*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.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
♪ I want to wander through the Saint-Honore ♫
This morning didn't start off so great. Haha. It started off getting sick after running. Fun! :)
After that, I went back to bed for at least an hour...and got up LATE! So we were rushing to eat and get out the door, only to realize we were not late. In fact, we were some of the first people there from our class....
Then we went on one of our walks. It was a really cool one! Because, first off, we passed the stamp market where Audrey Hepburn discovers where the money is in Charade! The million-dollar stamps! I saw the place!
Then we went and saw the British embassy and the American embassy the place where the French president lives, where Napoleon used to live. It was pretty cool, but you could only see the outside. They don't let people inside...
After that, we went and saw a bunch of stores and stuff at the Saint Honore. That was pretty cool, although everything in these stores is WAY too expensive.... Oh, man!
Saint Honore led us to Place de la Concorde, where the infamous guillotine was erected during La Terreur. That was where the last of the French monarchs, Louis XVI, was decapitated. They didn't even have a plaque saying that that was the place the last king was killed! Strange, non? All they had there was Napoleon's obelisk from Egypt and two fountains with THE weirdest mermaids I have ever seen. Not that the obelisk isn't cool, it is, but...decapitating Louis XVI was a pretty big event in French history. You don't overthrow a king every day... Well, unless you're a 19th-century Frenchman, but that was later....
We then took a stroll through Les Jardins Tuileries, the royal gardens next to the Louvre. Gorgeous! There are statues EVERYWHERE! Holy cow.... In Tuileries, they're mostly Greek gods and heroes, and they're scattered all over the huge gardens. French gardens are cool, because the trees are all in rows. It seemed a little weird at first, but I've decided that I love it!
After wandering through the gardens looking for a museum inside it with bad directions from whoever wrote our walks book, we ended up at the Louvre and decided to check it out. THERE ARE SO MANY STATUES ON THAT BUILDING! They were all so beautiful... I loved it. I wonder how many statues there were. I need to look that up somewhere... The other thing about the Louvre is that you never realize how big it is until you actually visit it. Yeah, it looks big in pictures, but that thing is massive when you're standing in the courtyard on one end and it takes you ten minutes to walk to the other side of the building. I can't even describe how huge that place is. You'll just have to go there and experience it. We forgot the little museum we were looking for and just drank in the grandeur of the Louvre for a while. We didn't go inside, because that's planned for another day. I think you could almost spend as much time looking around outside the Louvre as you could inside, though.
After that, we finally found the Musee de l'Orangerie, a museum that houses original Monet paintings of waterlilies. They were pretty. :) I liked them. Although the other parts of the museum (except for some weird painter from the early 1900s) were closed because of a strike, so we didn't stay there very long.
From the museum, we went back to Saint Michel (Latin Quarter) where we went to a souvenir shop that we saw a couple days ago. I'd seen a scarf there that I absolutely fell in love with...but I didn't buy it. So we went back and Paris bought a really cute rain coat and I bought my scarf. :D And I am officially happy. It's so pretty.... :) Heehee.
From there, we took the Metro to the Auber station, where they were having a huge, free concert in the station! That was cool. lol. A lot of bands tried out for this event, so the music was pretty good. And funny enough, they all sang in English! Well, there were a couple French songs. And it was funny, because all the participants were French, but when they sang, they sang in perfect US accents. lol. All the groups were really different too, which was neat.
After that, we went to have dinner. We found a little brasserie and order steak, chicken, and French fries. :) And it was one of the most delicious dinners ever! (Partially because we had been walking all day long.) I loved my steak! They cooked it exactly the way I like it- medium rare. Yum. :) The French definitely know how to make a good steak. We were a little confused about how to pay, though. lol. I think you're supposed to go to the bar counter with your receipt and pay there....but I'm still not sure. Anyway, they're nice to tourists, especially those who try to speak French. The only thing I didn't really like about the place was....a huge mouse ran across the corner of the room a little ways behind us. That...was kinda strange. And one lady who worked there told me not to be afraid of it. We were almost done with our meals by that time, so I didn't really worry about it. Except, it looked like a nice-ish restaurant (at least as far as brasseries go). Almost all of them have open doors on one side, though, so it wouldn't be that hard for a mouse to get in.
After that, I went back to bed for at least an hour...and got up LATE! So we were rushing to eat and get out the door, only to realize we were not late. In fact, we were some of the first people there from our class....
Then we went on one of our walks. It was a really cool one! Because, first off, we passed the stamp market where Audrey Hepburn discovers where the money is in Charade! The million-dollar stamps! I saw the place!
Then we went and saw the British embassy and the American embassy the place where the French president lives, where Napoleon used to live. It was pretty cool, but you could only see the outside. They don't let people inside...
After that, we went and saw a bunch of stores and stuff at the Saint Honore. That was pretty cool, although everything in these stores is WAY too expensive.... Oh, man!
