Thursday, May 24, 2012

My life is a disney movie here, feel free to try to predict the ending!

Can I just mention how much more awesome my life got once I finished all the walks I had to do for class?  Seriously, we got out of class on Tuesday and we were like "what do we want to do?" Answer: "Anything we want!" (we're on vacation! Kidding, there's so much homework, but it did feel sort of like vacation today)  We decided to go to the Arc du Triomphe because the museums were closed today (ahhh I'm so museum-ed out!)  (The Louvre: 10 euros. the Arc du Triomphe: priceless! Because I didn't have to pay, hooray!)  As you can see, getting into places for free makes me quite excited.   Even all the stairs couldn't make me discouraged!  
Plus, this was our view from the top (or at least one of them) and you can't not love that!

Obviously, all that stair climbing worked up an appetite. (well I always have one,  but Rachel and Heather had one too at this point, so we went back to our crepe place that serves delicious lunch crepes. and we bought delicious lunch crepes!  Doesn't that just look so yummy? Man, I want to go back. After that we went and bought crepes! I know, you guys probably think we are crazy for buying crepes for dessert right after eating them for lunch. But there is a huge difference between savory crepes and sweet crepes. For instance, we discovered another delicious crepe stand where you can add a little bit of coconut to your nutella crepe and it tastes   divine! mmm. Love it! 


After that, Rachel went to do her own thing and Heather and I went to go get ready for the Opera. Obviously, seeing as we are both girls, there was much getting ready to be done. For example, well, we had to change into dresses.  Oh and we also had to watch Anastasia. Obviously, that was a necessity because I had to get psyched up! (What's that movie that says "I've got one idea that I'm particularly psyched out of my mind about."...that's going to bother me.) It was awesome because while watching, I noticed so many things that I never had before. But these weren't funny lines that I didn't notice when I watched as a kid, but rather places in the movie. For instance, when they sing the song Paris Holds the Key to Her Heart (Okay, that might not actually be the title) at one point they were at the top of the Arc du Triomphe (just there that morning), at one point they were outside Moulan Rouge (there a few days ago), and of course, the classic singing while riding on top of the elevator up the Eiffel Tower (Sadly, I don't think I will be allowed to do that.) Anyway, it worked. I was all excited from watching it. (Oh for those of you who might not be super familiar with Anastasia, there's a part where they go see the Russian Ballet at the Opera House in order to meet her grandmother, and I went and saw the Tokyo Ballet at the Opera House. Hence, the need to watch the movie (plus I didn't have time to watch Phantom of the Opera) 

 And the stairway leading up to our seats was super decked out, as you can see, so we all felt the need to take prom pictures on the stairs. Well, Macord didn't, but all the girls did. 
 So, that's it.
The ballet was so fun! I had no idea what was going on, turns out ballet is another thing I have no idea how to read.  Of course, I'm not going to complain if I get to watch attractive Asians dance for 2 hours.  Plus they had food and drinks during the intermission. It was so legit! And the food was asian stuff so I was loving it. (That's me and my super legit looking ticket that will forever rest in my journal (alongside all my other not as legit looking ones...)

Wednesday:
 ( Here's the part of the Disney movie where the princess meets her true love)Wednesday morning I was doing my homework on the RER and this random guy starts talking to me.  I couldn't understand what he was saying, which was alarming because I had thought that my comprehension was better. and despite me saying over and over again that I didn't understand, he kept saying random things to me. Eventually he had me smell these flowers he was holding and I was like "yes, they're nice" but what I really needed to say was that I needed to do my homework! Then he gave one to me so I just said thank you and tried to focus again.  Finally it was my stop so I got off at the same time as him and he was like "well have a good day, goodbye." (Of course this whole conversation thing is in french)  so we shook hands (which now that I think about it is weird for France, but I'm glad it wasn't les bises!!!!) and I got off. But a minute later I ran into him on the escalator and he kept talking to me again. Sadly, I still didn't understand, but he's like "oh we can go up together" and I was just kind of like, whatever because I was going up anyway. But when we got to the top and he tried to hold my hand. I had to say a polite but firm Non, merci and book it out of there. Luckily our paths diverged at that point, so I didn't see him again. But it was so weird. I guess it was nice of him to give me a flower, but now I've learned to not accept anything from people (even if I'm accepting it just to be polite) because it encourages conversation.  (Maybe that's something I should have known before, but I didn't. Now I do) Moral: that wasn't actually my Prince, he was more like a LaFoo.
Anyway, after class Heather, Rachel, and I decided to go to the Pompidou, which is conveniently close to the institute building.  The only reason I was down for going to another museum was because it was modern art, which is very different than the others we've been going to. As you can see, this random sheet (which reminds me of my bed back in Provo) classifies as modern art.




