TGV

On Thursday, after dropping off our extra luggage at the directors apartment, the BYU group went to Gare de Lyon to catch a TGV to Aix-en-Provence. We were a little worried that we wouldn't be able to leave Paris for our week vacation in the south because of the rumors we had heard that the student riots were threatening to effect the train systems. But luckily we didn't have any train problems until Avignon, where it was announced that the next train station had incurred a small fire and we would have to travel to Marseille and take a bus back to our hotel in center Aix.

This is a picture of Becky and I on the TGV (the wicked fast train, traveling over 300 km per hour I think...). Boy will I miss those baguette sandwiches.

Family Photo

Jennifer and I finally got a picture of the two of us with Madame de Boudemange. We took the picture after our last night at dinner and had to set up a timer on the camera, which was placed on top of an antique library ladder she had found at a flea market. Madame thought we were very silly girls, but she told us that she loved having us in her home this semester.

Springtime This Way

Living in Le Pecq was wonderful, especially since our apartment was located on Rue de Printemps. Unfortunately the name didn't help any during the semester until the last week that we were in Paris.

Last Sunday

We had our last Sunday with the St. Quentin branch and took a lot of pictures. The members here have all been really nice to us, and we have had greater opportunities to be involved and learn than those students who went to the ward. I will miss attending church in France. I felt like I always learned so much more on Sundays.

This was a picture of Melanie, Becky, and I with the branch Relief Society.

Restitution of PDiddy

On Tuesday, after a failed attempt to logon to a McDonald’s WiFi (Refreshments of McNuggets and Petite Frite purchased. For future reference, the BBQ sauce here is really good.) we went to Chez Clément for a luncheon payed for by a friend of Jennifer. This friend brought her niece to Paris for a week in her senior year of high school from Tulsa, OK to check out Paris for a potential study abroad opportunity in college, and wanted to know our opinion. This lady is a friend of Jennifer’s aunt, with whom we verified the information with before having the meeting (Don’t worry, mom). I entirely recommend Chez Clément, located just down a side street from the fountaine at Saint Michel, for a fantabulous meal well worth whatever Jennifer’s friend paid for it.

We were served by Clément himself, who surprised by my ability to speak French when surrounded by Oklahomans (except Jennifer of course, who also spoke French), called me “petite fille française” and some other nickname which I only understood to be a synonym that meant something like “the ambassador for the tourist table.” The meal was filling and beautiful prepared. We spent the rest of the afternoon digesting and trying to connect to life as is known on computers.

When we returned to a dark apartment in Le Pecq for our scheduled dinner with Madame, we found a note explaining that she was called away unexpectedly to take care of her grandkids and that dinner was ready for us in the kitchen. A frightening thought, as the last time this happened we ate only peas. There was a similar course waiting for us, but slightly better and with a great surprise. Lentils and hard boiled eggs for the entrée; a pumpkin purée, that was actually quite good, for the main course; bread and goat cheese with raisins, coconut, and mango mixed in; and get this… chocolate éclairs for dessert. Oh it was beautiful, though we had to take a few minutes to process the additional food to an already satisfied stomach before allowing ourselves the time to fully appreciate a French éclair.

The combination of a better plat principal and a heavenly dessert, totally rectify the historic Pdiddy fiasco.

The Crypt

On Monday, I gave a presentation for my Christian History religion class on Voltaire and Rousseau. Both were deists, meaning in short that they believed that God was like a watchmaker, who made the perfect world clock and then wound it up and let it run. Their philosophical religious ideas played into politics as well and had a great impact on the French Revolution, which in turn destroyed the foundations of church in France at the time and connections between church and state (also a deist view). Anyway… dispensing with the lecture, after my presentation a group of us went to the Pantheon (which you can get in free with a history of art student card) and saw the tombs of both Voltaire and Rousseau.

What We Left in Copenhagen to Return to

Yes, that's frozen ocean ...

Paris pretending to be warm...

