Au Revoir Tours...

Just a quick update today, as there really isn't that much news. But I did find out where I will be living for my next nine months in Paris!! Drumroll please....

I will be living in the 15th arrondissement , in the southwest part of Paris. My host family consists of a woman (divorced, I'm assuming), her 23-year old son (who lives with his dad), her 20-year old daughter and another 13-year old daughter. The 15th isn't the most centrally located arrondissement in Paris, and it's heavily residential. But I'm still really excited to be living in Paris itself (not a suburb) and to have a family with kids. Also, the 15th is one of the arrondissements containing the Montparnasse district, where lots of important artsy people hung out back in the day and the Cimitiere Montparnasse, where they all hang out now. Needless to say, I am very excited.

Although I've only been here for two weeks, I will always have very fond memories of Tours. I feel like there are so many things that I haven't done here, and I'm definitely planning a return visit sometime in the future. So, in honor of Tours, I present the following list of things I will miss about the city:

-the twice-weekly Marche aux Fleurs, where vendors line the center of town with hundreds upon hundreds of flowers
-going out for drinks (coffee or otherwise) on the Place Plumereau
-being ridiculously close to about 1,500 different chateaux, all of them beautiful
-the food...oh my gosh the food
-spending an afternoon with wine and baguettes on the banks of the Loire
-Everything about last night (aka, people in robes and masks taking random bystanders away and reading erotic poetry to them, a guy leading a goat around on a leash, a man walking around inside a box, said box befriending the aforementioned goat, later seeing a man chasing what may have been the same goat in a completely different part of town)
-La Guinguette
-tour guides with epic mustaches at the Musee des Beaux-Arts
-Romeo (the family dog) and his Cone of Shame
-My host family, who have been so incredibly wonderful and helpful. They gave me the perfect welcome to France.

I feel like I've been here for two months instead of two weeks, but in a good way. I feel like I've had time to make a lot of great memories in Tours, and it makes me think that I'll make countless more in Paris.

A bientot,

Alanna