 The great part about doing a museum just for fun is that you can leave whenever you get tired. So we did! And I bought my first gelato in Paris :) Yay for speculoos and nutella flavors! So good...mmmm.

After that we bought some gyros for lunch in the Latin Quarter
literally, we just sat here next to the river for like 3 hours. I didn't actually keep track but it was long enough for me to eat my gyro, lay down and take a nap, wake up and draw a picture, and chill for a while. It was so wonderful.  I think every day in Paris should be like that :)

Thursday (today)
After class Ashley and I went to the Louvre finally. Honestly I'm pretty museumed out by this point, so for me it was more a matter of bragging rights than anything.  I had to go see what few pieces of art I actually recognized, but in the process I still ended up exploring a good portion of it.  I was in there about 2 hours.  

Honestly though, the rest of the day was better than the Louvre, because I went and bought a delicious baguette, and then walked around the Latin Quarter and bought a couple of things.  Heather and I went to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore because Buns had told me I needed to. I almost bought Anna Karina, because it's on my 100 books I have to read to prove I read more than childrens books list, but I decided against it. I don't like buying books that I haven't read before because I don't know if I will like them. Is that weird?   Anyway, it was great looking around, and it definitely put me in a book mood because after that Heather and I wandered along the Seine for maybe 45 minutes looking at all the book stands there.  I bought the entire Twilight series in french for only 10 euros.  I know that there are so many better books I could have bought, but I know for a fact I already like the series and I really wanted some books to help me practice my French. I know I will read these, and so I know I will get practice (don't judge me, sometimes I'm a girl too) Plus 10 euros, come on, that's a steal!  Anyway, it was about 4 pm by then and super hot outside, so Heather and I decided to head home.  I even fell asleep on the RER reading my book.   Anyway, now  you guys are as up to date with my life as me.  Except when you finish reading you might go do something fun, whereas I'm going to go do homework.  Motivating though, (since I don't have any gushers to motivate me) tomorrow is the last class in Paris, and then we have next week off as we do our bus trip, and then we have 5 classes in Nice, and then this study abroad is over. That's crazy huh? Can anyone else believe I've been out here a month? It feels like forever but at the same time I can't even believe that.  Anyway, that's all the exciting things for now.

I used to think I was a good reader, but I've discovered so many things here I can't read!
Can read:                              Can't read:
Metro                  stained glass windows
Maps of Paris                      ballet dancing
Books in English           Books in  French (not yet anyway)

Also, here's reasons that I love the metro:
*I can sleep on them. That's always a plus 
* sometimes random violinist will get on and perform
*when I close my eyes it sort of feels like a roller coaster



Monday, May 21, 2012

Everything's cooler if it happens in Paris

Okay! I packed 4 walks for class into Friday and Saturday so they were both pretty hectic days with a lot of pictures! So I hope you guys enjoy them :)  To begin we started exploring the Jewish quarter.  This building has the star of David above the door, which is pretty cool, but it also has the stone tablets at the top! Look closely, they're kind of hard to see.  There were some other cool buildings too. We saw a Jewish elementary school as well!   But really all Paris architecture looks pretty sweet to me, the only thing that gave the Jewish part away was the Star of David everywhere.
We wandered around the streets some more looking at the sights and eventually ended up at the Musee Cognacq-Jay where for the first time in 20 years I bought a cup of hot chocolate from a vending machine!!  (that's my friend's hand reaching to steal my hot chocolate. That's how cool it was.)  It was the coolest thing ever! And not that it was super good (like 7/11 good) but it was surprisingly good coming from a machine. Plus it was only 50 cents.  So now I look for those machines everywhere, they're so cool!   (Oh and the art work was pretty cool too.)
This is a picture of the museum.  Its funny because all the buildings in Paris kind of look historical and important (because they all are I guess) but it's hard to tell sometimes which places are museums and historical sites that we're supposed to visit and which are just regular homes (I feel like that could potentially produce an embarrassing outcome, but so far it's worked out alright.)  



