On top of Notre Dame

Saturday, a few of us took a walk around the Latin Quarter of Paris. Then we hiked the stairs to the top of Notre Dame and saw the magnificent view, and one of the great bells of Notre Dame (christened Emmanuel) and went to a neat little park that housed the oldest tree in Paris. Here a a few pictures I took from that lovely excursion.


I went with these two lovely ladies on our walk and up to the top of Notre Dame. Here we are eating our fabulous gyros on the bank of the Seine!


A view from the top. One of many


One of the 25 pictures I took of just the gargoyles. I love that he is just looking out over the city.


On our way to the park after descending from the top of Notre Dame, we came across some roller skate/bladers. They were really cool. This is one of them doing a jump. He's the red blob. He was totally ripped too.

A Walk in the Park

For one of my classes we are required to take walks around Paris. This is actually where most of my photos come from. Here are a few highlights of some I took on one of the walks. This day I actually took 100 photos. These are just the few that would load!


This is a chocolate I bought as part of my class. Life's hard when they recommend you try the chocolates in Paris!!


This is a picture I took from the Jardin des Tuileries. I think I actually took eight, but they just turned out so nice I had to share!!


. . . I think this statue speaks for itself. (yes Cherbear, the statues are talking to me again)

Mardi Gras and Belgium

We had a field trip this week for Mardi Gras. First we stopped a couple places. We went to one church in Amiens that is the biggest church here. It had the relic of John the Baptist's head.



It also had his life's story in pictures, which was quite interesting. Also beautiful stained glass windows



After this, we went to Brugge in Belgium. They have a chocolate museum! Here is a giant chocolate egg!



Statues made of chocolate . . .


It was amazing!
And then we ate at the fabulous italien place. It was so expensive, but so worth it!!

The next day we drove to another church and saw a famous altar piece. I think it was famous because of its incredible detail. It was very beautiful.
Then we went to Gent to see the Mardi Gras parade. They dropped us off at one and told us to be back at seven. I was worried about getting bored, but we walked a lot. These are the costumes of the gille. They are the men that dress up and are in the parade. I went to get some waffles. They were fantastic! There was honey baked onto them and I loved it!
Then we watched the parade. They throw (or hand) oranges to you. Within the first five minutes, one hit me in the head. It was a blood orange too, so it looked like I was bleeding. Considering that, and that I don't really like oranges, it really wasn't the most exciting thing to do. Maybe if I was drunk like everyone else . . .

Then we finished up our trip by going to the Chateau de Chantilly. The lly is not pronounced, but it didn't stop me from having that song stuck in my head the whole time. I even took a picture of Chantilly lace just so I could say I had. Apparently the cousin of Louis XIV owned it, so it bears some similarity to Versailles, though on a much smaller scale (almost everything is on a smaller scale than Versailles, who am I kidding?) We walked around beautiful grounds for a while. It was a little muddy, but not too bad. We really wanted to take pictures in the Temple of Venus, but sadly, the statue was covered.

There was a taxi strike today, so it took a little while to get home because the bus couldn't go down certain streets because they were blocked. But I am happy to sleep in my own bed tonight. The first night in the hotel, I woke up at least every hour if not more because I was afraid that we wouldn't get our wake up call, and in the middle of the night, I turned on the light and told my roommate I thought we were supposed to get up and we didn't get the wake up call. She told me it was three thirty. Sadly, I didn't sleep any better after this. The second night, I was so cold from wandering around during Mardi Gras for six hours (in partial rain, I might add) that I had to get up, get an extra blanket and turn the heat up. I can't sleep if I am too cold. Of course, I was sweating when I woke up, but I slept much better after I was warm.
Well, now I have to do a little homework! And the pictures have stopped loading again. But they are coming! Never fear!

