And we're still on the road...

September 29-30, 2012

My last two days were not so adventure filled (you're welcome mama) but they were still fun. On Saturday morning we went into Amboise where Joan of Arc's castle is and went to a little farmers' market that they set up every saturday. We walked around and enjoyed all of the homemade food and fresh veggies and looking at all of the cool jewelry. I was walking around with one girl named Paige Anderson (she's a cutie) and we saw this lady who had hand made all of this really cool brass and silver jewelry. It looked like something that could be sold at Anthropology because it was just really cool and unique. That was really fun because all of the streets were so old and looked like a scene straight out of a movie. I would love to come live in a quaint little town in the French countryside. I mean I'd rather live in one of the castles, but I could deal with a cottage, too. After we did the market we went and visited the chateau of Catherine de Medici. It was so beautiful. Every room had big 16th century tapestries and woodworking everywhere. It amazed me at how old it all was because some of it dated back to the 1500s and was still up and still beautiful. There was an interesting room in there, though, which was called the mourning room and it was painted all black with white feathers painted on the ceilings and walls and an illuminated painting of one of the kings who died and a big black bed covered in black velvet bedding. It was weird and creepy and I didn't like it but the rest of the castle was really cool. There was a little village out in the back that had the most incredible colors ever. The village cottages all had red doors and window panes and then it was all covered in strikingly green vines. But we were so tired we just lied in the grass for a solid hour. Castles are all starting to blend together in my head, though. I need to start getting more sleep or something so I can be more alert. After we got done at the castle we had the option of either going to see another chateau or seeing the Da Vinci house. We went to go see the Da Vinci house, which was definitely the better choice. They had set up models of a bunch of his inventions and there was this garden outside that blew my mind. It was all green and mossy and had this incredible bridge and oh my goodness it was beautiful. The second picture I posted is of the garden. This morning was not super. We went to church (which, of course, was in French) for about 2 hours and then had to sit on the bus for 4 hours so we could go to Mont St. Michel and I wanted to punch someone in the face. It was very cramped quarters and I ate way too much nutella and rice cakes that by the time we got off the bus and arrived at our hotel I was quite sickly. One thing that was interesting, though, is that apparently France has a law that you can't go on car trips for too long, I guess, so we stopped at the beach for about an hour and got to frolic in the sand, which I loved. It's so warm here, it's seriously like southern California weather. But I was really happy when we got here because were fed a fat 3 course meal for free. It was so good... We started out with some salad and a really flaky warm quiche and then had some pork, gravy, and a twice baked potato, and finished off the meal with some fantastic rhubarb pie. I am still so full and so happy.