Saint Honore led us to Place de la Concorde, where the infamous guillotine was erected during La Terreur. That was where the last of the French monarchs, Louis XVI, was decapitated. They didn't even have a plaque saying that that was the place the last king was killed! Strange, non? All they had there was Napoleon's obelisk from Egypt and two fountains with THE weirdest mermaids I have ever seen. Not that the obelisk isn't cool, it is, but...decapitating Louis XVI was a pretty big event in French history. You don't overthrow a king every day... Well, unless you're a 19th-century Frenchman, but that was later....
We then took a stroll through Les Jardins Tuileries, the royal gardens next to the Louvre. Gorgeous! There are statues EVERYWHERE! Holy cow.... In Tuileries, they're mostly Greek gods and heroes, and they're scattered all over the huge gardens. French gardens are cool, because the trees are all in rows. It seemed a little weird at first, but I've decided that I love it!
After wandering through the gardens looking for a museum inside it with bad directions from whoever wrote our walks book, we ended up at the Louvre and decided to check it out. THERE ARE SO MANY STATUES ON THAT BUILDING! They were all so beautiful... I loved it. I wonder how many statues there were. I need to look that up somewhere... The other thing about the Louvre is that you never realize how big it is until you actually visit it. Yeah, it looks big in pictures, but that thing is massive when you're standing in the courtyard on one end and it takes you ten minutes to walk to the other side of the building. I can't even describe how huge that place is. You'll just have to go there and experience it. We forgot the little museum we were looking for and just drank in the grandeur of the Louvre for a while. We didn't go inside, because that's planned for another day. I think you could almost spend as much time looking around outside the Louvre as you could inside, though.
After that, we finally found the Musee de l'Orangerie, a museum that houses original Monet paintings of waterlilies. They were pretty. :) I liked them. Although the other parts of the museum (except for some weird painter from the early 1900s) were closed because of a strike, so we didn't stay there very long.
From the museum, we went back to Saint Michel (Latin Quarter) where we went to a souvenir shop that we saw a couple days ago. I'd seen a scarf there that I absolutely fell in love with...but I didn't buy it. So we went back and Paris bought a really cute rain coat and I bought my scarf. :D And I am officially happy. It's so pretty.... :) Heehee.
From there, we took the Metro to the Auber station, where they were having a huge, free concert in the station! That was cool. lol. A lot of bands tried out for this event, so the music was pretty good. And funny enough, they all sang in English! Well, there were a couple French songs. And it was funny, because all the participants were French, but when they sang, they sang in perfect US accents. lol. All the groups were really different too, which was neat.
After that, we went to have dinner. We found a little brasserie and order steak, chicken, and French fries. :) And it was one of the most delicious dinners ever! (Partially because we had been walking all day long.) I loved my steak! They cooked it exactly the way I like it- medium rare. Yum. :) The French definitely know how to make a good steak. We were a little confused about how to pay, though. lol. I think you're supposed to go to the bar counter with your receipt and pay there....but I'm still not sure. Anyway, they're nice to tourists, especially those who try to speak French. The only thing I didn't really like about the place was....a huge mouse ran across the corner of the room a little ways behind us. That...was kinda strange. And one lady who worked there told me not to be afraid of it. We were almost done with our meals by that time, so I didn't really worry about it. Except, it looked like a nice-ish restaurant (at least as far as brasseries go). Almost all of them have open doors on one side, though, so it wouldn't be that hard for a mouse to get in.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
"Shopping in Paris! Can you believe it?!"
Okay, not gonna lie. Today, not much happened. Paris and I got up, took our cakes and crepes to go, went to class, followed Mr. Erickson to see where the Petit Palais was, then did one of the required walks for our 445 class. We saw where the French stock market is, one of the national libraries, the home of La Comedie Francaise, the palace gardens, and stuff like that.
La Comedie Francaise is the group that was formed after playwright and actor Moliere died. It was a combination of his group of actors and another group of actors in Paris. (The king combined them.) The theatre we saw was where they were finally stationed in the 1700s. The only thing about the theatre is...Moliere never actually performed there (he had his own theatre nearby that has since been torn down, although many of his descendants are actors in this theatre) and you can't actually go inside unless you buy a ticket and go to play there... From the outside, it's pretty boring. It's in a covered walkway and the door and sign are pretty plain....
The palace gardens were weird. The park on one side was pretty, but not much different from the other parks we've seen, and I like the Champs de Mars better anyway. (I'm just a little prejudiced...) On the other side had a bunch of "controversial" "statues", which I didn't think were very controversial at all, nor did I really think they looked like statues. They were just cylinders of varying sizes with black and white stripes. Controversial.......
Then we walked on and saw some stores that had glass ceilings over the walkways between them. Probably some of the first shopping malls ever, as they've been around since the 1800s.
