Strasbourg/SAT/Starbucks

Bonjour à tous!
So on Friday I didn't go to school, because I had to go to Strasbourg to take the SAT. I left Vernon at 11 on Friday, and got to Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris before 12. Then I had to take the subway to Gare l'Est to catch my train to Strasbourg. I was worried that I was going to get lost, but the Paris subway system is super easy to figure out, especially if you know French. So I got to Gare l'Est with plenty of time to spare. I bought a sandwich for lunch that was like amazing: half a baguette with cheese. They sell half-baguette sandwiched all over Paris, so if you ever go there you should definitely try one. And they aren't expensive, only like 3 or 4 euros. I was eating my sandwich and watching the screen where they put up the platform numbers, and this lady came up to me and asked me for money. I was like "I don't have any" but she was like "Yes you do, you're eating a sandwich", so then I was like "I don't speak French" to try to get her to leave me alone, and she was like "What?" in french, so then I just walked away. There are a lot of beggars in Paris.
So I got on the right train and had a window seat. The train a TGV train and it was really nice. On the TGVs they have first and second class seats; I was sitting in second class, but I saw the first class section and the difference is that in first class, the seats are more comfortable and there are TVs. But the seats in second class are comfortable, too.
The ride there was like really pretty, and the train was going sooo fast. The scenary went by so quickly. It was really sunny out, so everything was bright green and bright blue. Then as we got closer to Strasbourg it got cloudy. It only took two hours to get there, which is not a lot considering Strasbourg is basically in Germany.
Once I got to Strasbourg, I took the bus to the hotel and checked in. Then I went shopping. It was really cold in Strasbourg; in Paris it had been like 50 degrees but it was probably in the mid thirties in Strasbourg. The mall I went to wasn't too big, but there was an H&M, so I went there. I ate dinner at McDonalds and the guy I gave my order to thought I was French. Maybe because I was wearing a beret and a scarf and talking in French.
In Strasbourg I heard more German than French. German sounds really weird, I like French better. There were lots of German people like everywhere.
After I went shopping, I went back to the hotel. Then I went looking for a bank and ended up walking all the way back to the mall to find one. I passed a tanning-bed place, so apparently tanning beds are NOT illegal in France, as multiple people have told me.
On Saturday I ate breakfast at the hotel and then went to take the SAT. I took a taxi to the SAT site, and I got there and was like "hmmm, am I in the right place?" and then this lady walked up to the building and was like "You're in the right place" in English. There were probably 10 other kids taking the test, and most of them were French. There was one other exchange student taking it; she's not with Rotary and she's leaving in January.
After the test (the last time I'll ever take the SAT reasoning test!), I was going to go look for the bus stop so that I could get back to the train station. Then the other exchange student (Paige) asked me if I was going to the train station, because she was too and neither of us knew how to get there. So we were going to go look for the bus stop when another girl who took the SAT asked us if we needed help getting anywhere, and we were like "Yeah, the train station". And she said she had to go right past it, so we went with her. Her name was Jessica and I thought she was American and living in France with her family, because she spoke English perfectly with an American accent, but she was French and had lived in France for her whole life. Her mom was from Chicago, though, so that's why she spoke English.
We went and caught a tram. The trams in Strasbourg are like all glass and really cool, and they go through the middle of the city. We took one tram to the center of Strasbourg and passed through the nice part of Strasbourg, so I saw the famous cathedral and the Marché de Noël. Then we got on another train that went right to the train station, where we said bye to Jessica.
After that I got another baguette sandwich for lunch, with a brownie. Then I found Teen Vogue in the bookstore in the train station. After that I waited for like two hours for my train. I had two seats to myself on the way back.
I got to Paris and it was raining, but I had my umbrella so it was good. I had no trouble finding the right subway. When I got to Saint-Lazare I had like over an hour, so I went to Starbucks. It's kind of becoming a tradition that whenever I'm in Paris I go to Starbucks. But this time I actually sat there to drink my coffee.
I got back to Vernon at like 9.
The whole French train system is really good; it's too bad we don't have one like it in America. Because most people don't actually ride the AMtrack.
Well, that's all for now!
byeeee
Halle