A long wait

Hey! It's been awhile since I've done a post, hasn't it? Well, I'll do a recap of what's been going on. So first I'll start with school.

I have some friends in school now, my favorite of which is Toby. Now don't judge me when I say I have a favorite. Most are NOT my favorite. Seriously. They do crazy things. For instance, the French (including kids) travel by metro, which is basically the subway. My classmates' idea of fun is when the metro doors open up at a station, they get out and run across the gigantic station to touch the wall on the other side, and come all the way BACK to their train car before the doors close. They once literally got stuck between the doors while the train was leaving.  They are still nice to me, which I suppose is a favor. But there is a downside of having friends in Paris. English is NOT their foreign language right? So they take advantage of this, and cuss everywhere they go. Except Toby. He's awesome. We actually also had a field trip to the American Library of Paris. FINALLY! Something American! But I won't lie, I am learning a lot of French here, and am really happy so far!

However, there have been some "problems" in school. There is a bully in school. He constantly tries to trip me, then kick out what ever is in my hand. If there is nothing in my hand, he just kicks my hand, and laughs and says "Really?" Too bad. I also had a tutoring teacher who made me rush my WONDERFUL lunch (French cafeteria food is amazing) so I could spend an extra hour of French tutoring in class. So that was a bummer, but it's all over now, thank GOODNESS. I'm starting to do some school at home. I'll keep you updated!

At home, I'm also learning violin! I sound terrible right now.
So I'll get to some more interesting stuff.

Last Friday, I went to the Louvre, a big paradise of learning. But not just that, it has the the famous Mona Lisa, which is Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous painting, which I have actually seen with my own eyes, but this year I didn't get to see. But we DID see were carved ancient Greek statues. They are mostly nude, which makes things more interesting!

This is the Emperor Marcellus (20 years B.C.). What I've learned about him is that he was adopted by Emperor Augustus, who was also adopted by Julius Caesar. (The Greeks "cherished" their adopted children more than the natural-born children!) He is standing in the position of "contrapasto," which means his weight is on one foot and his hip leaning forward. The robe on his left arm is actually supporting the statue's weight. It looks so light and realistic. Can you find the turtle? The turtle is under his robe on the ground. It's very realistic, too. It's a symbol of his relationship to Caesar. 

I've been also been doing thigns on the weekend. I decided I should make a spooky Halloween special for my youtube channel. (Even though it's past Halloween.) And I decided what better way to make a video of this than play Five Nights At Freddy's? It turns out, my camera was ALWAYS on the top left corner of the screen because of the suspension. It turns out I am a failure in terms of entertainment. 

And thats really all thats been happening so far. But WAIT! I still have pictures to show you! 

So far, so good...

SCREEEEE!

My failed Five Nights at Freddy's Gameplay

We're at the highest point in Paris: Sacre Coeur

At the Air and Space Museum: The Concorde, a plane that is no longer in service. It's the fastest  plane and breaks the sound barrier.

A real rocket

A flighter plane

The deep dark depths of the catacombs

 It's me again, and I have a more stuff to tell you! So I'll start off with the Catacombs. Now for those who don't exactly know what the catacombs are, they are underground tunnels filled with skull and bone hallways. As the title suggests, the catacombs are VERY deep. But let's not get to there just yet.

So you know, we take the metro, doin' all that stuff, and then we get out of the metro, and go into the line. Boy, I should've known the line would be HUGE. Last year when we went there, we had to wait 2 HOURS. But THIS time, the line was so long, it actually reached the BEGINNING again. And let me tell you, that's LONG. We waited a bit more than 3 hours and actually had to eat LUNCH while we were in line. Then, after 3 exasperating hours, we finally got to the front of line.

FINALY at the front of the line!

At the start of the catacombs, there are A TON of stairs-- over 130 steps down. We finally get to the bottom. We had to go through a bunch of long hallways, and believe me, you feel like you're gonna be sacrificed to King Arthur's corpse or something. And before I know it, we find BONE-FILLED hallways!

