Sunday, April 29, 2012

Oh poop... literally

Today's travels started out with a lovely view of the bridge.  
This river is so beautiful, I think I'm in love! Don't tell my boyfriend back in the States...oh wait, I don't have one. That's probably because I fall for sights like beautiful rivers instead of handsome men. I'll need to work on that...in 2 months.  
    From here we walked around a bit enjoying some pretty parks and what not and taking cute pictures with friends.  Oh and lets not forget the classic Laura moment where I somehow manage to get bird poop all over my bag, jacket, and class book before I realize it's even there. Talk about gross!  Here's a commemorative photo, who wouldn't want to remember this?   

  After that we visited Notre Dame and let me say how amazing it was! I mean it was so amazing that it inspired me to watch the Hunchback of Notre Dame. That's pretty impressive considering I don't like to watch that movie because Quasimoto ends up alone, and that's sad. Anyway, here's a few pictures because well, it's the Notre Dame.  The first one is me sneaking in, because obviously I didn't want to wait in the long line. 
The next one is of the window that Esmerelda finishes her song "God Help the Outcasts" in the movie, because that makes it legit. 

After Notre Dame we had to find some lunch (I feel as if I'm constantly hungry here. It's such a problem because I never pack enough food.  I guess all the walking I do means that I need constant nourishment.  Side note: I'm planning on keeping France's milk economy thriving single-handedly.  I drank this container of milk and something that's like chocolate milk, not sure what it really is, in 2 days!) 
Anyway, we did a bit more touring, visited a museum of some of the ancient architecture of Paris.  I somehow managed to drop 5 euros in one of the displays but luckily the guy at the desk was pretty kind and  so he went and got a literally 15 foot long reaching stick to retrieve my money for me. Too kind of him, really.  That was the most exciting thing that happened that tour.  This was a picture from another church that we visited, it was pretty cool too. 

And to top it off, here's a pretty photo of Le Vesinet.  I managed to get lost walking home from the train station.  I rode home with another girl from class to my train station but we live in different houses.  I thought I would be able to find my house since it's only 5 minutes away. And I did!! but it took me roughly 30 minutes to find it instead of 5 because I went the wrong direction from the station. Good news though, I found another pattisserie and bought another baguette (which I dropped on the ground, but ate anyway! yay!)  so I wandered around for a long time but the good news is that at least it looked like this (not quite the same as getting lost in provo and wandering around apartments and townhouses...)
So...sorry I don't have any super exciting stories to share really.  I didn't get lost today (sunday) but I was with people all day.  Um....I'll work on my exciting life and hopefully the next blog will be better :)





Friday, April 27, 2012

Now I'm a true American Tourist

Alright, I know you guys have been dying to hear what's going on in my life of non-stop excitement (excitement which has less to do with Paris and more to do with me being me....just kidding! sort of.) Anyway, I realize it's been a whole 2 days and now I feel the urge to share every detail of my life with any random person who decides to read this, so here I go (these details are actually for you Sarah!)
So... let me finish talking about my first day. Mostly because I want to say that my first meal in Paris turned out to be very American...kind of sad, huh?  Our professor took us  to a restaurant that he claimed to like a lot but all I really remember from the experience was the waiter laughing at us a lot (but sneakily and semi-respectfully because we were customers) and the fact that I was tricked by recognizing the word steak but not recognizing the word haché. So I ended up ordering a hamburger...minus everything but the burger.  Plus, turns out it's okay to eat an (almost) live  cow in France, who knew? 

Luckily the desserts were a bit more French so I at least was able to feel as if I was in Paris, and not just some sketch McDonalds) at some point of the meal. (note: when I say a bit more French that doesn't necessarily mean more delicious...just more French)

That's some frenchie cheese with fruit sauce. Yum.
(By yum I mean cheese + sauce + SUGAR = yum)

So that was my really exciting first day in Paris. Huzzah.

Day #2.....okay today really wasn't that exciting. I don't want to go into too much detail lest you realize that I had an uneventful day here when I'm actually supposed to be living it up. But I can say that I moved into my new house (for the next 6 weeks) and my host lady is amazing!  I think she likes my roommate and me a lot (which is good because that could be pretty awkward...) I love her little house and her backyard and I even have a room to myself-first time in I don't even know how long. Sadly I forgot to take pictures, so maybe on Sunday I'll work on that. But honestly, not much to say.  I guess it's important to note that if I don't come back it's because the rug by my bed has tried to kill me multiple times already (in just the first night) or it could be because the shower sounds like it's going to eat me every time I flush the toilet.   The only logical explanation I could come up with is that there is some weird plumbing going on (not likely) or that there's a strange sewer monster waiting to catch me unaware (very likely!)   

Day #3= my first day of ever doing classes during the spring! Don't know how I feel about that, but I guess I can wait till tomorrow to see how it makes me feel because I missed almost all of my class this morning.  My roommate and I were an hour late to class to our hour and a half class (so good) because we got lost on the metro (well not really on the metro, since all you do is stand there and get off and on, but navigating the lines is more difficult than French!) Ashley (roommate) and I got off where we thought we were supposed to be for class and somehow ended up in some underground hardware-type store....ya, don't even ask me.


