Moins Sept

So, I woke up today, getting ready for phonetics class at 9:30 (it was a blast) and my host mom says : "OOO il est moins sept!" while looking at the thermometer outside.  Being from a place where it has been at least 75 degrees F all month, I thought I missed a "que" in there, thinking she said, "il est moins que sept" meaning that it was less than seven degrees Celsius. I thought, "well that is not too bad." Turns out I heard her perfectly, it was moins sept degrees, -7 degrees Celsius. Granted that is still 20 degrees F, but it was less than enjoyable.  Needless to say my gloves saved my hands from becoming an Edward Scissorhands ice sculpture.
Tonight might have been my best night in Paris, and it had nothing to do with a club, a party, or dancing in general (at least not at first).  No, tonight, I dined like I have never dined before.  After signing up for a cooking class, I headed over to a super nice neighborhood and entered into a top floor where you can see the Jardin de Luxembourg out of one wall of windows and the Eiffel Tower out of the other.  Me and four others learned from a semi-professional, self taught chef (that happens to also be Phoebe's host mother) how to make an amazing salad with scallops in it, lightly cooked goose and duck with potatoes au gratin, and a desert called "ouefs dans la neige," which literally translates to eggs in the snow.  So we five made this delicious meal (with timing help from the chef lady) and sat down and ate it.  I have never been more content in my life.  Every food was impossible to put down, and we left feeling like we were going to explode.  There was one point where we were eating the goose and duck, looking at the Eiffel Tower as it sparkled, listening to classical music, and watching the snow fall (because it started snowing while we were eating!).  Never, in my entire life, has the expression "C'est la vie" been more applicable, in an unbelievably great way.
Classes went great this week, I actually understood most of them, and hittin up a museum or two tomorrow with JBrown.  It is currently 4 in the morning and I still feel like I am going to explode from that meal.  Livin the sweet, savory, mouth-watering Parisian life.

The strangest tour boat on the Seine I have ever seen...

Notre Dame, shortly after I took a 45 min nap in Shakespeare and Company...