The Baxters

Back Row: Samuel, Clive, Andreas

Front: Jennifer, Annette, Rebecca

(David 14 year old son not included... in England)

A Temple in Denmark

The Copenhagen Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

(Sadly, closed for renovations and cleaning the week we were there!)

Vikings are wicked cool!

We visited a museum that portrayed Viking life in Denmark through the five ruin ships that were found in a blockade on the coast of Denmark. The remnants of the ships were pieced together and displayed with estimated historic value. The best part about the museum, though, (besides the fact that Vikings, despite their pillaging and wild ways, are awesome) was that the museum included a kids portion with dress up clothes and model Viking ships. We took the opportunity to be childish and boorish to pose for a picture.

Hej Sveden

Yes, I'm waving to Sweden at Hamlet's Castle, just like the Danish Flag!

I’m a Danish Princess too!

The second day we were in Denmark, Annette drove us around to see the different castles in the outlying areas of Denmark. We say Frederiksburg surrounded by water, with the queen’s chapel containing amazing pictures of Christ’s life; and Hamlet’s castle, where Hamlet of Shakespeare supposedly lived, just across the way from Sweden. I bet you can guess where all the cannon’s were pointing towards at Hamlet’s castle.

To Be Or Not To Be… What was the question again?

Hamlet's Castle

“Is” Please

Like I said, Copenhagen was cold! But we did brave the winds in order to see the statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid. Everyone repeated reminded us that she is a LITTLE mermaid. I would venture to add a cold one from the looks of it… Can’t really imagine Ariel sitting comfortably in that environment.



(Is in Danish means Ice Cream, and there actually isn’t any word for please just a long phrase that you have to change depending on what you say. But Andreas said he mixed English and Danish sometimes… and that was a more common team. We actually got to take a Danish class to learn the alphabet, which has several different pronunciations of O and U which can change a word to so many strikingly different meanings. Andreas made sure to teach me how to say Jeg er igge fjourten, but that’s a long story that’s too embarrassing to put on a blog.)

Check... Check

I had two main goals for the trip to Copenhagen, and that was to eat a Danish pastry and to eat a Danish hotdog (Is anyone surprised that my goals involved food?). Luckily I was able to conquer these gastronomical obstacles the first day! The hot dog was cheap and tasty from a little side stand. The frank was red and had a thick skin. The pastry, though bought at a 7-11 (Yes, to be found everywhere in Denmark), was heavenly.

Amazing Grace

Our first day in Copenhagen was spent wandering around the inner city with flurries of snow drifting down from the cold blue sky. We were slightly jealous of the other BYU students who had chosen to go to Italy during this break, until we stopped at the Church of Our Lady where we found the original Kristus, twelve apostles, and our own private organ recital (organist on the far right in the photo). With bright walls and peaceful music, I could have stayed in the building all day (especially since it wasn't the Mediterranean waiting outside for us).

Copenhagen

During this three month semester abroad, the students were given one long weekend with no classes to travel wherever they want. As most students were going to Rome, and we didn’t wish to look like a large group of American tourists; Jennifer, Kerrie, and I decided to go to Denmark to visit family friends of Jennifer’s. The Baxters (Clive, Annette, Andreas, Samuel, David, and Rebecca) live in a village called Herringlose (sounds like hang loose in Danish) about 25 minutes outside of Copenhagen. On our drive to their house, we passed fields with large mounds of dirt, which are actually Viking burial grounds, noted by their stones shaped like a boat. When Vikings buried a nobleman, they would put him in his boat, kill his horses to be buried with him in the boat, add any other jewels or possessions, and cover the grave with a large amount of dirt.

My Trip to Denmark

If you look really close, you can see that the Danish Kroner is about 7 Kroner per Euro, making a large bag of Snickers 28,00.

Double Takes

Our running joke is that our second glances go not to the Metrosexual Frenchmen, but rather to the window panes of Patiseries. It's no wonder the French call window shopping lèche vitrine.

Yet Another Beauty of Paris

I give all the credit to the new tie I bought myself... that and the wind machine

On The Street Where I'ld Live

Hey hey! That's the street for me... actually it was really small and didn't look at all like where I would imagine a booming Paris party would be taking place.