Versailles Ward

We went to our ward for the first time Sunday. It was really good. We left an hour and a half early to get there. Next time, we only need an hour and fifteen minutes. We have to take the train. Then we walk for about twenty minutes. It was freezing! My feet were like ice blocks when we got there. Fortunately the members were quite happy to have us. Two of the girls from our group got up to bear their testimonies. A YSA came up to us afterward and gave us all bises (cheek kisses) and welcomed us to France! It made me laugh thinking about it later, because he was a tall young man, and we were six girls. He invited us to the single sunday school next week.
Then they had a potluck to break the fast. Yeah for french food! I ate a lot.
Then we came home. I really like our ward, and I'm excited to actually start to understand what everyone's saying!

Louvre, Versailles and more

After trying, unsuccessfully, to upload pictures onto my blog about five times, I have decided that so much has happened, that I had better just say everything anyway, and hope the pictures will load later.
We went to the Louvre last Thursday, and absolutely enormous building. Seriously. Walked through the Greek and Roman statues (having a hard time capitalizing anything except people's names and the first word in a sentence because the french DON'T). Have seen a lot of naked statues on my trip, I just have to keep telling myself that they are art. That was cool, except that it took almost as long to get out as in because there is no return to where you came from. Its all in lines, so instead of circling back to where you started, you have to walk essentially the same exact way back. Oh! I couldn't remember why I had so few pictures of the Louvre, but it just came back to me. Right when I pulled my camera out to take a picture of the Mona Lisa, the batteries died. Whoops! But honestly, I don't really like the Mona Lisa.
Venus de Milo wasn't bad though, and she was more beautiful than the other Greek statues. But I'm skinnier. Not sure if that's a good thing or not.
Friday, a group of us went to Versailles. Wow that place is huge! Sadly, sections were closed for renovations, so we were only able to see the royalties chambers. I did see the door that Marie Antoinette escaped out of from rioters. We walked across some of the grounds, but it was really muddy and my feet got really wet. We stopped by a crepe shop on the way home, I think I already talked about that. Dark chocolate syrup. Mmmmm.
Saturday, my roommate and I did one of the "Walks" for our class. We walked past Hotel de Ville, went inside Notre Dame, Crypt du Parvis, but were too late for the Concergerie and Saint Chapelle, which we will have to finish on Thursday after class.
Notre Dame is beautiful. The architecture was amazing, and the windows were beautiful. We went inside while they were having some service relating to the Festival of Charity and the organ and singing sounded wonderful. I know its not my church, but there was definitely a feeling of sacredness there. Thousands of prayers have gone up to heaven within those walls and the Lord has been there for all of them. Of course, the souvenir machines didn't really lend to that feeling.

A day at the museum

The Cluny Museum.
It was originally Roman baths, with hot, cold and tepid water. It was probably used for baths in the Medieval Times as well. There were all sorts of cool things that you couldn't touch (like seats for the priests so they looked like they were standing but weren't really) but the best part, and part of what the museum is known for are the tapestries of the lady of the unicorn. There are six tapestries. I thought that might be a bit much to put on my blog, considering they aren't the best pictures and there was no flash allowed. Though I could probably find them online if I tried. So here is the final tapestry in the series, called My One Desire


This picture is of an ancient backgammon set. Ok, I really just took this picture for my mom, because I knew she'd think it was cool. There is the backgammon board, a few pieces on the right, maybe some dice on the left and chess pieces in the middle.


There are more things to do in France than there is time to do them!!

My Favorite Thing About France

Is . . .

The food. I'll be honest.

The first night here, we went and had crepes at a mall. Nutella and whipped cream. Mmmm. Yesterday, we went to Versailles. Very extravagant. But we stopped at a little restaurant that seriously had like a hundred different ways they could prepare your crepe. I had banane et chocolat noir. Bananas and dark chocolate syrup. That was about as close to heaven as I've been in a long time. I wish we had dark chocolate syrup in the States. Maybe we do, but I've never seen it. Then today, we stopped by this little hole in the wall (no, seriously, you bought the food out of what looked like a booth but it was in the wall) I think it was a Greek cafe. We had a gyro. Oh my goodness, it was fantastic. And I don't like beef. Beef, tomatoes, onions, fries (with the most amazing seasoning on them) and some kind of sauce, a little like ranch, but way better. I have not had a bad meal since I've been here. Even the frozen pizza we bought was good.

France is food heaven.