♫ C'est grand, c'est tout too ♫

"Est-ce que vous aimez le gateau chocolat?" (Do you like chocolate cake?)

"Oui!" (Yes!)

"D'accord, je vais acheter du gateau chocolat pour le petit-dejeuner!" (Ok, I'll buy you some chocolate cake for breakfast!)

We've been eating chocolate cake for breakfast the past couple days. lol. Well, it's really like a sponge cake with chocolate inside. But it's interesting. lol. Never actually had cake for breakfast before. Yesterday we had cereal with it, but today cake was all we had time for. (Instead of waking up at seven to go running in the Bois de Boulogne, we slept in until nine and had to run to the Metro in order to get to class on time.) These cakes are individually wrapped and don't take as much time as cereal. They're probably about as healthy as poptarts, so maybe it wasn't so bad. lol.

By the end of class, we were both STARVING! So we went to a little crepe shop near where we have class. It was so yummy! Guess what the crepes were dripping with. Chocolate. lol. We're so gonna get fat. Running on Monday! Maybe. If we get up in time. We have to go to class early on Monday, so we'll see.

Do you know what the coolest part of the crepe shop was? The guy (I assume the manager) was taking our dishes, and he said that we spoke French very well. Then he asked, "Etes-vous anglaise?" (Are you English?) lol. And we answered that we were American, and he got this smile on his face like, "Really? No way!" and he complimented us on our French again. Isn't that cool? lol. Americans have a bad rap for not trying at all to speak French and assuming everyone else will just speak English to them, even if they're in a country that doesn't speak English. (They were serving an American couple at the same time we were eating.) So it was so funny and cool that they assumed we were English. Yes, it's kind of an insult to Americans, but I think our speaking French showed him that some Americans aren't so ignorant. :)

Ah! Monsieur Devarenne just gave me some little white flowers! Today is a national holiday, Fete de Travail, which I'm not exactly sure what it is except an excuse to not work. lol. Mme Devarenne told us yesterday that the French have a lot of those. But today I noticed there were people everywhere selling little bouquets of flowers. These are tiny, tiny bouquets. Not like the one-rose bouquets in the States, but really short bouquets. Most of them are those little white flowers that are bell shaped. I can't remember what they're called... But anyway, he got us those little white flowers. They're so cute. :)

I've decided that along with the Eiffel Tower, I'm in love with French children. They are adorable! With their little accents, talking really fast... *sigh* Maybe it's just because I'm baby crazy and little kid crazy. I can't wait for Sunday, though! Because I think a lot of the Devarennes' grandchildren are coming over, and that will be so much fun! :)

Oh, the flowers are lilies of the valley. lol. Yay, Google!

So today we went to La Defense. I'm not exactly sure the significance of this place, but it's really cool! It's in the heart of the business sector of Paris, where there are tons of uniquely-shaped office building, as well as cool pools and sculptures and trees all over. It's also directly across from L'Arc de Triomphe. You can look straight down the Champs Elysee and see the arch in the distance, and if you turn a little to the right you can see our beloved Tour Eiffel.

At the end of La Defense, opposite L'Arc de Triomphe, is a modern arch. It's kind of more post and lintel, though. Because it's square. There are a lot of steps up to it, and then you can go down stairs on the back too. I'm pretty sure it's one of the best places to look out over Paris.

One of the coolest parts was going down the back side of the arch, where there was a bridge you could walk across. Around the bridge was a cemetery that had lots of pretty bushes around it. We decided to investigate it, because there was an American flag in one part of the cemetery, and we wondered what it was for.

So we went off the trail outline in our pamphlet to see the cemetery. It was pretty cool, actually, even though most of the graves weren't that old. We found the American flag, which was placed there for soldiers who were members of the American Legion. There were several graves around it too. Then we walked around, looking at all the interesting graves and the weird little shrine/house things some of them had on top of the graves. We also so one grave marker that had a side punched out of it. I thought it would be like the one I saw in England, where the side was punched out and the stone was leaning up a little bit, but you couldn't see anything. But Paris looked down into it (it was a deep hole!) and saw a coffin at the bottom! There was no other covering! She jumped back really fast. lol. And I didn't want to look in the hole. But she said it was really ornate.

Then we passed a place where there was a memorial for British and French soldiers who died in northern Africa in WWI and WWII. We also passed the Jewish section of the cemetery, which had a lot of people who must have survived the Holocaust, because they were born in the early 1900s. We thought that was cool.

After that, we ate chocolate cake that Mme Devarenne made to celebrate the holiday, and we went to the store. We ate sandwiches and Nuttella on bread and crackers after that. The end. On to reading for Monday. Yay.

Oh, just FYI, the titles for my blogs are mostly from the songs "Paris Holds the Key to Your Heart" from Anastasia and "Bonjour, Paris" from Funny Face. :) There may be a couple other songs, but those are the main ones.