Here's a picture from the museum that I really liked.  This picture seems pretty ideal to me actually (minus the whole pink, fluffy dress thing) but just chilling by the water reading a book while a boy serenades me. What's not to like about that? :)  

Also there was a ton of places to buy flafels on this walk, but since I bought one yesterday I didn't feel the need to try it again (I'm more of a meat person than potato-thing person) If you don't know what a falafel is then google it...I suck at explaining.

Anyway, the walk was pretty short and ended after the museum, so Ashley, Heather, and I headed to the Latin Quarter to buy some lunch. It's pretty fun when you walk around Paris instead of taking the metro because you get to see how the city connects together.  Plus you feel like an inhabitant of the city instead of a tourist when you do.  I know my way around surprisingly well for only being here 3 weeks.  Heck, I know my way better around Paris than Provo :P That's pretty cool, but also kind of pathetic I guess.

Anyway, we walked along the Seine and crossed in front of Notre Dame where they actually had this super epic break-making festival going on. I was super excited because everyone knows what giant festivals means!  FREE SAMPLES! It was like a mini costco with much less variety but better quality. Actually I think I ate the same sample every time, but the good news is that it was delicious. So no complaints.  Anyway, I asked these guys to teach me how to make my favorite Pain Au Chocolat and that's the look he gave me.
Alright, I totally didn't ask them that, this is just a strange picture of his face I happened to catch on camera. But I really should learn how to make it because it's so delicious I'm going to miss it when I return to the states :/  Sad day.     After we left the festival Heather and I wandered around the Latin Quarter until we found a nice gyro stand and then we went and ate next to the Saint-Michel fountain. 

Walk # 2 for the day
Even though we were both really tired we decided to do another walk today (we're trying to finish so we can have next week free to do what we want)  so we headed out.  It started out with a pretty walk along a bridge crossing the Seine. It was pretty cool because it's actually the only bridge in Paris for cars, metros, and pedestrians. Anyway, we left the bridge and walked down a tree lined path parallel to the river and I really wanted to just go climb a tree and sit over the river. (A tree like this, I mean do you guys see that branch there?! It's perfect for lazing on!!!)  But I figured it wasn't a good idea. Because I was in a skirt :P Plus we wanted to continue the walk, so we did, and at the end of the walkway we found this little guy!  Naturally, France likes to place miniature Statues of Liberty in random places. Here's the first one I saw, and I think I'd make a pretty good national symbol myself, don't you?)

We saw a lot of cool random things walking around. Like this clock that's just chilling on the side of a building. It looked to me just like decoration at first, but I checked it with my ever-present wrist watch and the time was totally accurate! So that's pretty cool, huh? :)       We went to another museum, saw some cool buildings, and visited a huge park! It's called Bois de Boulogne, the largest park in Paris that happens to include things like restaurants, race tracks, lakes, a childrens' zoo, an amusement park, picnic areas, strolling paths, soccer fields, and several museums.  That's my idea of a park! :P

When we finally finished the walk, we were exhausted :/ but we headed over to this restaurant to meet up with our group for a dinner. Our new teacher for the last half of the trip arrived and the old teacher is leaving, so I guess it's a hello/goodbye dinner. Anyway, I guess the meal was pretty french because do you see how much cheese is on my plate in that photo? But it felt sort of asian to me, because we were cooking the food on the table. haha, maybe that's just wishful thinking. But regardless, it was sa fun meal and I loved it. The frying pans were so tiny and adorable I just wanted to take it with me. But considering how much I eat it actually would have been fairly impractical, so I guess it's fine I have normal sized cookwear.


Saturday: right after class ended I headed to the Garden of Luxembourg with Amanda.  And while doing the walk we stumbled upon another miniature Statue of Liberty! Or at least, where a statue was supposed to be, as you can see, it was not there....so...
But see, the French do love to just have it everywhere!  So strange.  But I guess that's not any weirder than the fact that we received the Statue of Liberty from France but now it's kind of America's symbol. Funny how things turn out.