So it wasn't even noon yet and I had already been lost twice today.  Ashley and I went on a run this morning around Le Vesinet (beautiful! pictures to come for that too :) and we got very turned around.  A real shocker with my amazing sense of direction, right? But sometimes that happens..even to me.  Also I managed to fall into the metro this morning (tripped over something I'm pretty sure didn't exist...) and all these Asians gave me weird looks.  Who knew there were so many here?)  
Anyway, after the class (30 minutes was still plenty long) 3 friends and I went on a "walk around Paris" (its actually another class we're in. All we have to do is check out cool historical sites and other (less cool, random) things.  So here's a few pictures so you guys can walk around paris also/scroll down my blog. yay.

a super pretty and symmetrical garden in which it looks like I could possibly be salsa dancing in...who knows?


the random crumbling wall that was pointed out to us in the 'please make us look as american and tourist as possible' book for class. 
my first legit baguette in Paris. Of course, I got one with chocolate in it. (2 of my favorite things...I just needed some milk really)   and yes, I'm in a dress. Shocker, huh? Paris is definitely a more dress-y place than Utah for me, but probably not when it's cold and rainy out. Luckily I brought my hoodie, so I'm sure that was super cute. I'll show those Frenchies some American style!)
This is a church we went in and I took a sneaky picture because I didn't know if it was allowed. It's must more epic than it looks though!  
super cool park next to Victor Hugo's house. 

And that's all the pictures I'm going to put up because I don't really know how much you guys want to see....Anyway. I was literally on the go from 8 am this morning until 8 pm.  From running, to getting lost while running, to running to the metro and around the station (to getting lost on the metro), to walking around Paris for about 5 hours, and finally realizing we were tired but taking another 2 hours to get home (like I said, so good with the transportation system here) I've been on my feet all day. Luckily all I've done since I got home was eat dinner and do homework.  My host (her name is Nanniq, don't know if that's spelled correctly though) got home around 9 today. On Friday nights she plays Bridge. How cute is that? :)  Anyway, it's midnight now and for some reason I have class on Saturdays, so I need to go to bed.  Good night!! :)







Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Park City to Paris

     Well here I am writing my first blog post ever and I have no idea what I'm doing. That could be mostly due to the fact that everything on the internet is in French so....good thing I'm so prepared to be in Paris!
     To prepare for this great adventure in Paris I went on a little mini adventure with my friends in Park City. It was quite a blast.  Chad invited us up to stay at his time share with him and his friends and it was perfect timing since I didn't have a friend to stay with for the weekend.  Saturday afternoon Whitney Gould and I drove up to Park City (with the windows down the whole drive!) with Grant and spent the afternoon with him and Chad in Park City.  Dan was there earlier but he went home after we ate lunch.  Our mantra for the weekend was "We're on vacation!" which pretty much translated to "we can do whatever the heck we want!"  Just to prove that we went swimming when we got back and even to the hot tub (even though it was like 70 degrees outside).  Then we walked around Main Street and just explored Park City which was something of a ghost-town this time of year. It was great because it just helped add to the illusion that we had escaped real life.  

We even got super delicious ice cream and ate while walking around. It made window shopping much more bearable :)  (Grant was jealous that he didn't get the chocolate peanut butter ice cream like Chad and I did, that's why he's making that face.) 


We bought ingredients and made dinner back at the condo and Kyle and Albert came up to party too!  We had a delicious dinner of spaghetti and milk and then we went swimming again! (I love vacation!)


Sadly, we had to go home Sunday and I thought that was going to be the end of my condo adventure with my friends, but I was persuaded to go up again Monday night just for the night. So I rode up again with Kimmers, Hillary, Eldon, Chad, and Whitney Gould and we arrived around midnight. It was sort of crazy since I didn't even have 8 hours until I had to go to the airport but my crazy friends were too persuasive :)  . And not just persuasive but awesome because they decided to stay up all night to spend my last few hours with me.  So we stayed up all night watching movies, playing video games, and eating junk food! Hooray for college! :) (Okay, I admit, I actually fell asleep for an hour...)

Before it was even 8 am Eldon, Chad, Whitney Gould, and I were in the car on the way to Salt Lake.  My friends are so awesome, I hope they read this to know how much I appreciate them :)  Besides the ride to the airport they also helped me out with my long flights.  Since I didn't get much sleep last night, I actually slept through both of my flights, which sure helped the trip to Paris go by quickly.  So now here I am, sitting in my hotel room in Paris writing my first blog while watching a DCOM in french (for those of you who don't know, DCOM = Disney Channel Original Movie, and I'm very disappointed in you! :P)  More and more it is starting to hit me that I'm actually in another country but it's still a bit surreal.  However, looking out my window and seeing the Eiffel Tower is a good way to bring me back to reality :)  Tonight we are staying at a hotel and going to dinner with our group and tomorrow we all go to our host families. I am super excited about that but for now I will just have to show you a picture of our hotel room.  It's pretty small but I love it, mostly because of my bunk bed. I haven't done much today, but I did eat a legit french crepe with speculoos.  Tomorrow the adventure continues!
Oh and it's been raining all day, so I'm going to take that as a good sign for this trip since it's my favorite type of weather :) (minus thunderstorms, but that would have been too good to be true)
(the view from my window...amazing, right?!)