♫ Do some window shopping in the Rue de la Paix ♪

*sigh* I know. I've been bad. I missed two days in a row! Ugh. I was just so exhausted Friday that I didn't feel like writing.

After class Friday morning, we went to Mont Parnasse, where all the artists and intellectuals used to hang out. (Just like in Funny Face. lol.)

Our walk took us to a really strange looking statue of a soldier with a big body and tiny head that was supposed to be a monument to Alfred Dreyfuss, a Jewish soldier in the French army who was accused of treason, stripped of his command, and exiled all on false accusations. France was so embarrassed by the event, that this soldier's statue was hidden in a tiny, obscure part of Paris on a little patch of grass too small to be called a park instead of at the military school where it was meant to be. You can really only find it if you get directions from somebody who's been there before, because it's not really on maps.

After that stop (which actually wasn't all that exciting, because I thought the statue was ugly) we got gelato. It was so yummy! :) I loved it. Except the part when I was ordering and couldn't figure out what they were asking me, and so they had to switch to English. That was kinda embarrassing. lol. I got passion fruit and raspberry gelato. So delicious! And that place had like 30 flavors of hot chocolate too! I totally want to go back and try some. :) I love hot chocolate.

Then we went to the Luxembourg gardens. I liked this garden even better than Tuileries, I think. This one felt a lot more peaceful. This garden is where an old school of agriculture has kept bees for centuries. They still have several beehives there. Walking further, there are many statues, including a model for the Statue of Liberty! That was cool to see. There was also a huge playground and a carousel. In some parts of the garden, the trees were in random places, which is a little weird for a French garden, but they were pretty trees and so huge! And they bent in really cool ways.

In the middle of the garden is a big pond and a lot of grass. Surrounding these are twenty statues of queens of France. I loved the statues! (I wished we'd spent more time there, but we kind of rushed through it because the girl Paris and I were with was one of those get-'er-done types of people, which isn't a bad thing, but we just went really fast.) The statues were all done in a classical style, and each one was so unique. At one end of the pond was the palace where some of the royals lived, including Marie de Medicis. The French Senate meets there now (which is funny, because there really wasn't that much security around the building when we went). One of the coolest parts of this part of the garden were the flowers. There were so many tulips and pansies all over! (And other types of flowers, I just don't know what they were called...) On one side of the palace was a cool fountain Marie de Medicis had put in for fun with some classical statues. There was also a monument to all the students who died in the French Revolution.

Next to the palace was an orangerie, where they grew orange trees. They use it as an art gallery in the summer, but I'm not sure what they were using it for when we went.

After that walk, we decided to do ANOTHER walk. Two walks in one day! lol. Like I said, we were moving fast. :)

In this next walk, we went past two of the biggest (and most expensive!) stores in Paris- Printemps and La Gallerie Lafayette. Those stores...are insane. We were looking at the bags they had in the store windows, and some of them were 4,000 euros! Who would spend that much on a purse? Honestly... Even if it is hot pink.

Then we went to the Paris Opera House. It was pretty cool looking. We were going to go inside and do a tour, but the auditorium was closed for a rehearsal, so we decided we'd come back and do the tour another time, because the auditorium is the main attraction in the opera house anyway.

After deciding not to go on a tour, we trekked down Rue de la Paix, one of the most expensive shopping streets ever! Not gonna lie, the shops had some pretty weird styles in their windows. But it was fun to walk down and see things some people thought were pretty.

We stepped into a cool church that wasn't talked about on our walk. I think it was a really old Gothic church, but Louis XIV changed it a bit when he was king. It was cool, because it had some red stone in the architecture. Also, behind the altar was a stone nativity that was really beautiful. The coolest thing about this, though, was that in a little chapel behind the nativity was an image of Christ on the cross. (I can't remember if it was stone or a painting.) If you were right in front of the nativity, you could see the picture of Christ on the cross right above the Nativity. I think at Christmas time (and all the time) that would be a good reminder of Christ's purpose on Earth and why we really celebrate Christmas.

We ended that walk at Place Vendome, where a huge column commemorates Napoleon's victory over Austria. Austrian cannons were melted down to make the column. On top was a statue of Napoleon dressed like a Roman emperor. It was pretty cool, I guess. lol. A little further down was a golden statue of Jeanne d'Arc (which Paris and I actually saw a couple days ago when we were at the Tuileries).

We parted ways with the other girl in our group after the walk. We were going to do some shopping and she was going to get Thai food with a bunch of people from the group. (Paris isn't a big fan of Thai food, so we opted out.) I found a cute pink shirt and a cute purse, and Paris found the most awesome shirt ever that said "I am Paris" on the front. lol. She HAD to get it. It was perfect. lol.

But we didn't want to just go home when we were done shopping. We walked back through the Tuileries and decided to have dinner at a little cafe in the gardens. It's not everyday that you can eat dinner in front of a huge collection of neo-classical statues and the Louvre!