Anyway, it was such a gorgeous morning, so of course there were a ton of people at the park.  A bunch of little boys had these toy boats that they floated across this little fountain thing. (I don't really know what you call it...it's pretty large for a fountain. It's kind of like that Shel Silverstein poem about how he thought it was the largest puddle but turns out it was the smallest lake)
So we kept exploring the park and we saw this cool little grotto thing. You can't actually see how cool it is in this picture but it was a cute one of us so I decided to put it. (I think I put more pictures on facebook) Anyway, it was pretty sweet.  And then we walked around and looked at some white statues in the park. Surprisingly the walk was fairly short once we got started (finding the beginning is always the hardest part of the walks)  and so we decided to meet up with our friends for lunch at our crepe place again.  (I always think of you Mom, Dad, and David when I go!)  Surprisingly the Gardens are next to the Latin Quarter, so we ended up just walking to lunch (another example of getting to see how the city connects :)  )  Lunch was yummy, but dessert crepes are so not filling.  What I need here in Paris is like a Thanksgiving size meal every day. That way I would have energy for walking all day and I wouldn't snack all day!

After lunch Heather and I decided to go to Montmartre. Hooray it's my last walk! Plus it was a cool one, so that's awesome :)  Just check out this view! It was so amazing! And on top of that, we took the stairs up to the top so I'm going to have awesome leg muscles thanks to all this walking! (okay not really, because we don't generally climb that many stairs. but if you count this, plus climbing to the top of Notre Dame, and how I'm going to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower, I feel like I should get some cool leg muscles out of that..right?)

So this is the basilica at the top, pretty great, right? Sadly you weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but everyone just imagine the pictures I've already posted from the insides of churches, and then make them a couple of times cooler, and that's it!   Next we went to Saint-Pierre's church which was a smaller one right next door. There was a guy playing really beautiful piano inside which I could have sat and listened to all day if I hadn't of been allergic to the church. :/ But it's okay because when we left the church we stumbled upon this guy playing the Harp!  Man I wish I could rock out on the harp like him.  I need to get on that, seriously. Coolest instrument ever.  (Though I still love the violin and piano)
After that we visited another old house turned into a museum, which has housed old painters and what not, such as Renoir. This is a picture I took from the garden. I thought it would be way cool to have me sitting on top of the wall there, above the arch, but I couldn't make it up. So Heather tried to give me a boost and we were still kind of short. So I'm like standing on her shoulder, trying to pull myself up and we're tottering around, and the security guard comes out and starts getting onto us in French.  It was kind of funny but still sad because I didn't get the picture. But he was super nice about it and we just continued the tour.


After the museum we continued walking around the city. We saw a bunch of cool things. A square filled with an open-air market, painters just chilling and painting outside, some guys doing caricatures, etc.  Oh and as we continued our tour we heard the story about this guy to the left. Apparently he got his head cut off by the Romans, but he picked it up and walked until he collapsed at this spot. So they built this lovely statue of him.
And right after that we walked through a playground, where of course we had to stop for a second, because playgrounds are my favorite. And, as you can see, I had been working very hard and clearly deserved a chance to take a load off and play. (Honestly, I wanted a picture on the blue slide, but the little kids were playing there. Sad day)

After the park we walked around and saw some more historical sights and eventually ended up at Moulan Rouge! So cool, right? Except I've never actually seen the movie. Good thing I know the words to the songs though, that's how it works, huh Whitney? :)  Anyway, now I sort of want to watch the movie since I've been here. 
 But that was the end of the walk for that day.  I made it home around 6 and I just spent the night doing nothing! It was great! It was a do-nothing-to-celebrate-finishing-the-walks night :)  No worries, I dominated that.

Sunday was amazing because I got to skype with people and there was a thunderstorm! My first storm in I don't even know how long. But I was in heaven.  I just sat out on my windowsill, writing in my journal, eating a bueno bar, listening to FFX music, and watching the storm. I don't think life could get better than that. There was thunder and lightening and everything. Plus sometimes it would just start pouring. Ah man it made me so happy.  Anyway, that and getting to talk to people was the best part of my Sunday. Oh also I slept for 12 hours, so that wasn't too shabby either :P

Monday: school was cancelled for today. Hooray! A free day! I took the chance to sleep in past 7:30 am (that never happens here) and now I'm caught up in my blogging. Plus it's been raining all morning, and I'm about to go out in the rain! (just to walk to the RER, but still exciting :) ) Some friends and I are going to meet up with the missionaries to play some games because it's P-Day.  It's kind of sad that we're not playing ultimate frisbee like planned, but I think this will still be fun. Maybe I'll even go to the Louvre tonight. Who knows?