On the Road Again

September 27-28, 2012

I really need to do this more often so these aren't so long. So... where did I leave off. These days are getting crazy now because they're kind of all starting to blend together because I'm just getting exhausted all the time. But on Thursday morning we got up and went on a tour of the Chartres Cathedral with a world renowned historian who's basically dedicated his 80 year old life to studying the  Chartres Cathedral and everything about it. His name is Malcom Miller and he just took us around and explained some of the history of the church and gave us some insight into the stories that were being told in the stained glass. It was really amazing to hear it from him because he knew so much and was so passionate about all of it. I also loved that he was so old that he was not concerned about being politically correct one bit haha he told a chunk of our group to take a spot of chairs before "a group of japs come in. They come in droves and take up all the good seats". I loved his snide little comments haha funny old English man. But after we got our tour we had a few hours just to walk around Chartres again... Woo hoo.... Because it was just such a big city that we didn't get enough of it the first day haha it was way too cold for any of that business. We ended up sitting in a cafe for a good hour and a half because it was too cold and windy to be chillin outside for too long. Once we were done with Chartres we took about a two hour bus ride to a little town called Amboise where we stayed for the next few days. The whole hotel situation was really strange. They had a whole complex set up with a ton of rooms all in these little cottage looking things. It was not fun trying to haul two massive suitcases over a loose pebble walkway all the way to the other side of the complex to my room. But I survived it. Then some of my friends and I decided to go on a little run because the setting was so beautiful. It was right in the French countryside and nestled right against this lush, green forest and it was a little cold, but not nearly as bad as Paris or Chartres. My favorite was waking up in the morning and looking out at the forest because there was a little layer of fog over it and I felt like I was in Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Darcy was gonna come out at any second and ask me to be his wife and live in a castle with him. But sadly, my life is not that way so I had to get over that real quick. Our run was a real adventure. And I'm sorry if you're reading this mother... It won't make you very happy or confident in any skills of mine, but trust me I've been fine up to this point. So there's a group of 4 of us that go out (Kylee, Caroline, Kenzie, and I) and we decide it's a beautiful setting so we should go out into the woods for a little run. So we get about 3 miles out and decide to play it safe and head back because the sun is already down and it'll be dark soon. So we start heading back and we get to a fork in the road and decide to go right. Bad choice. We get to this strange corn field that none of us recognize so we're trying to figure out if we really did go the right way and we just didn't notice the corn or if we took a wrong turn. But then as we're just walking along trying to figure it out Kylee steps wrong (the whole path is torn up from tractors and it's super muddy) and she twists her ankle and it immediately swells up to tennis ball size and she can't put pressure on it. At this point we're still a ways out and it's getting dark real quick. So we say a prayer for safety and to be able to be guided on where to go. Then we decide to turn around and go the other way, but Caroline is carrying Kylee on her back at this point and it's getting pretty dark. So then two girls have their iPhones out lighting up the way, but each one only has about 20% battery and the flashlight really drains it fast. So there we are, walking around in the forest in the French countryside, trying to figure out where to go in the pitch dark with phones that don't have service when from about 50 feet away we hear this big creature making some rustling noise in the trees. Of course, everyone starts freaking out, but we can't go faster to get away because Kylee can't walk and Caroline is carrying her on her back. But then luckily we stick to our guns and stay on the path and eventually find our complex and make it home half frozen to death and covered in mud. It was quite an adventure and I don't regret it. Fun memories to look back on is how I see it :)