After that we went back to La Defense to one of the biggest malls I've ever seen! Les Quatre Temps. The metro station exit is in the mall, and it took us forever to find the exit from the mall! Then we decided we wanted to go back in. Oh, la la! There were dozens and dozens and dozens of stores! It's one of those malls that is an avid shopper's heaven. Paris and I found some pretty cute things to buy- Paris got some earrings and a vest, and I got a shirt and earrings. Something funny about French malls (and French stores in general) is that they always play American music. I don't think I've heard more than one or two songs that were French while shopping.
After a couple hours in there, our feet were dying and so were our backs. lol. So after we searched for a while to find the Metro, we finally came to it and rode home. And, Paris decided (and I heartily agreed) that shopping with a backpack is a stupid idea and so not fun. Needless to say, we're not doing that again.
Dinner tonight was much better than last night. lol. We talked about movies and TV shows. Although, Aude was appalled that we didn't know a bunch of American movies and a bunch of American actors that she loved. lol. It's not a surprise that I didn't know them, but I felt a little better that Paris didn't know most of the ones I'd never heard of before either. lol.
I decided that in one way, Jeff would fit in here. I saw a lot of French people today wearing black and brown together! It was so weird! And it wasn't just khaki or tan and black, either. It was chocolate brown and black! With nothing- no black and brown shirt, or belt, or skarf, or anything- to tie them together! And it was stylish people doing it, too! So strange. Cuz I think it looks really funny if it isn't done right and done carefully. *sigh* And therefore, Jeff would fit in perfectly.
One more thing I decided (before I go). I decided that I actually like French bottled water. I hate the taste of bottled water! Always have! I think most of them taste like plastic. And yet...it tastes good here! You can't taste the bottle! I'm not sure why this is... But I like it, especially because there aren't any drinking fountains.
La Comedie Francaise is the group that was formed after playwright and actor Moliere died. It was a combination of his group of actors and another group of actors in Paris. (The king combined them.) The theatre we saw was where they were finally stationed in the 1700s. The only thing about the theatre is...Moliere never actually performed there (he had his own theatre nearby that has since been torn down, although many of his descendants are actors in this theatre) and you can't actually go inside unless you buy a ticket and go to play there... From the outside, it's pretty boring. It's in a covered walkway and the door and sign are pretty plain....
The palace gardens were weird. The park on one side was pretty, but not much different from the other parks we've seen, and I like the Champs de Mars better anyway. (I'm just a little prejudiced...) On the other side had a bunch of "controversial" "statues", which I didn't think were very controversial at all, nor did I really think they looked like statues. They were just cylinders of varying sizes with black and white stripes. Controversial.......
Then we walked on and saw some stores that had glass ceilings over the walkways between them. Probably some of the first shopping malls ever, as they've been around since the 1800s.
After that we went back to La Defense to one of the biggest malls I've ever seen! Les Quatre Temps. The metro station exit is in the mall, and it took us forever to find the exit from the mall! Then we decided we wanted to go back in. Oh, la la! There were dozens and dozens and dozens of stores! It's one of those malls that is an avid shopper's heaven. Paris and I found some pretty cute things to buy- Paris got some earrings and a vest, and I got a shirt and earrings. Something funny about French malls (and French stores in general) is that they always play American music. I don't think I've heard more than one or two songs that were French while shopping.
After a couple hours in there, our feet were dying and so were our backs. lol. So after we searched for a while to find the Metro, we finally came to it and rode home. And, Paris decided (and I heartily agreed) that shopping with a backpack is a stupid idea and so not fun. Needless to say, we're not doing that again.
Dinner tonight was much better than last night. lol. We talked about movies and TV shows. Although, Aude was appalled that we didn't know a bunch of American movies and a bunch of American actors that she loved. lol. It's not a surprise that I didn't know them, but I felt a little better that Paris didn't know most of the ones I'd never heard of before either. lol.
I decided that in one way, Jeff would fit in here. I saw a lot of French people today wearing black and brown together! It was so weird! And it wasn't just khaki or tan and black, either. It was chocolate brown and black! With nothing- no black and brown shirt, or belt, or skarf, or anything- to tie them together! And it was stylish people doing it, too! So strange. Cuz I think it looks really funny if it isn't done right and done carefully. *sigh* And therefore, Jeff would fit in perfectly.
One more thing I decided (before I go). I decided that I actually like French bottled water. I hate the taste of bottled water! Always have! I think most of them taste like plastic. And yet...it tastes good here! You can't taste the bottle! I'm not sure why this is... But I like it, especially because there aren't any drinking fountains.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
♪ Forget where you're from... ♫
Today I woke up to Madame Devarenne singing and sunlight peeking out from behind the curtain across my window, and I thought, "Today is going to be a good day."
And it was! How can a day spent at one of the most famous cathedrals in the world NOT be a good day?
This morning after a quick breakfast and grabbing our packaged cakes and crepes to go, Paris and I headed to Mr. Erickson's apartment to meet the group for an outing to Chartres.