After that, we just started walking. We walked up the Champs Elysee, almost until we got to the Arc d'Triomphe, then we turned and headed for the Tour Eiffel. It didn't look like it was that far away. lol. And I guess it wasn't. Only like, an hour and a half walk. :) lol. The Eiffel Tower is huge. Much bigger than it looks in pictures and the movies. And you always forget how big it is when you see it from somewhere else in the city. You look up and think, "Oh, look! The Eiffel Tower is really close by!" but my friends, it probably isn't close by. lol. We walked up the Seine for a while, found a model of the flame of the Statue of Liberty that is supposed to be a symbol of the friendship between the U.S. and France. We passed this huge building whose wall was one huge planter box! That was way cool. lol. It had plants growing sideways out of it, covering every inch of the wall.

We finally made it to the Champs Elysee, where there was a brass band playing right by the Tour Eiffel! It was cool. lol. It looked and sounded like a high school band from the States. And they even played "When the Saints Go Marching in" and songs like that. And there was an adorable little kid standing in the front of the crowd dancing to it. lol. He was SOOOO cute! :)

Then we went home, ate dinner and fell asleep. lol. We were so dead from all that walking!

Saturday was a little more laid-back. We went to class (almost late again, as neither of us got up to go running.... Oops!) Then we walked to the square in front of Hotel de Ville, where we found a huge event going on. I didn't really understand what it was, but something about European unity or something. There was another big band playing there. They played YMCA. lol. That was cool.

From there, we hopped on the Metro to head out to Saint Denis to see the basilica, which is pretty much the first Gothic church ever. We grabbed some sandwiches on our way out of the Metro. (We eat sandwiches for lunch ALL the time here, because a lot of cafes will give you a nice deal of a sandwich, drink, and dessert for six euros.) I got a beignet for my dessert, which was pretty yummy. Although, I have to say the beignets on Princess and the Frog look so much more tasty. The powdered sugar on top pretty much glows in the movie.... Mine only had a little powdered sugar on it. But like I said, it was yummy. It tasted like my favorite kind of donut, because it had chocolate pudding inside. The custard-filled donuts are my favorite!!!

While we ate, we sat next to the basilica. There was a little merry-go-round right next to where we were in the square in front of the basilica. It was funny... for a couple reasons. One, because it played Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" for a children's ride, and second it played Lady Gaga in front of a Gothic church.... It played a couple French children's songs (the kind that say the same thing over and over and get stuck in your head so fast!) some nice Byonce (which I say in a sarcastic tone) and "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" in French. lol. The last one was cool.

While we waited for a tour of the basilica, we went to check out the shops on one of the main streets of St. Denis. Now, Paris and I had already told ourselves NO MORE SHOPPING THIS WEEK (unless she found a cool bag, because she needed one) because we'd already shopped a ton. This was definitely not a good place to go after making that deal... because it was pretty much bargain-shopper's heaven! There was one store whose jeans were all 10 euros! (That's only $13!) And another store where every purse was 10 euros, and there were a lot of really cool purses. Some of the purses were huge too! You'd have to pay $20-30 for one of those in the states, usually. Unfortunately I'd just bought a purse, or I would have gotten one. I practiced at least some self control. lol. At least until we got to the place with 10 euro jeans. And then I caved. And I almost bought a couple shirts there too, because they were under 10 euros and there were some really cute ones that I loved. But I refrained! And just bought some jeans. :) Another pair of skinny jeans, which Jeff will probably hate because he thinks those kinda of jeans are ugly, but I thought they were cute and I didn't want to stick out so much here in France, because everybody wears skinny jeans and skinny pants. Flare and bootcut are just so out of style in most cases here in Paris.

Then we went on the tour of the church. It's a really cool church! Besides being the oldest example of Gothic architecture, it's the burial place of several kings of France. Including Pippin the Short, who is actually one of my ancestors! Cool, huh? I got to see where some of my ancestors were buried! :) Henry the II is one of my ancestors, too, and he was buried there. This is also the final resting place of Louis XIV and all of his family, as well as Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. (I always thought that they were tossed into a mass grave, and that was the end of it, but I guess somebody found the bodies and kept them until after the Revolution and then buried them. They were moved to St. Denis in the 1800s.)

Some of the monuments to the kings and queens were pretty cool. Each one has a statue of the dead person on top of the tomb, laying down with their feet resting on lions. (Why their feet were on lions, I'm not exactly sure.) Some kings were really old! They went back to before Charlemagne (which probably means they're more of my ancestors...lol. But I'm not really sure.) Then there were some that were kind of weird. They had three or four huge tombs that kind of looked like four-post beds (although, they had Greek columns instead of posts...) On the sides of the beds were battle scenes, and usually four large statues of random women were at the corners. The weird part about these tombs were...they showed the king and queen dead in kind of weird, contorted positions...and they didn't have clothes on. I thought that very strange in a church and decided that I would definitely never want to have a tomb like that built... Awkward. I decided it might be a reference to their being among the good people who will be returned to a state of innocence like Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden, because that's what the people believed would happen to the good people who died. I dunno, though. It was weird... On top of the roof (I guess you could call it) of the tombs were the queen and king dressed in really fine clothing kneeling in confession. A couple of the kings had two tombs- one of them lying next to the queen in very fine clothes like all the rest of the people buried there, and then another of the weird clothes-less ones. I'm not sure why someone would want to have two tombs, but whatever. Just take up all the space so someone else has to have a smaller tomb, I guess.