September 24-26, 2012

These past few days have been so much fun!! Since they were our last days in Paris we were just making sure we crossed things off of our Paris bucket list. It wasn't much of a list, though so we had a lot of time just to mess around :) But on Monday we started out by heading over to the Hotel de Ville (which apparently isn't a hotel at all) and saw a collection in the hotel about the kids who were sent away to the concentration camps in WWII. It was really sad, but also really interesting to see pictures of these children being sent away and some of their old toys and clothes. I just wish it would have been in English because I would have liked to read about all of it. But alas, I'm in France where they speak French and spit upon those who don't. So I sucked it up. After that we went over to the other side of the Hotel de Ville to see the "Paris as seen by Hollywood" exhibit. It was not up to par, I can tell you that. All of the advertisements had a picture of Audrey Hepburn so I thought it would be about her, but it was just a collection of old movie posters basically. And we were so worn out that we just basically were dragging our half lifeless bodies through the exhibit. So as you can imagine, we decided to go home after that. But not after we got something to eat for dinner. We went to this sketchy little greek fast food lookin' place and had some incredible gyros. They put fries in them! Oh I was one happy girl. We had a nice little siesta for a while after that and then at 7 went on a bike tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours. It was seriously one of the funnest, if not the most fun, thing we've done this whole time. Let me just tell you about it... So we all get geared up for this thing in yoga pants, layers on layers of shirts, and jackets, and I even brought a waterproof windbreaker (thank you mama) and running shoes. So we look like we're ready for a marathon. We walk to the Eiffel Tower to meet our tour group and everyone else is in jeans and normal human clothes and are just staring at these 7 obnoxious girls dressed like we're ready for some real hard core exercise. Then we walk to the office of Fat Tires Bike Tours and we get our bikes and everything (mine was named Bam Bam) and are getting ready to go. By this time our tour guide I swear hated us. He was this awkward guy named Ryan who was about 24 just chillin' in Paris cuz he was sick of Texas. So then we get going and we're just riding along enjoying the streets of Paris when it starts downpouring like crazy. Let me just inform you that the ride is 4 hours long and it started raining about 30 minutes into it, so you can imagine that we were a bit nervous about the rest of our ride. It worked out perfectly, though, because the rain just made it that much more fun. Luckily, my mother was smart enough to buy me a waterproof jacket, so that saved me a little bit. I still got really wet, but it was a slower process. After the biking was done we went on a boat tour that was included and it was freezing. The boat had no heating so we were just shivering, sopping wet in the boat. But it was so much fun and I'm glad we did it. What day was next.... right. Tuesday. So on Tuesday we had a really fun day as well. In the morning (we got kind of a slow start because we were exhausted from our soggy bike tour) we went to the catacombs that go underneath Paris. It was really cool, but also kind of disturbing. There are miles and miles of bones just piled underneath the city from graves that they dug up because they were unsanitary. I would not be happy if someone dug up my bones and then put them in a soggy cave under the city. But I guess it helped with all of those diseases and what not so whatever. Then after we got done with the catacombs I had the most amazing thing I've ever put in my mouth. It was called the "change your life crepe" and it had in it some delicious French cheese, chicken curry, and egg, chili sauce, and tomatoes (but I despise tomatoes so I had mushrooms instead). Oh my gosh you cannot believe how happy that stupid crepe made me. I was enjoying every single bite so much that I'm drooling just thinking about it. It was that chili sauce that just sent it over the edge. But enough of my fat kid moments. After that we went home and just packed up everything. We left this morning for Chartres on a bus, which is only an hour drive from Paris, so that was really nice. When we got to Chartres we just had the afternoon to explore the city. We just walked around the little city and got some pastries, and went in the cathedral. It was so beautiful... The stained glass in these places just kill me every time. The people here are not as nice as they were in Paris, though. We kept getting straight up laughed at by the locals, which was very strange and confusing because I swear we didn't look that stupid. But whatever crazy Chartres people.

