. When she was queen, Marie was given a little summer home outside of the chateau and surrounding this home, Marie wanted little cottages built as well as a small farm surrounding the cottages. She would come here to escape palace life and just play around with her friends. It was such a quaint little area--like a small village. We first toured the summer home and then went outside into the gardens where the little village was. We walked around looking at all the little cottages that were built around a small lake full of swans and ducks with a little lighthouse. All the cottages and little gates and gardens that you could walk through as well--there was even a little pumpkin patch. After looking at the cottages, we walked around the farm area and saw many different types of birds, chickens, and roosters. There was a field where ponies were running around. There were places that housed goats, pigs, donkies, even a cow. There was even an area that housed rabbits--they were so cute! It was such a beautiful little area--a place that would be perfect to be in during spring and summer. After visiting her little village, I went back to my house and just did homework for the rest of the day. All in all, it was a really eventful, interesting, and fun weekend.