Thursday, May 17, 2012

I feel like I can't post my blogs unless I come up with a title I really like...Fail.

Alright, I have not written for about a week and I feel like such a bum. But life is so busy here and now I'm behind so it feels even more busy! I'm going to do my best to remember what's happened in my life, but I do so much better when I write that same day. Sadly, I already have the memory of an elderly person and so we'll be lucky if I can remember what I did. (I guess I can use the pictures and my journal for reminders) Here I go!

To start out, here is a picture of the backyard. This is what I saw from my window Saturday night (I think it was Saturday.) It's so gorgeous, I'm going to miss this view!
Friday I didn't do anything besides take a test. This class is actually a lot more work than I was expecting.  I thought this was supposed to be a "Vacation Abroad" I was sure when they called it a Study abroad that the first word was just a typo.  Sadly, I was the one who had made a mistake, not them.  Good news though: I saw a man give up his seat to an old lady on the metro on the way home and it was just the cutest thing ever. I love it when you see people do things like that. It just makes your day even when it has nothing to do with you.  (so does that make me sort of pathetic if the best part of my day happened when I was creeping on someone else?...)

Saturday was actually quite an exciting day. I don't think I took pictures, which is strange for me, but we went to the Worlds Largest Flea Market!  I mean, not like I've been to any other flea markets, but I agree that it was indeed very large. It was interesting.  And after we returned to the institute building so we could have a place to sit down and eat our crepes. Then we just laid in the sun and enjoyed the warmth. It's sad that it's not warm more often here, but whatever. Not like I can complain, I'm in Paris! After that I went home because I didn't feel like doing another walk for class. 

Sunday we generally don't do anything, no pictures, no adventures, nothing like that. But seeing as it was Mother's Day, I did skype with Mom and that was amazing.  My second time to talk to my Mom since I left the country. I would be more impressed by her self-restraint if it wasn't for the fact that I'm pretty sure all her free time is taken by our new baby Daniel.  (oh well, understandable. When I go home, he can take as much of my time as he wants :D)  Oh and Ashley and I went to the ward in Versailles for a musical fireside that night. That was fun because we just listened to some girls sing. It was funny because they sang everything in English, and when we talked to them after we realized they were from BYU too.  Pretty funny that we'd randomly meet at a little church building in Versailles. Oh and also Ashely and I talked to the missionaries for a while after church and it was fun because they were all so excited about getting to talk to their mothers. It made me think of my own missionary friends out on missions who would get to call their mothers too. It's so cute. I've never been around missionaries who were looking forward to the call, because I've always been on the other end, waiting with Mom for a call from my brothers.  But it was fun to see :)

Monday- the darn RER was 10 minutes late, which automatically made us 10 minutes late to class (I realize I shouldn't cut it so close, but seeing as it's my blog, I'm going to rant). Ashley and I ran into 2 other girls that live in Le Vesinet, so the 4 of us finally made it off the metro and were booking it to class when we ran into the missionaries. They beckoned us over to talk, and we ended up meeting the investigator. She was so cute and had the cutest british accent. I could have listened to her talk all day as she said things like "we go to the Uni" and stuff like that. Seriously, she was so funny. She didn't believe that we were mormon too at first because we weren't wearing the name badges like the elders have. Anyway, we could only talk to her for 10-15 minutes because by that time we were like 30 minutes late to class, but it was so fun :)

For about an hour Heather and I wandered around looking for this crepe place that David had told me about, but it was sort of difficult. The only distinguishing feature that I knew was that there was a second floor you could eat at, so of course I had to go creep through the windows of all the crepe places we stumbled across. Sadly, I don't think we found it, but we'll go back!  Around 12 we met at the park in front of the Eiffel Tower for FHE.  That was kind of super epic, and I didn't want to leave. It was exciting because something dramatic happened too! While we were eating lunch, these little boys came and shoved something in one of the girls face, trying to get her to buy something supposedly. But what no one saw was that they totally jacked her iphone at the same time.  We didn't even realize something had happened until the police brought the phone back to her. Turns out they had caught the boy, so it's good that she got it back, but she had to spend the next 3 hours at the police station and I don't even know what happened to the boys. They were so little, it's sad :/
  
Today we explored the Latin Quarter.  This is me almost touching both sides of the smallest street! Pretty exciting, right?  And this is me at the Cafe Procope. This is one of the cool places that the Philosophers started hanging out in the 18th century when they were kind of kicked out of the court of Versailles. What those lamers didn't know was that the social/intellectual wasn't really at the court but with the philosophers, because once the philosophers moved, so did the center of all the action.  Anyway, I guess since I've taken this picture there it probably makes me a bit more intellectual now :P  
Also, I think I found the crepe place that David was talking about. We are going back later to do a little bit of reconnaissance!  I'll let you know how it goes.