The French created these catacombs because of floods that took a ton of skeletons out of their coffins, scaring everyone. So they moved the skeletons to these catacombs to, 1. Not scare everyone, and 2. Let the skeletons rest in peace. So now that you know, I can continue. Now, the paths are kinda narrow, and the roof is pretty low. So, if you don't like that feeling of: "IT'S GONNA CAVE IN!!" then you might not wanna go down there.

Now that I've described it to you, I can tell that you probably want to see some pictures. So here you go, you greedy little hyenas.

I watch this trash EVERY SINGLE DAY!!

My wonderful Metro booth photo for my lunch card.

A long hallway to the 6 million bones. Very VERY long.

HE's staring into my soul...

Well, that pretty much sums up this lesson.
But, we still have have our French Word of the Day to do!  So, the French Word of the Day is: mort, and morte. This means dead.
Mort is the masculine form, and morte is the feminine form.
Il est mort! (He is dead!)

So that's it for today! See you next time!

I'm ready for school! Aw yeah.

another day another, another euro...

Hi! It's been awhile! I've been busy slacking off, so I didn't have a lot of time to write...
Anyway, now that I CAN write, I have A BUNCH of stuff to tell you!!! (By the way, I'm writing and typing this all, so all credit goes to me)
So first off, we are gonna be doing something like find the 1-up mushroom! For those who haven't heard of it, you basically just find the pig throughout the pictures. It's gonna be called: find the angry birds pig. Now then, the photographs with the pig will be COMPLETELY randomized, so you will have to actually LOOK carefully in each picture I post!

Second, I've been going a LOT of places lately, and I usually take the pictures with my phone, but in France, or at least Paris, there are a lot pickpockets out there. I know this first hand because my mother actually got pick pocketed by a woman. Or at least ALMOST got pick pocketed. She caught a woman's hand INSIDE her jacket pocket, and boy Mama got REALLY mad and later on was probably glad that she busted that pickpocket. And the reason why I tell you this is because I simply don't want MY phone stolen. End of story- bye-bye... just kidding.        

And last, I finally found a HUGE advantage about people thinking I'm a girl. Which is wonderful. So I'm at a science museum, which by the way was really cool. I needed to go to the bathroom badly, and for some reason, the French think it's cool to make the boys bathroom hidden or something, so I couldn't find find the boys' bathroom. So I just decided to... (should I really be telling you this?) go to the women's bathroom. Not that I had a choice or anything, but let me tell you, it's a LOT cleaner in there than in the boys room. Also, there were a LOT of women in there, and they just glanced at me, then looked back. But I actually saw ANOTHER guy in there that was bald, so that was awkward. But mainly I just have to say, that's a BIG score for me. Aw yeah.      

my grandmother and I  at the science museum, La Cité

So, let's get on with the pictures. Now remember, next time I won't remind you to search for the pig. Oh! And speaking of the pig, if you DO find the pig, please put where you found him in the comments. Whoever finds him the most until December 31 will get a French souvenir!

Now then, let's look at some pics!

just me at the jardin du Luxembourg

Papa's  yummy French food

my bedroom. 

my wonderful desk

me on a VERY short zip line 

The Seine River 

our nice, small kitchen

Now, those were some nice pictures weren't they!

Now, I'm certainly learning a whole lot, and unfortunately YOU HAVE TO AS WELL! I'm very sorry.   So, each day, I will give you a French Word of the Day. So, we might as well start today!
French Word of the Day: ours en peluche ( ORS- ON-PUH-LOOSH)
Translation: stuffed bear. (teddy bear)
I mainly wanted to choose this one because I have one for myself! His name is: Violet. Now before you all say that's a lame name, the French pronounce the word purple vee-oh-lay. So it sounds good that way. Or at least to me.

À bientôt!

Julien the baguette  

My first whole day back in Paris

I am suffering from no sleep.

And I'm being forced to stay awake. It's painful.

Mom told me to explain why I'm here...why am I here? I asked. I'm that tired.

I just had a long, exhausting walk from the Jardin de Luxembourg. They have a park in Luxembourg.

A small zip line at the park.  It kept me awake for 2 seconds.

Just simply me looking at a river. 

Me waiting in an exhausting, long line for the zip line.

I'm living here for five months, and I'm going to school. And the teachers speak FRENCH! I might not understand them! Ahhhhhhhh!