So, I almost became a victim of pickpocketing on the way to the train. Luckily I didn't have anything of too much value in my pocket. (Just the cell phone BYU gave us in case of emergencies, which isn't mine anyway.) We were on the escalator heading for the train, and this older guy was standing in front of me. He had his hand hanging loose by his side, and he kept looking down at it. Then he took a step down on the escalator so he was uncomfortably close to me and he leaned back a little bit. I was watching his hand the whole time, and saw him looking at my pocket. I stepped down one step too to get away from him and glared at him with my, "Get away from me, stupid!" look. He instantly stepped back up to the step he was on and when we neared the top, he walked away very quickly.
The train was so cool! It was a double-decker! And very nice. Much nicer than the Metro. :P Except that we were with the entire class, and there are some people in the group who don't really know the meaning of the word "quiet". Actually, it's more like half the group. lol. I felt bad for the people on the train with us. The French are so much quieter in public than Americans.
So far, I think Chartres is my favorite place I've visited in France. It is gorgeous! It's hard to imagine a bunch of peasants building something so massive! We had an old British tour guide show us around the building, and it was awesome to hear all the stories he knew about the cathedral. It was also cool to hear him talk about the imagery in the stained glass windows. One of my favorite parts was the stone work around the altar. It was so intricate, with many sculptures telling the life of Christ.
Another cool thing about the cathedral was that they were in the process of cleaning every inch of it. And once it has been cleaned, the stone is actually off-white, not gray! It's like that for all of the Gothic cathedrals. The tour guide said that it was funny, because everyone today tries to copy Gothic cathedrals and make them a gray color, but they were originally much lighter and the walls were all painted. (If you go to my album Paris with Paris on Facebook and look at my Chartres pictures, you can see what I'm talking about.) They've only finished a couple of the side chapels and above the altar, and a bit of the outside. They're also cleaning the windows, and the difference between the cleaned and uncleaned is amazing! A cathedral full of cleaned windows wouldn't be that dark and gloomy at all, because the cleaned windows let in so much light!
After the tour of the cathedral, we went exploring in the town of Chartres. It was a cute, little French town. :) Tons of tiny shops and little streets. Last time I went to Europe, I got annoyed every time my dad stopped to take a picture of a cool street or door. But at Chartres, I found myself taking pictures of every cool street we passed! Oh, la la! :) While we were exploring, I bought a little music box that plays "Champs Elysees". :) I love music boxes.
The train ride home was really cool. I loved passing through the French countryside, staring out the window at the fields of bobbing yellow flowers and the wind rippling through seas of green grass. The colors of the French countryside are so vibrant, it takes your breath away.
I decided I want to have a French house when I grow up. It doesn't have to be huge, but with nice pale-yellow walls and a tiled roof. Vines crawling up the sides, lilacs and those other yummy smelling flowers that are all over the place but that I don't know what they are...those would be around the gate and around an arch over the gate that leads to the little path that goes to the house. *sigh* anyway...
Dinner was kind of awkward... I'm not sure why. It was tough. Maybe we just talked about weird stuff that I don't know what to talk about, but... I was struggling and getting very frustrated with the language and trying to not eat offensively and everything else. It's hard eating with them sometimes and having to listen to all of them at once. Maybe they were talking over each other a lot, and that stressed me out or something. I dunno....
It's been so windy here! And I do not like it. The French translation of "Jingle Bells" is "Vivre le vent, vivre le vent, vivre le vent d'hiver" which is basically saying "long live the wind of winter". And I say NON! Le vent doit mourir! :P lol.
fields, houses, cathedral- old guy, stories, cleaning, stone work, passageways, music box, dinner, stories, wind
And it was! How can a day spent at one of the most famous cathedrals in the world NOT be a good day?
This morning after a quick breakfast and grabbing our packaged cakes and crepes to go, Paris and I headed to Mr. Erickson's apartment to meet the group for an outing to Chartres.
So, I almost became a victim of pickpocketing on the way to the train. Luckily I didn't have anything of too much value in my pocket. (Just the cell phone BYU gave us in case of emergencies, which isn't mine anyway.) We were on the escalator heading for the train, and this older guy was standing in front of me. He had his hand hanging loose by his side, and he kept looking down at it. Then he took a step down on the escalator so he was uncomfortably close to me and he leaned back a little bit. I was watching his hand the whole time, and saw him looking at my pocket. I stepped down one step too to get away from him and glared at him with my, "Get away from me, stupid!" look. He instantly stepped back up to the step he was on and when we neared the top, he walked away very quickly.
The train was so cool! It was a double-decker! And very nice. Much nicer than the Metro. :P Except that we were with the entire class, and there are some people in the group who don't really know the meaning of the word "quiet". Actually, it's more like half the group. lol. I felt bad for the people on the train with us. The French are so much quieter in public than Americans.
So far, I think Chartres is my favorite place I've visited in France. It is gorgeous! It's hard to imagine a bunch of peasants building something so massive! We had an old British tour guide show us around the building, and it was awesome to hear all the stories he knew about the cathedral. It was also cool to hear him talk about the imagery in the stained glass windows. One of my favorite parts was the stone work around the altar. It was so intricate, with many sculptures telling the life of Christ.