Tuesday: VERSAILLES. soo exciting. but really the weather was kind of cold/really really kind of windy and cold. so we just explored the castle and then left. (and when I say explore what I really mean is the slightly less exciting "took an audio guide tour through the rooms that weren't closed off.")  Sadly, we didn't even go explore the gardens because it was cold and not as enjoyable. Good news though, I live less than an hour away, so it's not even a big deal to go back.
Plan: Go back, bring a picnic, ride a tandem bike, have fun! 
requirements: food, camera, and the sun.  
but for now, I just have a couple of pictures of the castle for you.  Obviously I tried to get a picture of everything important before my camera died. Naturally this huge fireplace  was the top of the list (not to mention one of the first rooms)  It's too bad that there were so many tourists at Versailles, it made it really hard for me to take my traditional nap in front of the fireplace. oh well, maybe when we go back. :)
(I guess that's the only picture I decided was worth putting on here, if you want to see more, I put a ton on facebook just now)  I went home and ate a delicious gyro with Heather in the Latin Quater. (it's such a handy little place, I like it a lot)  and then we watched an episode of City Hunter together at her apartment. It was my first time being at an apartment inside the city, it was pretty cool. Plus it was interesting meeting somebody else's host mom for a change.  Overall: very cool.
Today on the metro home I decided to take the missionaries advice and talk to someone on the metro. (disclaimer: this wasn't advice to go and preach the gospel. backstory: I had told them on Sunday that I was sad I didn't have more chances to talk to people. I only talk to Nannicq really besides the professor and the other students. But a lot of the time the other students speak English, and even when we speak French, we don't know enough to correct each other's faults...so, it's not super helpful)
Anyway, after a couple of stops, I worked up the nerve to talk to the lady next to me on the metro, and I had a great time.  I was actually able to keep the conversation going (meaning, I understood enough) which was a huge relief because I was worried I would ask her to talk to me but then not understand. (That would be embarrassing)  Anyway, I'm really glad I talked to her. It was good practice conversing with someone, plus she told me about a crepe place that I need to try. So double win!!

Wednesday: ahh today was a nice day.  I spoke with another person on the metro this morning. Again, once I worked up the nerve to ask her to talk to me, I found that she was actually very nice and willing to speak with me and my rudimentary french.  Yay Parisians! Plus I think it's getting easier to ask people with practice. Anyway, after class we decided to go check out the crepe place. However, it wasn't open until noon so we wandered around for an hour. Obviously, I made good use of my time, by doing things such as visiting Irish Pubs and what not.  It's weird because I always dreamed of visitng an Irish Pub.  I would walk in like I owned the place, sit down and with a completely straight face, order an apple cider (or maybe chocolate milk).  That's always been the dream (that's not my only dream!)  Yet I always sort of dreamed it'd be in Ireland (I guess because the highschool band almost went to Ireland, so it's been sort of on my mind since that)  Anyway, I wasn't expecting to find one here in Paris, but I guess it works :P Well I found it, but I didn't actually go in today, so the dream is still unfulfilled.   Next time... 
For lunch we went to the crepe place, and it was super yummy. I mean just look at these crepes!
we were so excited to be there. Plus it was sort of fun for me to imagine Mom, Dad, and David eating there too (If it was indeed the same place) 
After that we decided to start our walk, which was supposed to be a fairly long one, but we knocked it out!  We went to the musee Rodin, and it was way cool. I liked it a lot. Especially because it was short :)  Obviuosly I had to get a picture with the one art piece I actually knew about BEFORE the visit (art isn't really my forté)  Plus, sometimes I like to think too, so it was perfect! 