Bye the way, remember how last blog, I did the one-up mushroom contest? I'm going to be doing a similar thing, only with an angry birds pig. Next time, I'll show you the pig.

And just saying, I have a brand new youtube channel called Pasta deCilantro. Please check it out and subscribe.

Good bye. Sorry that this one was so short.

The Eiffel Tower (Again)

We go to the Eiffel Tower each time we come to Paris, but we take the stairs now because it's faster.

There are 680 steps to the second floor. They don't let you go to the third floor (the top) with the stairs. They are remodeling the first floor on the Eiffel Tower! We didn't get to see much on the first floor because of that.

Why would I be giving this kid an Eiffel Tower? 

The Military School

The Seine River is below my hands.

Looking up from the Second Floor

Sir, we have spotted an enemy. Release the cannons!

The Seine River. Beautiful.

Bye Bye!

This is my last blog post. Tomorrow is my birthday! I'm turning 10. We're flying home tomorrow morning, too. I can't wait to get home!
Remember: stay in school, get educated, and eat well!!


Thanks for reading!
Julién Remy

The Catacombs!

Hey! I feel like I haven't done my blog in a long time. It's June 4, so close to my birthday! And all kids who are in school, summer break's coming! One more thing before we start: to Shepard Elementary students and teachers, thanks for the best school year ever! I want to thank all the students in my class for making 4th grade the golden grade.

Well, today I went to the catacombs! A complex under-ground place were bones live. It used to be a quarry where people mined stone. In the 1700s, basements from normal houses got packed with bones because grave yards were seeping into the house because there were too many bones in the graveyard. So the king emptied the graveyards and put the bones in the catacombs-and they rhyme! 


   

2 hour long wait. Priceless.

Enter the catacombs after a 2 hour priceless wait, finally!

183 steps down beneath Paris!

A small stone castle

You turn to zombies when you enter the bone part of it.

There are millions of skulls here.

I turned into a ghost for a few minutes.

Neatly organized bones.

The black stripe was painted here before there was electricity to guide tourists in the catacombs.

This is my final picture in the catacombs. I would like to go here again, just not enduring the 2 hour wait.

This is your last Find the mushroom! Leave the answer in the Comments.

French Word of the day:
Sortie (sor-tee): Exit

French Fact: In France, when it's in summer, it gets dark around 10:30 at night! In December, it gets dark around 5 PM.



Thanks for reading!
Julien Rémy

My trip to Versailles

I went to a castle today.

We took several metros and one really big fast train called the RER. The chateau de Versailles is more like a palace, not a medieval castle.  When I first saw the chateau, I saw a gate that looked like it was made out of gold. I asked my Mama, "Is that real gold?' And she told me they were painted with real gold in paint.

We went to the gardens first instead of going into the castle. The garden was HUGE, probably about a couple of miles long.


The king built this big, gigantic garden with labyrinths everywhere. The garden was basically built to entertain his child (the dauphin) and his rich guests.














There are many fountains. Here are some pictures of them.

Having fun at the Dragon Fountain

This is the Apollo fountain. He's riding horses out of the water...

After we looked at the fountains and walked a lot through the gardens, we found an open labyrinth.

It was pretty easy to finish the maze despite the complex picture on the map.

Then, we went BOATING in the castle's canals (les caneaux)!

A picture of me rowing

Don't worry. I've got this....

Arggggghhhhh! Scurvy dogs!

The clouds looked pretty ferocious. Not far away, there was a small cloud that was literally pitch back, but it didn't rain on us. I liked the boating experience. I liked it when I got to row the boat, but I didn't get to do it very long because I wasn't very good at it, as you can see.

We also visited my Tata Francoise again. And I found out something: her cat, named Biscotte (shown below) is a demon! Just kidding. She just wants something to eat.

Creepy cat, Julie, and me

French Word of the Day:

fraise (frez): strawberry. We ate some fraise ice cream at Versailles!

French Fact of the Day:
It is very rare to live in a house in Paris. Almost everyone in Paris lives in an apartment.

Now, Find the Mushroom in Versailles!

Thanks for Reading!
Julien Rémy