September 21-23, 2012

Blogging is hard…. It takes so flippin long to write all this crap down. But that’s ok :) so yeah I’m getting sick. Word of advice: get a lot of sleep if you go on something like this. And eat healthily. I’ve been doing pretty good at eating, but it’s kind of hard here when the salads are 10 euros and the sandwiches are 6 or a nutella crepe 3 euros. Those crepes get me every time, I’m tellin ya. But anyways. So today is Sunday and I haven’t written about the last few days so I need to catch up a bit. On Friday I did a bad thing. I went to a museum by myself. But it was a necessary thing because it was a required museum for my class and the girls that I’ve been travelling around with already went the day they left me in the museum and I had to stay an extra 2 hours with another group so I was the only one who hadn’t gone. So I got up early that morning and brought my map and power walked through the city, got to the metro, found the correct stops, and found my way to the museum. It was such a cool museum. It was the Rodin one with all of his marble sculptures inside and all of his bronzes outside in a really pretty garden area. I loved it and luckily it wasn’t too big. I’m getting a little overwhelmed by all of these huge amazing museums everywhere in France. But after I finished at the Rodin museum, I got back on the metro to go meet my friends at the Pompideu modern art museum at noon. So basically I show up there at 11:30 because my museum didn’t take very long, but then I had to wait an entire hour because they were late. But it’s fine because at least they showed up. There was also this really cool gypsy couple that I watched from afar (I didn’t want my bag stolen) who were playing these crazy instruments in front of the museum for money. They were full on gypsy though with the clothes and the homemade instruments and even a dog and a cat that they had tied red and yellow ribbons onto and chained to their sides. It was such a quaint little scene. But basically the modern art museum was not my favorite one bit. I just don’t know enough about art to be able to appreciate something like that. And I’m so sick of seeing so many pornographic scenes all the time. In the museum there was this strange video in the wall that had different scenes of a man and a woman completely naked running around covering up their genitals, but then sometimes they’d move their hands and it was just very strange and I moved on quickly from that one. After the Pompideu museum we went to the Sacre Couer and sat in on a communion (I think) in the Bastille. It was really cool, but I couldn’t understand the meeting one bit since it was all in French. But it was really cool to hear the nuns sing and the organ was absolutely incredible. It was so big and loud, it just echoed, I swear, across the whole city, that’s how big and grand it was. That night we went to the market and bought some eggs and tortillas and made ourselves some egg burritos for dinner. Best idea in the world right there. It cost us each a euro and 50 cents for egg burritos with salsa, avocado, cheese, and tomatoes. I want to do that every night. I’m so sick of spending money on freaking food!! Once I get to the London Center, I will be so happy because we’ll get our food given to us and I won’t have to worry about buying my meals. Saturday morning was stupid. So we all woke up to go to breakfast at this cute little place called Angelina’s that everyone’s been raving about. So we get there and the breakfast thing is 20 euros!! I don’t want to spend 20 freaking euros on breakfast… But apparently according to everyone the hot chocolate is world famous so I got the stupid 8 euro hot chocolate and a little sugared brioche that was only 3 euros. I really loved my brioche, it was fluffy and sweet and basically the best pastry I’ve had yet. But the hot chocolate was a whole different story. I’m convinced that they took a bar of bitter chocolate and melted it down and put it in my cup. That’s how rich it was. I couldn’t even finish half of it because it was making me sick. Worst decision yet. Angelina’s gets a solid 2/10 for me. After we went to Angelina’s we walked down the Champs Elysees and went shopping in some of the stores along the street. We definitely stayed on the cheaper side of the street haha but I got myself a really cute black leather jacket for only 50 euros from a store called Promod and then a warm sweater for London from Zara for only 25 euros. So I’m done with shopping for a while. But Zara and Promod are some solid stores. I’m very happy with them. After the Champs Elysees we went down to the Rue de Possy and went in some of the little shops there, too. Those ones were really expensive, though, so we were just looking around. Some of the other girls got some cute sweaters for not too much at this little shop called Shana that had some decently priced clothes. Once we were done with our shopping we went to Notre Dame and sat in on mass, which was interesting. They were waving around this smoke bomb thing that I really wasn’t enjoying one bit. It was stinging my eyes… bad news. We didn’t stay for long, though, because we were all tired and we went back and made burritos again. And last but not least, was today. Today was stake conference so we all went to this big conference center and listened to it for a while. But I don’t have much to report about it because I was so tired that I literally slept hard core through the entire thing. Then after the meeting we went over to The Creperie and had the most delicious crepes I’ve ever had. I had a cowboy crepe with ham, steak (which apparently is just hamburger), eggs, and cheese wrapped up all snug in a warm crepe. Then since it was Sunday I got the meal and it came with a dessert crepe that I almost died over. It had this chocolate sauce with little crunchy things in it and a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Holy crap it was good. I could eat that for the rest of my life and be so happy. Once we finished stuffing our faces we went over the gardens at Versailles and were awestruck by how unbelievable they were. The gardens were, I swear, a hundred acres of beautiful mazes filled with gorgeous Roman statues and beautiful fountains with fish and water features. I can’t get over how amazing it is that Marie Antoinette would build all that while her country was literally starving to death. Her little hamlet/village, though, was seriously incredible. I can’t even put into words how much I loved it. It was so cute and I was just dying being in there imagining myself in her shoes just walking around playing peasant like she did. I was amazed by it. I’ll put in some pictures because I can’t even describe how cute it was.