Workin' the Quai

Jennifer and I workin' the quai on a Paris ghetto walk. Pretty sure we got a couple car honks that day, and we're betting that it had something to do with our beautiful pores...

Paris Workout is More Like it!

On Friday Melanie, Jennifer, and I did yet another Paris Walk entitled "Topography of Paris." We started out visiting one of the ghetto-est looking areas of the city, but with some beautiful bridges and quais, but the rest of the walk was uphill. We walked through the Muslim block, then straight to the Chinatown like block seperated only by a crosswalk. After having possible the workout of all Paris walks, we ended in a sort of Central Park in Paris. What an amazing, awe inspiring view! The park is composed of cliffs and this lake with pertruding rock mountain. Not sure what the gazebo like structure is, but the whole thing reminded me of Lord of the Rings. In the distance, to the left side of the lake mountain, you can see Sacre Coeur.

French Facials

Hmmm... mimes, I think not. H&M had some self-warming facials on sale, which our pores enjoyed Thursday evening.

Group Picture

Actually taken on our bus trip, but I thought I would include it now... a picture of the BYU Winter Semester Paris Study Abroad Group. Jeff (the only guy student in the group, center) is one very lucky young man to be with such beautiful ladies for three months!

Typical Postcard

Probably the most taken picture on the towers of Notre Dame... a typical postcard taken by me.

My Ascension atop Notre Dame

Monday after our Christian History class, a group of us decided to go up the towers of Notre Dame. As students in Europe, we are very fortunate to have cards that give free access to most museums and as we heard rumor, the towers of Notre Dame as well. One of the girls noticed a sign that said to buy tickets inside. Thinking that meant inside the cathedral, and not wanting to get in line and up to the ticket counter only to realize that our cards didn’t work, Melanie and I went inside to verify.

I walked up to the little booth inside the cathedral where crosses, candles, and souvenirs are sold and before posing the question, I turned to Melanie and asked if the verb for going up the towers is ascendre (Descendre would be the opposite, to go down the towers or get off a train). Anyway… Melanie nodded and I proceeded to the counter to pose my question, Excusez-moi, Madame. Nous voudrions ascendre les tours, et nous avons ces cartes d’étudiant…Before I could pass on, the lady kindly pointed out that ascendre is not a word, the verb does not exist, but rather one would monter les tours. Thanks, French 101, that was silly. Either way, I took a picture of my ascension as it were at the top of the towers at Notre Dame that sunny Monday afternoon.

Souviens-Toi

The final stop of our week long bus trip was to the memorial site of Oradour-Sur-Glane, a village destroyed by Nazi massacre. June 1944, the small village was surrounded by Nazi troops, villagers were gathered in the center of town, and separated by gender and age to be executed. The town was then ransacked and demolished, and later another troop came in to ensure that none of the bodies could be identifiable. Over 640 people were killed that day without reason, a third of which were children. The town left in desolation, was unable to mourn properly as nothing remained to complete the grieving process. The ruins of the village were left relatively untouched as a memorial to the tragedy, and today in 2006 groups of university students can walk through the rain and hail to mourn with the French.

Castle Valley

The Loire Valley slightly resembles my former temporary home of Southeast Idaho, except its heck of a lot cooler with random castles spotting the green hills. My favorite valley of this trip and probably of all France is the Dordogne Valley, with castles stemming out of cliffs and purposely placed mansions cascading towards the river at the base of the valley. There was a stunning view from one particular castle which we took a break to park next to, take a group picture, and do some gymnastics on the grass.

Homo Sapious Sapiens

The prehistoric part of our tour included a tour of Lascaux II caves and cave paintings, a museum tour in Les Eyzies, and cave tour en français at Perl-Meche with awe inspiring stalactites and cave paintings. We talked about the theories on evolution and the artistic effort that went into the cave paintings. The artists had to have been really good, as the paintings were done by sculpting into the cavernous rock for a three dimensional effect, and then painting. On rock you only get one shot, there’s no erasing or painting over colors.