Eiffel Tipping

Trippy

On Thursday, after a beautiful and sunny trip in Provence, the BYU group returned in three or so hours by TGV to Paris without a problem. I spent the rest of the day as a sluth.

Come to find out, that my flight out of Paris was leaving Friday morning at 0730. This meant that I would need to be at the airport around 0545 to do all the preboarding for an international flight. If I were to take public transportation, I would need to allow myself about an hour to get to the Charles de Gaulle Airport, and even the Metro doesn't recognize those ungodly hours. So when I arrived back in Paris on Thursday I went straight to the director's apartment to find a cheap way to get to the airport. Even an airport shuttle wouldn't wake up in time to get me to my flight. So I helped with group luggage and went to the ETAP Hotel where we had stayed the first night. There at the front desk the receptionist informed me that they could call a taxi ten minutes before I needed to leave.

So around 0510 I went down to the lobby and they called a taxi for me Friday morning. The taxi only took about 15 minutes (much faster than I had anticipated) to drive to the airport, and it coast 40 euro to make the trip. Not exactly a Metro ticket... more like 4. Oh well... The funny part is that CDG doesn't start moving until 0600 and even then it isn't awake. So my flight left a little late from Paris, but made it on time to London.

It was an interesting transition coming back to the states from Paris. I spent the first flight speaking in French, only to realize that no one else was. Not even the flight attendants. So when I got on my flight from London to Chicago, I decided that using a British accent might be easier than going to straight American English. That was fun, even though I'm not very good at it. But once I got to Chicago I didn't know where to go linguistically from there. I kept eavesdropping, trying to figure out what language people were speaking, only to realize that it was ghetto Chicago slang that I hadn't heard in three months or maybe ever.

My flight out ofChicago was late due to some tornado warnings? and the airlines did a test on a potential oil leak in the engine. So when I arrived in Seattle, the last flight out to Sitka had already left and the airlines set me up in a hotel for the night and booked me on the first flight for the next morning. Though I really wanted to be home and dump my luggage, I was shocked to enter a very classy Radisson and find that I was in a room with two cushy queen size beds, a really nice bathroom with a bathtub, and CARPETED floors. It was beautiful goodness. (I'll have to attach a picture later of the room and my exhausted self! I'm pretty sure if we had stayed in a room like that on our trips, my director would have put more than 4 girls in each!)

I finally got into Sitka around 1100 Saturday morning. It's nice to be home again, and I think I'm mostly unpacked. Adjusting to the ways of America and the difference of 10 time zones has been a little tricky though. I'm sure it wont take me too long to get back into the swing of things. That's the sad part.

La Fountaine de Vaucluse

Becky, Jennifer, me, and Melanie at the green source of Fountaine de Vaucluse.

Beach at Cassis

The vacation in Provence was not nearly as structured as our week trip to the Loire Valley. But finals were over, and so we had an excellent excuse to sit back, relax, and enjoy the sun that we hadn't seen for three months.

With that said, the only scheduled trips on the week long trip were on Friday to Avignon, Monday to the beach, Tuesday we went to Vaucluse and Gorde, and Wednesday to Grasse and Cannes. Beautiful, beautiful areas. All had a very Mediterranian feel with lighter colored stuco like buildings and homes and a scent of a fruit and vegetable market. The country side was a view of vineyards and lavendar fields. I know you're jealous.

Even more so, when you see this picture of Becky, Melanie, Jennifer, and I at the beach in Cassis on Monday.

Mission Kind-of-Impossible

After a couple hours soaking in the sun and building sand chateaux, Melanie, Becky, and I decided to explore the sea side village a bit. We could see from the beach a grand stone chateau built upon the cliffs and decided that it wasn't too far away to visit. So we climbed up the hill and found a little back door that entered the property. The view was amazing, and we decided that we would inhance our visit by doing a little rock climbing to get to the castle's yard.

When we got to the castle doors, the yard seemed surprisingly void of tourists or anyone for that matter. "It's almost like this is private property," I said. Unable to find the exit, I climbed my way down to the back exit in my beach attire and walked towards the main entrance. Only then did we discover that it was interdit for the general public to visit the Chateau de Cassis.

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.

Back to the Future

Our second day in Southwest France included a trip to Futuroscope, a modern themed theme park. There were simulator rides, 3D adventures, and exposes on the cosmos. Two of my favorite “rides” of the park were Star du Futur and Percussions du Monde. Future Star was fun, as you went through three different acting games that were taped and then sat in a moving car to watch a movie from your scenes. It was funny. Percussions du Monde was a IMAX video by STOMP with music and sounds from all over the world. It rocked my socks off. I didn’t really enjoy the simulator rides, as they made me dizzy; but a plus is that some provide sexy goggles to protect the eyes and give 3D effects. This is Jennifer and I buggin’ it at Futuroscope.

