"It is actually a sin to eat this cheese."

I had my orientation and oral placement test at the ILCF yesterday. The campus is beautiful! It's nestled back in a little courtyard, and there is a garden that is green year-round. My placement test went well, and I'll be taking three classes at the ILCF. Two are language classes and one is a cinema class. The ILCF is a branch of the IC - the Institut Catholique - that was founded in 1875. Apparently it was mainly used as a school for those who wanted to be nuns or priests. They have a beautiful chapel there which was the first chapel in France to have a dome. The ILCF was founded later on and is specifically designed for students from other countries to come and learn French. I am excited for my classes to start next week, and hopefully I will be able to meet some students from places other than the United States!


This morning we got up early and decided to go to the Catacombs (Les Catacombes in French)! They are actually a series of tunnels that run underneath the city of Paris, and they serve as an ossuary (a place to keep bones). They were built at the end of the 18th century, during a period of extensive urban development.
Because you can get lost down in the tunnels, we decided to go through the Catacombs of Paris Museum, which was very inexpensive. There were also several paths blocked off with gates so that there was a clear pathway through one section of the tunnels. In this section we got to see the Port-Mahon corridor, where there are several sculptures carved into the walls of the quarry by a quarryman named Décure. My pictures of the sculptures didn't turn out, but they were truly amazing.
When we got to the entrance of the ossuary, there was an eerie sign that read, Arrête! c’est ici l’empire de la mort. In English, it means, "Stop! This is the empire of death." Even though it was really interesting and it was one of the things I really wanted to see, it was still incredibly creepy! For some reason it was extremely humid, and there were lots of drips coming from the ceilings of the tunnels. I actually stepped into a huge puddle.
Here are some other pictures I took:Tonight for dinner at my host family's house we had some curried chicken and rice. We also had a cheese that Sylvie-Anne told me was her favorite. Jacques told me that eating it is a temptation because "it is actually a sin to eat this cheese." It was definitely as good as they said it was - I ate so much of it! And of course nothing is better than a great cheese with a French baguette.
They also paid me a great compliment this evening - they said that I had the very French quality of having good taste in everything!