La Tour Eiffel and Ma Famille

Top to Bottom: The Eiffel Tower from the base; Continuing my obssession, its Notre Dame as seen from the top of the Eiffel Tower; Another view from the top, the big white church on the hill is Sacre Coeur and we live a few blocks away from it; Heather, me and Shainna at the top!

Day 7 & kind of 8: Today was another good day! I don't know why I keep saying that because there hasn't been a bad day in Paris so far! I guess I am exceptionally happy because the weather was incredible again today. After class, we ate lunch. There is this place by our school that has french fries and they always smell so good so Katie and I split a plate. They were amazing! After lunch, we had extra time so we went to the place where the son of our host family, Vivian (apparantly its a boy name in France) works. It is called N'Espresso and it is kind of a coffee shop/store. I still don't really understand the concept but we had a cup of espresso and it was not good. The place was packed though. There was a really long line to get coffee so the people here must like it. He told us they have some locations in the States in New York and Chicago. After N'Espresso we went to the Eiffel Tower! We went all the way to the top and it was a beautiful view. However, I think I enjoy the Eiffel Tower more from farther away. Up close, I just don't think it is as pretty. Last night, a group of us went out along the Champs Elysees and went to a dance club! It was called Duplex and had all these different rooms where they played different music like rap, techno or pop. We danced forever and it was a great time. Right now it is Saturday afternoon. We have a free day so we slept in of course and tonight we are going out to dinner for one of my new friend, Shainna's birthday. So I probably won't blog again tonight. Tomorrow we go to to the Loire Valley for a 2 day excursion! I don't think I will bring my laptop so it will probably be a couple more days until I write another post.
Since I have the time, I am going to tell you a little about my host family. First there is Monseiur and Madame LaCroux. Monseiur is retired but he used to work for a bottling company that bottles the really fancy perfumes. He is from the south of France and when he was in school, he actually studied for a few months at Amherst in Boston! He is incredibly nice and funny. I am not sure what Madame does or if she is retired. They are both here at the apartment pretty often during the afternoon. At first I was a little intimidated by her, but she has warmed up some and she is very nice as well. One of their sons, Vivian, is 21 and is staying here for the summer because he is not in school right now. As I said earlier, he works at N'Espresso as a coffee machine salesman. He is doing this for his partnership, which is required for his education. I was confused because I thought it was an internship so I asked if he wanted to be a salesman and he said no, I just want to play music. He plays guitar and piano and sings as well. He plays American music and his favorite musician is Ray Charles! We can hear him practice at night and he is very good. The Lacroux's have another son who is 26 I think. He lives in France or maybe Italy but works for the American accounting firm Ernst and Young. When he was in school, he studied for a semester at the University of Cincinnati. All in all, they are a really great family to live with especially because they speak English really well! We are trying to speak French to them but we don't really know how to put sentences together very well so we mainly speak English.
This post ended up being a lot longer than I thought but I figured you all would want to know about my family! I am excited about getting out of Paris tomorrow and the Loire Valley should be beautiful! Until my next post, Au revoir!