9/20/2012

Paris is the most amazing city I've ever seen! Every time I even walk outside I am amazed by the amazing architecture and just random beautiful statues and scenery all around me. Except in the metro. The metro sucks. But we got a freakin' ton done today... We started out our day by heading over to the Louvre and looking for some of the sights that our professors told us to see. That place is so ridiculously large that I felt like an ant inside of it. It was about 4 stories high and just crazy full of any type of art by any artist you could imagine. Some of my favorite works were La Jeune Martyre by Paul Delaroche, La Deluge by Girodet-Trioson, Sacre de Napoleon I at Notre Dame by David, and my favorite one was Les Mysteres de la Passion du Christ by Antonio Campi. I also really loved the Roman and Greek statues. I mean, it was a bit too much nudity for my taste, but they were incredible. We were in the Louvre for about 3 1/2 hours and it just blew my mind that we only saw maybe 1/10th of it. It just overwhelmed me so much to think about it. There was so much I wanted to see but then by about hour 2 I was just exhausted because this whole running around to 1000 museums a day is really taking a toll on my body. But I will say I was kind of smart... I brought a granola bar and a bag of fruity granola with me and just snacked on it to keep my energy decent. Then I also didn't have to spend 5 euros to buy myself lunch because I had snacks. I will say though, there is this gelato stand in the middle of the gardens in front of the Louvre called Amorino with the best freaking gelato I've ever had. And they make it look like a flower on the cone. Then we all just sat in front of the fountain in the chairs they had set out and enjoyed our ice cream. It was so good... But no more. Food here is too expensive and I feel like I'm wasting my money on it. But the granola was a pristine idea. The pigeons here are crazy... They are not afraid of people one bit. So basically long story short a pigeon flew into my head. But not a big deal. These things happen. Another funny thing that happened today was that the gypsies kept calling us Lady Gaga. Why they chose Lady Gaga I'm not sure haha but it was multiple gypsies. The rest of the day we just walked around Paris and enjoyed the city.

September 19, 2012

I give up on this whole trying to catch up thing. It sucks and I'll get around to it eventually. It's easier to just talk about my day. So... today... I got up at about 7 and thought I was going to die. I didn't go to bed last night until about 3 o'clock because I was trying to write in here but I have the attention span of a gnat and end up on a million different websites not getting anything done. But back to what I was talking about... So I got up at 7 a.m. to go running with one of my roommates and we went about 2 miles to the Eiffel Tower and back to the hotel. But my feet are so sore they feel like they're going to fall off of my legs right now. It's awful but I'm trudging through. By complaining every second. So after I went running in the freezing I got all ready and went up and had devotional in the professor's room. The first thing we did this morning was the Opera House. It was such a beautiful building, especially the grand staircase. It was so pretty with the ceiling above it all painted magnificently and all of the intricate woodwork and stone statues that were there. The actual opera area was cool too because it was just so big. After that we hurried over to the L'Ongerie and saw all of the Monet Nympheas paintings and some more impressionist paintings. These impressionists are all insanely obsessed with naked women... I'm getting a little sick of seeing a naked woman every other painting. I'm getting so museumed out. It's insane how much art I've seen in the past 2 days. I feel like it's all just starting to mesh together in my head and we haven't even seen the Louvre yet. I wish I knew more about art so that I could appreciate what I was seeing more, but I'm so uneducated about the art that I can't fully appreciate what I'm even seeing. It is really cool, though seeing all of this art since they are some of the most  famous paintings and sculptures in the entire world. But I fell in love in Paris. I fell in love with a little gelato stand that was in the gardens outside of L'Ongerie. I got a little bowl of Amaretto and raspberry gelato and I almost passed out I was so happy. It was just creamy and satisfying and perfect in every way. But enough of that... After we did that we went over into a few shops which was really fun. We went over to Zara, which wasn't too expensive, and looked around. I didn't get anything since I'm poor, but it was fun to just walk around. Then we went over to the Galleries Lafayette and just browsed the ridiculously expensive clothes and shoes and accessories. Some of those dresses in there were over 2000 euros!! That's so much freakin money!! One day... just kidding. I could never spend 3000 dollars on a dress. I really liked what we did after that, though, which was going to the Notre Dame. We couldn't go up because for some reason it was closed so we walked around the Latin Quarter and saw all the cute little shops and went into the Shakespeare and Co. bookshop and looked around. It was so cute!! There were so many books, though, it was blowing my mind. By that time it was about 7 and we were so ridiculously tired that we went back by our hotel and got a little bowl of pasta and walked back. My feet are so tired and my body is so tired that I just need to sleep for hours and get a hard core massage.