Another cool thing about the cathedral was that they were in the process of cleaning every inch of it. And once it has been cleaned, the stone is actually off-white, not gray! It's like that for all of the Gothic cathedrals. The tour guide said that it was funny, because everyone today tries to copy Gothic cathedrals and make them a gray color, but they were originally much lighter and the walls were all painted. (If you go to my album Paris with Paris on Facebook and look at my Chartres pictures, you can see what I'm talking about.) They've only finished a couple of the side chapels and above the altar, and a bit of the outside. They're also cleaning the windows, and the difference between the cleaned and uncleaned is amazing! A cathedral full of cleaned windows wouldn't be that dark and gloomy at all, because the cleaned windows let in so much light!
After the tour of the cathedral, we went exploring in the town of Chartres. It was a cute, little French town. :) Tons of tiny shops and little streets. Last time I went to Europe, I got annoyed every time my dad stopped to take a picture of a cool street or door. But at Chartres, I found myself taking pictures of every cool street we passed! Oh, la la! :) While we were exploring, I bought a little music box that plays "Champs Elysees". :) I love music boxes.
The train ride home was really cool. I loved passing through the French countryside, staring out the window at the fields of bobbing yellow flowers and the wind rippling through seas of green grass. The colors of the French countryside are so vibrant, it takes your breath away.
I decided I want to have a French house when I grow up. It doesn't have to be huge, but with nice pale-yellow walls and a tiled roof. Vines crawling up the sides, lilacs and those other yummy smelling flowers that are all over the place but that I don't know what they are...those would be around the gate and around an arch over the gate that leads to the little path that goes to the house. *sigh* anyway...
Dinner was kind of awkward... I'm not sure why. It was tough. Maybe we just talked about weird stuff that I don't know what to talk about, but... I was struggling and getting very frustrated with the language and trying to not eat offensively and everything else. It's hard eating with them sometimes and having to listen to all of them at once. Maybe they were talking over each other a lot, and that stressed me out or something. I dunno....
It's been so windy here! And I do not like it. The French translation of "Jingle Bells" is "Vivre le vent, vivre le vent, vivre le vent d'hiver" which is basically saying "long live the wind of winter". And I say NON! Le vent doit mourir! :P lol.
fields, houses, cathedral- old guy, stories, cleaning, stone work, passageways, music box, dinner, stories, wind
Monday, May 3, 2010
♪ Jazz up the Latin Quarter ♫
drip...drip,drip...drip.....drip........drip,drip,drip......drip,drip..................drip............drip..................................PPPPPPPPOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRR BUCKETS AND BUCKETS...dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdrip...........drip,drip.............drip....... (repeat all morning)
We went to the Latin Quarter today! When I think Latin (and when most everybody else thinks Latin) they think Salsa dancing and red, frilly dresses and guitars and all that. As I learned today, that is not what the Latin Quarter in Paris is. This kind of Latin is togas (or lack thereof) and classical serenity and fascination with elegance and the ancients. Go figure.
Not that that stuff isn't cool, or that I prefer Salsa. I'm just not a huge fan sogginess (which is why I like really crunchy chips, because they don't get soggy so fast).
Anyway...getting off the bad joke, what I'm really trying to say is that it was rainy and cold all day. lol. But Paris and I trudged through, and we saw some really cool things in what used to be (and still kind of is) the center of the arts and revolutionary thinkers in Paris.
The first really cool thing we saw was an old church. I loved it, because there wasn't as many people there as there was at Notre Dame de Paris. Old churches and cathedrals in Europe are so beautiful! I decided that when I grow up and have my dream house, I want ribbed vaulting. It's so cool-looking! And every church has it, as well as some of the palaces. The cool and unique thing about the church we visited today was that it had modern-style stained glass windows with different patterns and designs. Also, pretty much all of the paintings were from the 15th century. They don't look like they've had much preservation work done on them, so they're very faded.
Here's an interesting Liahona article about stained glass windows that we were assigned to read before our train ride to Chartres tomorrow. It's about Chartres, but it's a cool connection to cathedral windows: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=372f3c7842470110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
After that, we walked around the Latin Quarter a lot. We went down some cool streets that have been around since the 1600s! And we passed a lot of window art galleries. We didn't go inside, because you pretty much have to be interested in buying something to go inside. But there was a lot to look at from the windows. Although....I don't think I'd want to go inside, because most of the art I wouldn't care to buy and some of it I would never, ever, ever allow in my home. :/ Scandalous...
It was also in the Latin Quarter that the people sang the songs of angry men a lot, if you catch my drift. The revolution practically started in the cafes and salons of the Latin Quarter! Which reminds me, Paris and I are going to see Les Mis at the Chetelet Theatre our last week in Paris! I think it will be amazing! I'm pretty sure that's marking off something on my bucket list- see Les Mis in Paris.