I'm pretty sure the lady we asked to take this picture thought we were a bunch of strange Americans, but that's okay (because we are.)  There were a lot of interesting statues here.
Also, it looks like Heather is just sort of embarrassed to be with us, but let me just say she was also doing the pose.






This is a really cute little archway that we found out in the gardens at the museum, I really love this photo :)  I don't know why, it's just adorable to me.










And this is the 5 of us at the museum.  These busts (can a bust be just the head or does it have to have a part of the chest in there as well?...I don't know.) were actually based off of us. Can't you tell?






This is us doing the walk. Sometimes we just love to pose so the Eiffel Tower is in the background. It's kind of our subtle way of showing off the fact that we're at Paris :P

If I remember correctly, this was the building that held Napoleon's tomb and some other good stuff like that.


We also visited the museum that housed a bunch of stuff from the wars.  I might be wrong, but I don't think Rachel is using this canon correctly.  But obviously, I've never used a canon.












This was used to break down the doors at Helm's Deep (If I translated the sign correctly)
It might confuse you because in the movie there was fire in the mouth.
Here's me bowing Boromir's horn.  If only I was epicly resucing little hobbits from capture. Alas, I was just in a really old building....touring.

This is the sword that Shan-Yu threatened the Emperor of China with before Mulan saved the day.



I also appreciated that they had a life size replica of the Tanks from the Wii game Tanks because that was something that I could finally relate to about the war :P
And even though I don't really watch Star Wars, I still recognized this.

After we finished the museum we decided to call it a day. And since it was kind of cold and windy all day we decided to wrap up with some warm hot chocolate. And as exciting as it was to be chilling in Paris drinking hot chocolate and watching the people, I have to say that this hot chocolate has got nothing on the 7/11 hot chocolate :)



Oh and on the walk back to the metro to go home we saw this, because Paris is very diverse. (which is why they can have Star Wars, Wii games, Mulan, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings all in the same city)



Thursday: (Okay finally caught up to today, don't worry, it's only 1 am now....pretty sure I started a little after 11 pm...ah)  Highlights, here's my favorite part of the first museum that we went too.  Apparently heads are not chic.
Or at least it's not chic to have the heads attached to the bodies. Obviously it's much more useful to have them in different places..........Now that I think about it, maybe it was like a theft-prevention measure.  That way someone couldn't steal it all at once. Hm, that's got to be it!



A lot of the walk today was seeing crazy historical sites like this. I mean, sometimes I just like to go visit the Sorbonne.  Really no big deal. It's not like I'm also learning about that in my class.... Oh and we also visited the tombs of Marie Curie, Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. It was pretty crazy. I can't believe all the things I'm doing with my life. It's especially cool because I learn about it in class in the morning and then go and see it in the afternoon. That's the way to do it.  :)                                       And to top off the walk, we visited the arena where the used to have the people and animals fight to the death. Pretty exciting, right?  Well actually, the best part was when I realized that if that had been me back in the day, I wouldn't  have been killed by any animals. I totally managed to climb out of the arena from the wall. Sadly, this isn't actually the wall, but this is what I looked like.  This was one of those "I have to do it for whatever reason now and if I don't I feel like a failure so I keep trying" things that sometimes I do. So I kept jumping into this wall and trying to climb, but there wasn't really places for my feet and I could only reach the top with my fingertips by jumping.  Anyway, long story short, I did make it eventually because: 1) I didn't give up. 2) I took a running jump start. 3) my friend stood behind me and pretended to be an angry animal that was going to eat me if I didn't climb out in time (so motivating)  So ya, good news. hundreds of years ago. I would have lived.  That's a relief, huh?

After the walk, we went back to the Latin Quarter and bought Flaffles for lunch. Mmm. And then I went to Emily and Megan's house in Chatou-Croissy.  That was my second time visiting somebody else's home here. It was pretty and their home was nice. It was strangely shaped, and I liked it a lot. Sadly, we went to do a test, so it was not super fun. But we did just end up talking a lot before the test, and while studying, so that was still fun.  Then I ate dinner with them and their host mom (and I found out that I like rhubarb) and finally I made it home. The only thing I have accomplished since then is this blog. Now it's 1 am and I need to finish my homework and get to bed.  I guess that's what I get for getting behind on my blog.
Everyone wish me luck getting up in the morning!  :P
oh speaking of the morning. I was the first one to class today! I even had to wait for the teacher for like 5 minutes. That really is a new record for me :)