Sunday

Today we had to get our way to church in Versailles by 9 a.m. That was such a struggle. We left at a decent time at about 7:15 but then we didn't realize how long it would actually take. We had to take a few different metro stops and an hour long train ride followed by quite a walk to actually get to the chapel. I didn't mind at all, though, because I got to walk down the most beautiful streets I've ever seen. They were full of all little old cottages that were covered in vines and had these incredible, intricate gates in front of them. My dream is to have a cottage in Versailles. My dream cottage would be brick and stone, two stories but still small, with vines covering half of the house and with a really pretty green and gold gate in front of it. But anyways... So we got to the church about a half an hour late and come charging in with all 9 of us and the sweet little relief society ladies brought us into relief society and had us introduce ourselves. I was really surprised at how many people spoke English. We went into the young single adult class after sacrament meeting and everyone introduced themselves in English and said they at least speak 2 languages. I wish I had grown up in a school that required me to learn another language. But us Americans is stupid. Sacrament meeting was also really cool because we could listen to the meeting in French, but still feel the same spirit that I feel in English meetings where I know what's going on. After the meeting I had a great time because a few people came up to us and gave us the kisses on the cheek and this adorable French girl who was our same age came over and starting telling us about how she was born into the church, but she really got her testimony when she was 15 and she was the only member in her whole school of 2500. She was so cute, she could hardly speak English, but luckily there was a missionary there helping. It was really interesting hearing about France and how different it is from Utah and really even the United States. The missionary we were talking to was saying that its really hard to baptize people here because they are really proud and are all atheist. Most everyone in the United States is either Christian or at least believes in some kind of God. After we went to church we went over to the Palace of Versailles and got a crepe before we went in. I was seriously dying it was so good. It was seasoned chicken, amazing French cheese, guacamole, and lettuce in the most delicious crepe in the world. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Once we finished we went over to the Palace and it was massive!! The idea that someone built that just because they could is insanity. King Louis XVI is one crazy man. Every room of the Palace was just breathtaking. All of the ceiling work was so intricate and the paintings were incredible. The Hall of Mirrors was my favorite. The chandeliers and the ceiling were so beautiful. But after the Palace we went over to the Champs Eleese and shopped around for a little while. But that's just a quick recap of my Sunday.

Saturday (I'm a little behind)

I am the worst at starting things like this on time. I've already been here in Paris since Saturday and I'm finally posting about it on Tuesday, but that's ok. We left on Friday morning and and I almost died on the plane ride over here. The entertainment system was broken so we had to fend for ourselves on the 10 hour plane ride. I was a little jet lagged so trying to haul my 2 gigantic suitcases (I'm gonna be here for 3 months, I don't want to be ill-prepared) through a shuttle, a bus, a train, and 2 metros was such a struggle. We even finished up that little journey by walking about 600 yards, 6 football fields mind you, to our hotel. But it was all worth it because as we sat in our professors' room waiting for our rooms to be ready, we could see a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower. That's when it really hit me that, 'Holy crap, I'm actually in Paris'. I was seriously so excited. Then once we got all situated in our rooms we went on a little trip over to the Tower and walked around and saw all the little markets and shops that surround our hotel.