Then we walked along the Seine... along that famous pathway and under that famous bridge that they always show in all the movies. It would have been so romantic, had it been me and Jeff and Paris and Joe, instead of just me and Paris.
Then we went to the Conciergerie, where there was an ENTIRE hall of ribbed vaulting! It's SO cool! I took a video of it, so when I am finally able to get stuff off my camera, I will totally post it on here. Oh, so the Conciergerie is where the royalty lived before the Louvre became the royal home, which was before Versailles became the royal family home. It doesn't look quite so royal anymore...mostly due to the revolutionaries. (Darn those revolutionists!) This was where Marie Antoinette and Robespierre spent their final days (or hours, in his case). (Robespierre was the one who ordered almost 3,000 people killed by guillotine...and then the people decided he had way to much power, so he lost his head at the guillotine too...ironically.) Louis XVIII built a little chapel in Marie Antoinette's honor where her cell used to be. Therefore, the cell isn't actually there anymore, because half of it is now a chapel. The other half used to be a bathroom. Then they took out the bathroom and made it into a replica of Marie Antoinette's cell.
After the Conciergerie, we went to the Sainte Chappelle! *sigh* C'est jolie! Unfortunately, they were doing a lot of work on the huge windows in the apse of the chapel, so we couldn't see some of the windows. :( But there were still gorgeous windows on all the sides of the chapel! And beautiful painted walls. I took a video of that, too. It's amazing.
After that, we looked at the Palais de Justice (or something like that) which was part of the Conciergerie at one point and is still used as France's Supreme Court building today. (Actually, I'm not sure that there are tons of cases heard in this particular building, but it's still in use.)
When we were going into the Sainte Chappelle (which is inside the Palais de Justice, so we had to go through tons of security) we met a couple from Georgia who we talked to while standing in the freezing cold. lol. They were pretty nice. Definitely your stereotypical American tourist. ;) They just didn't have the fanny packs and American flag shirts. They talked about all the traveling they'd done since their kids left home, and they were amazed that we didn't drink alcohol or tea or coffee or caffeine (because they figured out pretty quickly we were LDS when we said we were from BYU). It was a lot of fun talking to them, although it felt a little weird to be talking to someone other than Paris in English for more than a couple minutes.
After all that, we went home on the Metro, stopped for bread at a boulangerie on the way home (5:00-6:00 is probably the busiest hour at a boulangerie, just FYI) and then ate dinner when we got home. Aude, the Devarennes' daughter, was amazed that we were eating dinner at 6:00 pm! We told her we usually at about that time in the U.S. and she was even more amazed. lol.
After that we talked about *sigh* boys in Paris's room for a long time, then watched part of Pride and Prejudice while the Devarennes ate dinner. (We eat with them on Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and we have to do our own meals all the other nights.)
And.......... I decided that I really miss my shower. :( But that's about it for right now. lol.
Pray for sun in France tomorrow! lol. We miss that too! :)
A demain!
We went to the Latin Quarter today! When I think Latin (and when most everybody else thinks Latin) they think Salsa dancing and red, frilly dresses and guitars and all that. As I learned today, that is not what the Latin Quarter in Paris is. This kind of Latin is togas (or lack thereof) and classical serenity and fascination with elegance and the ancients. Go figure.
Not that that stuff isn't cool, or that I prefer Salsa. I'm just not a huge fan sogginess (which is why I like really crunchy chips, because they don't get soggy so fast).
Anyway...getting off the bad joke, what I'm really trying to say is that it was rainy and cold all day. lol. But Paris and I trudged through, and we saw some really cool things in what used to be (and still kind of is) the center of the arts and revolutionary thinkers in Paris.
The first really cool thing we saw was an old church. I loved it, because there wasn't as many people there as there was at Notre Dame de Paris. Old churches and cathedrals in Europe are so beautiful! I decided that when I grow up and have my dream house, I want ribbed vaulting. It's so cool-looking! And every church has it, as well as some of the palaces. The cool and unique thing about the church we visited today was that it had modern-style stained glass windows with different patterns and designs. Also, pretty much all of the paintings were from the 15th century. They don't look like they've had much preservation work done on them, so they're very faded.
Here's an interesting Liahona article about stained glass windows that we were assigned to read before our train ride to Chartres tomorrow. It's about Chartres, but it's a cool connection to cathedral windows: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=372f3c7842470110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
After that, we walked around the Latin Quarter a lot. We went down some cool streets that have been around since the 1600s! And we passed a lot of window art galleries. We didn't go inside, because you pretty much have to be interested in buying something to go inside. But there was a lot to look at from the windows. Although....I don't think I'd want to go inside, because most of the art I wouldn't care to buy and some of it I would never, ever, ever allow in my home. :/ Scandalous...