In the crypt (which is where Louid XIV and everybody else was) there was a place where a couple children of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI's children were buried. For some reason, the heart was removed from one of the sons and put on display in a crystal case. That was pretty gross, not gonna lie. Outside of the place where all Louis XIV's family was buried (minus Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI), there was a room filled with wooden coffins. They weren't even put into the wall or covered with a stone sarcophagus! Just the wooden coffins sitting there (some of the little ones stacked on top of the bigger ones). It was kind of creepy... Anyway, this was were other princes were put. (I guess I can't really say buried, because technically they're not buried.) There was a shelf behind them with a bunch of boxes and jars holding all of the princes' hearts. I don't really know why they removed their hearts and put them in separate boxes when they died. That just seems really weird to me. I mean, I've heard of that happening with some people (like Robert the Bruce) but that happened several centuries before. These princes whose hearts were removed and put in jars were from the 1700s...

It was also cool to see Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI's graves. The graves were completed in the 1970s, so they're very new looking. Each is just a plain slab of black marble with their names etched in gold on the top.

So...the tour was in French. And the lady spoke insanely fast! Paris and I tried to follow, and we did for a while, but after about an hour we gave up. lol. I was really only catching names and a few random words. I think she was using a lot of vocabulary I'm not familiar with, which is why it was so hard. (That, and she was seriously speaking 10,000 words per minute.) We just walked around the cathedral and took pictures after breaking off from the group.

On our way back to the Metro, this guy came up to us and started hitting on Paris. (Heeheehee!)

Guy: "Vous etes charmante!" (You're charming!)

Paris: "Quoi?" (What?)

Guy: "Vous etes charmante! Est-ce que vous voulez aller pour cafe?" (You're charming! Do you want to go out for coffee?)

Paris: "Non, nous avons un rendez-vous avec des amis a Paris ce soir..." (No, we have a date with some friends in Paris tonight.)

We weren't really meeting up with friends in Paris...but that's ok. lol. He was good looking, though. lol. Too bad we don't drink coffee and too bad that St. Denis has a bad reputation after dark... The guy was probably a creeper.

Then we came home, I took a test and finished reading for Monday, and went to bed.

Sunday! Yay, I'm almost caught up! Church was so difficult this morning! lol. I was really tired and really hungry (because we were late, so I grabbed the cake and crepe to go). It was pretty hard to concentrate. I understood what was going on for the first part of our combined Relief Society and Priesthood meeting, though. But the meeting went for an hour and a half! We had to skip Sunday School, it went so long. lol. (Or maybe they were planning on doing that, I'm not sure.)

Then in Sacrament meeting, an African woman and her two young daughters sat next to us. They were SO cute, and not very quiet. lol. Needless to say, I had a bit of trouble staying focused in Sacrament meeting.... Part of the reason I liked listening to them was because I could actually understand them! lol. They used nice, easy phrases that I could understand. I told Paris that next week, we should go to Primary. lol. That seemed like the funner place to be than Sunday School and Relief Society. (I know that's bad, but...honestly, French children are so cute!) One of the girls wiped her hands on my skirt, though (accidentally). lol. So I had cookie crumbs all over my skirt. The older girl (I think she was four or five) kept telling her mom over and over that her mom's scarf was pretty. It was so precious. :) And then she kept pushing her little sister off of the chair saying, "Non! C'est ma chaise!" even though she wasn't actually sitting in it. When her mom told her to sit down she said, "Pourquoi?" Sigh. Oh, man. So adorable! :D It was ward conference for them, so they were sustaining everybody, and every time after the sustaining, the older girl would say, "Maman, j'ai leve la main!" (Mom, I raised my hand!)

After church, I came home and talked to my family and then took a nap. lol. We had dinner at 8 p.m. Tonight we used the reclette. (Is that the word?) It's a little grill you put in the middle of the table and cook stuff on. You can also warm stuff up underneath the grill too in little cups. We had something that was kind of like bacon and a couple different kinds of ham, as well as cheese (the kind that I'm sure is the cause of that horrid smell we run into on the way to the Metro every day when we walk past the cheese shop) and potatoes. After that we had this weird purple cabbage stuff that tasted really strongly of vinegar. And when I say purple, I mean purple. That stuff was the brightest purple I've ever seen in a food. It couldn't have been real. I haven't seen crayons that bright. lol. It wasn't too bad... But it reminded me of Evan and Mikayla, because she'd always call him "Mon chou" and chou means cabbage in French. For dessert we had strawberries and cooked apples with cinnamon. They were soooo delicious!

Well, it looks like Saint Sulpice is on the docket for tomorrow. Not really sure what that walk will be about, but we'll see! And then we're going to Family Home Evening with the young single adults in the ward.