Choose Your Own Adventure...or Torture, whatever the kids are calling it these days

Well, Sydney left me all alone, but I did overcome my sickness enough to take a picture with her.

I sometimes wonder why I torture myself with the french language, especially when I have to do something as scary as try to find a job! I know I'll be a better person with great skills at the end of this journey, but the getting there is tough sometimes. Last week I had my very first interview in France. It was one of the more excruciating experiences of my life. I prepped myself all night and all morning before getting on the train to go to my interview for an internship with a technology company. When I arrived, I got on the elevator and pressed 4 and nothing happened. The doors closed and the elevator went down and someone else got on and still i was pressing for. Luckily, the lady who got on had a magic key and she took me to the fourth floor where my interview was. I got off the elevator and immediately found myself in the middle of someone's office cubicle. There was nowhere to sit, so they got me a chair, so that I could sit in the middle of the workspace while i waited for the guy to come get me. He finally came and the interview started. He asked me if I wanted to do it in French or English, and I said English, which was silly, but I was so nervous at that point, I was close to tears. Needless to say, the interview was not my best, but it wasn't horrible. I haven't found out yet if I got it, but it would be an interesting job and I would have lots to do and lots to learn. I realized as I left that I am terrified of being away from the comfort zone of school and having my friends from the program around. It's definitely going to be tough once I'm in the french working world, but I bet my french will get a lot better:) Anyways, I have another interview with a pharmaceutical company next week, so wish me luck because this one will absolutely be en francais.

In other news, Natallie, my roommate from Chicago, is the latest person to visit me. It's my school vacation right now and we have certainly kicked it off. Yesterday, I picked her up from the airport and we went on a fantastic boat tour of paris. Today, we went to the champagne region (the city of Reims pronounced Rahnce) for a day trip. It was absolutely incredible. It was a beautiful day and we got to tour the pommery caves. The outside looks like a castle and the actual cellars are old Roman chalk caves that madame pommery herself switched into interconnected cellars that hold over 20 million bottles of champagne. We also saw the world's largest cask that holds 75,000 liters of champagne. Yum! We even got to taste some.

Sara and I cheers!

The other neat place in Reims was the Cathedrale de Notre Dame where 26 french kings were crowned. The first was Clovis in 498 and the last was Napolean Bonaparte himself. The tourism office is actually in the ruins of the Cathedrale and for just 12 euros we got a bus pass, a champagne cave tour, free museum tickets and a box of special pink cookies that are supposed to be eaten with the champagne. It was one of the best trips I've had yet and I bought a cheesy magnet to commemorate it. hooray. Next stop, London and Dublin.