It was also in the Latin Quarter that the people sang the songs of angry men a lot, if you catch my drift. The revolution practically started in the cafes and salons of the Latin Quarter! Which reminds me, Paris and I are going to see Les Mis at the Chetelet Theatre our last week in Paris! I think it will be amazing! I'm pretty sure that's marking off something on my bucket list- see Les Mis in Paris.
Then we walked along the Seine... along that famous pathway and under that famous bridge that they always show in all the movies. It would have been so romantic, had it been me and Jeff and Paris and Joe, instead of just me and Paris.
Then we went to the Conciergerie, where there was an ENTIRE hall of ribbed vaulting! It's SO cool! I took a video of it, so when I am finally able to get stuff off my camera, I will totally post it on here. Oh, so the Conciergerie is where the royalty lived before the Louvre became the royal home, which was before Versailles became the royal family home. It doesn't look quite so royal anymore...mostly due to the revolutionaries. (Darn those revolutionists!) This was where Marie Antoinette and Robespierre spent their final days (or hours, in his case). (Robespierre was the one who ordered almost 3,000 people killed by guillotine...and then the people decided he had way to much power, so he lost his head at the guillotine too...ironically.) Louis XVIII built a little chapel in Marie Antoinette's honor where her cell used to be. Therefore, the cell isn't actually there anymore, because half of it is now a chapel. The other half used to be a bathroom. Then they took out the bathroom and made it into a replica of Marie Antoinette's cell.
After the Conciergerie, we went to the Sainte Chappelle! *sigh* C'est jolie! Unfortunately, they were doing a lot of work on the huge windows in the apse of the chapel, so we couldn't see some of the windows. :( But there were still gorgeous windows on all the sides of the chapel! And beautiful painted walls. I took a video of that, too. It's amazing.
After that, we looked at the Palais de Justice (or something like that) which was part of the Conciergerie at one point and is still used as France's Supreme Court building today. (Actually, I'm not sure that there are tons of cases heard in this particular building, but it's still in use.)
When we were going into the Sainte Chappelle (which is inside the Palais de Justice, so we had to go through tons of security) we met a couple from Georgia who we talked to while standing in the freezing cold. lol. They were pretty nice. Definitely your stereotypical American tourist. ;) They just didn't have the fanny packs and American flag shirts. They talked about all the traveling they'd done since their kids left home, and they were amazed that we didn't drink alcohol or tea or coffee or caffeine (because they figured out pretty quickly we were LDS when we said we were from BYU). It was a lot of fun talking to them, although it felt a little weird to be talking to someone other than Paris in English for more than a couple minutes.
After all that, we went home on the Metro, stopped for bread at a boulangerie on the way home (5:00-6:00 is probably the busiest hour at a boulangerie, just FYI) and then ate dinner when we got home. Aude, the Devarennes' daughter, was amazed that we were eating dinner at 6:00 pm! We told her we usually at about that time in the U.S. and she was even more amazed. lol.
After that we talked about *sigh* boys in Paris's room for a long time, then watched part of Pride and Prejudice while the Devarennes ate dinner. (We eat with them on Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and we have to do our own meals all the other nights.)
And.......... I decided that I really miss my shower. :( But that's about it for right now. lol.
Pray for sun in France tomorrow! lol. We miss that too! :)
A demain!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
♫ I'll show you that French joie de vivre! ♫
The days seem so long here when I sit down to write about them. I think it's because, even on days where we're not doing that much, we do a ton!
Today, church was really cool. We started with Relief Society, where one of the counselors (who was from Africa) taught a lesson about Elder Osgulthorpe's (sp?) talk Teaching Saves Lives (or something like that...I can't really remember the exact translation into English). I felt so cool because I didn't need the sister missionaries to translate, and I understood most of what was said! There were some Americans there who had to have translators.
One sister got up and told her story about coming to Paris from Africa, and her journey toward having a family, going to the temple, and surviving poverty in Paris. It was so cool! I didn't understand her as well, because she had a heavier accent, but the Spirit was so strong there! I love the Paris ward's Relief Society.
After that was Sunday School...in which, I must admit, I checked out a little because I was tired and I couldn't hear very well because we were sitting in the back.
Then came Sacrament Meeting, which was pretty cool. Some people were really easy to understand, and some were a little more difficult. But I think it's funny, because some phrases that EVERYBODY uses in bearing testimony in the U.S. are also said in France. And there are people who tell their life stories and people who give thankimonies. It was kinda funny. :)
Oh, and we met Elizabeth Smart. She's one of the sister missionaries in the Paris ward. That was cool, I guess. lol.
After getting home and talking to my family and Jeff on Skype, Paris and I went for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne. It's a huge park in the middle of Boulogne. It's really pretty, although it's a bad part of town at night.
Then while she was talking to people on Skype, I helped Madame Devarenne in the kitchen cooking chicken with a curry and coconut milk sauce, cutting strawberries for dessert, and arranging vegetables on a plate for our first course. Mme Devarenne is one of the funniest people I know! She told me all about her family, how they moved around a ton, and about how she only likes American movies. They have happy endings, she says, unlike European ones. She thanked me for probably ten minutes straight for helping her in the kitchen. lol.