Cheap Shakes

The first hotel stay of the trip was in Poitiers in a Hôtel Comfort near Casino, a supermarket and cafeteria. For dinner a lot of the girls went over to the Casino cafeteria and stopped at the grocery store for weekday snacks. Jennifer and I found ice cream, demi-créme, and spoons for less than 1,50 euro to make shakes. They were heavenly!

Princess of Chenanceau

One of the most beautiful of châteaux in the Loire Valley is Chenanceau, floating atop the Cher River with its gardens and labyrinth (not on top of the water). This is a picture of me, rightfully posing as royalty next to the stunning building.

Blois

After an hour and half bus ride from Paris, our BYU group arrived in the Loire Valley. Our first visit was to the Blois Chateau, once home to Catherine de Medici and Henri III and the site of the assassination of the Duke of Guise. We walked through their rooms and viewed the courtyard with four different periods of architecture; early gothic, late gothic ornamental, renaissance, and classical architecture wings.

Bus Trip Ahoy!

Hello friends and family! Sorry for my lack of blogging, I've had limited access this week. Exciting news though, I'm getting ready for our first group bus trip. The BYU Paris study abroad group is leaving at 8 am from Paris on Monday to the Loire Valley to visit chateaux, ancient caves, and Futuroscope (modern technology themepark). I sure am excited for this week long adventure and promise that when I get a chance I will update on the past few weeks with pictures. Love you all!

Sabaath

This is a picture of the Versailles chapelle where I go to church every Sunday. To get there we have to take the RER A ligne to La Defense and the SNCF to Versailles Rive Droit and then walk or take the bus up the hill to the church building.

On this particular Sunday in the branch, I played the piano for Saint-Cene; Melanie, Becky, and I did a musical number "Plus Pres de Toi"; I taught the Old Testament Sunday School lesson in French on Abraham and Isaac; and I played the piano for Relief Society.

Dancing the Night Away

On Saturday there was a Valentine’s Ball for the Paris LDS Institute. I went with Melanie and Becky, as Becky had a date and wanted Melanie to go, but Melanie didn’t want to go by herself. I heard that there would be free food, so I volunteered to be her “cavalier.” It is French tradition to begin dances and balls with a waltz. So my actual cavalier, as they found it necessary for me to have one, was named Christophe. Christophe didn’t know how to waltz, but he was a nice guy. The rest of the night we enjoyed dancing to the Macarena, YMCA, and to random French reggae tunes. Plus there was chocolate cake!

Flirting at Fountainebleau

Once upon a time, in the year two thousand, a group of Alaskan tourists went to visit the chateau at Fountainebleau. One particular 16 year old girl wasn’t feeling well and asked if she could sit outside in the summer weather to rest. Taking her friend’s walkman in hand, this young lady sat in the peaceful gardens until fully reposed; at which point the music mix became spastic and exciting, and this young lady started to dance and skip around the gardens. Twirling up and down walkways and tap dancing up the stairs was quite exhausting, and the girl sat to take a breather on a small cement bench.
Seeing the escapade of this obviously ecstatic young female tourist, the French gardener on his John Deere mower drove up to the bench to have a little chat, IN FRENCH. “Bonjour! Ca va? Are you a tourist from Sweden,” he flattered the girl. “Plan on staying at the castle long? Oh, that’s too bad because this little town can be quite the party in the evenings. Au Revoir.” Satisfied with her flirtatious French conversation and the minutes of sitting, the girl returned to dancing in the summer wind.
In honor of this petite histoire, here is an arabesque picture of me on THE very bench. No flirting with gardeners occurred on this blustery winter day. Instead I discovered the local teen hang out in Avon where I bought myself the best French Bacon Cheeseburger ever and cheap too!

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme

In high school, as part of a competition, couples were asked to perform scenes from the French play Bourgeois Gentilhomme. So when I noticed this advert on the street for the play, I knew I had to go. Friday night, at 2030 I found myself at the Theatre de Paris to watch a modern version of the old school French play, fit with a scene of break dancing and “Gothic” music. Though parts were difficult to understand, I caught a majority of lines and laughed loudly at appropriate times. It was an excellent version and still contained some of my favorite lines.

Random Picture #5

Invalides and Eiffel