A very good weekend in Paris!

Yesterday Parismus organized a treasure hunt in Montmartre, i.e. a kind of orienteering in the city. And that was fun! Because even though I've been walking around in Montmartre already many times, there's still a lot of places I haven't seen! And now, along with this hunt, I walked on even some very small streets and also got a lot of new information about the quartiers and the history of Paris. Because during the hunt, we also had to find the right answers for a lot of different questions.

Although I was in a group with four french girls and they did everything so fast that I didn't even have time to finish reading the question :D And all of us foreigners noticed the french were very ambitious! We Erasmus-students mostly went there because we wanted to meet new people and see more of Montmartre, the treasure hunt was only a funny way of doing that. But the french really took it very seriously and almost ran from place to place. However, since it wasn't so warm yesterday it was in fact pretty good to be in a hurry :)

In the evening I went to a "soirée polonais" at Marcins place and there we tasted some polish vodka. And oh, I really needed an evening like that! It just felt so good and I felt so at home there! You know, just hanging around with friends, drinking vodka, eating chips and... well, simply having a good time! We even ended up singing some drinking-songs! (poor neighbours...) :D And the shots we drank were very interesting! It was vodka with some red juice and then a few drops of tabasco. You should try it! A bit different but not bad at all! Quite the contrary actually!

Sometime during the evening we for some reason changed to english for a while but even though I thought that would have felt easier, it was actually horrible! I didn't find any words and my accent was so awful! I listened to myself talking and was like "What?! Is that really me talking?! Horrible!". So in the end, I was, strangely enough, rather reliefed when we changed back to french again! Funny... :)

Even though I reached home pretty late (and survived the nightbuses in Paris, with changes and all!) I still woke up before nine this morning. Maybe because the sun was shining? Don't know... But anyway, I went out for a walk again, enjoying the sunshine and the warm spring weather. It almost felt hot when the sun warmed up my semi-dark clothes!

Today I walked to the botanical gardens of Paris because apparently, that park is really close to where I live! And on the way there, I crossed the river Seine and was really surprised when I saw Notre Dame not too far away either! Perhaps this city isn't so big as I thought after all! :)

This is the main part of the park. They had already started to bed out some flowers and I was just so happy when I saw that! First flowers this spring! :) And there was a shrub that had also already started blooming.

It must be a very early species, but still :) It's amazing how so small things like the first flowers of the year can make you so happy...

And I liked this small house very much, it looks a bit like a small Moomin-house, doesn't it?


Then I also saw two scouts walking through the park and that gave me a spelndid idea! Why not try to make some contact with some local scouts now that I'm here? That would be a nice way of practising my franch and also to meet some french people! So I looked up the french scouting organization and found the e-mail address to some scouts near me. Yay! Now I'm just hoping they'll answer me soon so that I can get started :)