Then we ate dinner, which was really yummy. We started with the vegetables and had some sausage-like stuff. We don't have it in the states. It's like dried meat, but it's not really dry. It's pretty wet. I don't know what they do to it, but it's not cooked, I don't think. It looks kinda gross, but it's not too bad. Apparently it's Monsieur Devarenne's favorite. (And Boby the dog's too.) Then we ate the main course of the chicken and rice, and then we had cheese and bread (essential in France) and then we had strawberries and this weird canned Chinese fruit for dessert. The Chinese fruit was different, but it was pretty good.
We talked a lot with the Devarennes at dinner. It was fun to learn more about them and to tell them more about us. (Although, explaining what my dad does for a living was ten times harder to do in French than in English, and it's pretty hard to do in English!) Mme Devarenne says a lot of random phrases in English sometimes, but with a really French accent which is totally hilarious! Mr. Devarenne is a little quieter and he uses bigger vocabulary sometimes, but he's awesome. He brings us French things, like the flowers and the sausage and a book of cool places to go in France.
So, we found out there's going to be work on the only line that gets us into the city from tomorrow until July. :P That means we take the Metro to where the line stops for construction, run to the next stop, and continue our journey. Although, Madame Devarenne said she's making us a yummy breakfast tomorrow, so we might just be late to class anyway. After all, Prof Erickson said we could miss class if we're spending time with our families or if we're feeling really tired or there's another cultural activity that would help us improve our French better than coming to class. I think we might be taking him up on that tomorrow morning...:)
Today, church was really cool. We started with Relief Society, where one of the counselors (who was from Africa) taught a lesson about Elder Osgulthorpe's (sp?) talk Teaching Saves Lives (or something like that...I can't really remember the exact translation into English). I felt so cool because I didn't need the sister missionaries to translate, and I understood most of what was said! There were some Americans there who had to have translators.
One sister got up and told her story about coming to Paris from Africa, and her journey toward having a family, going to the temple, and surviving poverty in Paris. It was so cool! I didn't understand her as well, because she had a heavier accent, but the Spirit was so strong there! I love the Paris ward's Relief Society.
After that was Sunday School...in which, I must admit, I checked out a little because I was tired and I couldn't hear very well because we were sitting in the back.
Then came Sacrament Meeting, which was pretty cool. Some people were really easy to understand, and some were a little more difficult. But I think it's funny, because some phrases that EVERYBODY uses in bearing testimony in the U.S. are also said in France. And there are people who tell their life stories and people who give thankimonies. It was kinda funny. :)
Oh, and we met Elizabeth Smart. She's one of the sister missionaries in the Paris ward. That was cool, I guess. lol.
After getting home and talking to my family and Jeff on Skype, Paris and I went for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne. It's a huge park in the middle of Boulogne. It's really pretty, although it's a bad part of town at night.
Then while she was talking to people on Skype, I helped Madame Devarenne in the kitchen cooking chicken with a curry and coconut milk sauce, cutting strawberries for dessert, and arranging vegetables on a plate for our first course. Mme Devarenne is one of the funniest people I know! She told me all about her family, how they moved around a ton, and about how she only likes American movies. They have happy endings, she says, unlike European ones. She thanked me for probably ten minutes straight for helping her in the kitchen. lol.
Then we ate dinner, which was really yummy. We started with the vegetables and had some sausage-like stuff. We don't have it in the states. It's like dried meat, but it's not really dry. It's pretty wet. I don't know what they do to it, but it's not cooked, I don't think. It looks kinda gross, but it's not too bad. Apparently it's Monsieur Devarenne's favorite. (And Boby the dog's too.) Then we ate the main course of the chicken and rice, and then we had cheese and bread (essential in France) and then we had strawberries and this weird canned Chinese fruit for dessert. The Chinese fruit was different, but it was pretty good.
We talked a lot with the Devarennes at dinner. It was fun to learn more about them and to tell them more about us. (Although, explaining what my dad does for a living was ten times harder to do in French than in English, and it's pretty hard to do in English!) Mme Devarenne says a lot of random phrases in English sometimes, but with a really French accent which is totally hilarious! Mr. Devarenne is a little quieter and he uses bigger vocabulary sometimes, but he's awesome. He brings us French things, like the flowers and the sausage and a book of cool places to go in France.
So, we found out there's going to be work on the only line that gets us into the city from tomorrow until July. :P That means we take the Metro to where the line stops for construction, run to the next stop, and continue our journey. Although, Madame Devarenne said she's making us a yummy breakfast tomorrow, so we might just be late to class anyway. After all, Prof Erickson said we could miss class if we're spending time with our families or if we're feeling really tired or there's another cultural activity that would help us improve our French better than coming to class. I think we might be taking him up on that tomorrow morning...:)
Saturday, May 1, 2010
♫ 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.
"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.
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