You could potentially age a year in the time it takes to read this really long post (especially you Whitney!)

Friday:   ahh today was such a wonderful day. Seriously, potentially my favorite day since coming out here. The reason it was so great was because the weather was wonderful and we spent the day at Versailles. However, this wasn't the usual castle-audio-guide tour that we normally do, today was purely a day for enjoying the gardens!  It took us a while to make it to Versaille, but once we did the fun really began :)  Luckily the gardens were free, so we just walked around and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. But the best part was when we decided to rent bikes and go biking through the gardens. Seriously, so much fun and it just felt so good.  I tried my best to take pictures while riding my bike, but I'm sadly not as good at one-handed biking as I hoped, and I almost died multiple times. okay, that's an exaggeration, but I did almost run off the trail almost every time I took a picture of people. Oh well, it was still way fun and I never did fall. So that's something to be proud of.  It was such a wonderful time, but sadly an hour was about 5 hours too short. However, it was nice while it lasted and after we returned the bikes we bought some delicious fruity-ice cream/gelato (maybe) anyway, it was so good. I got mango flavor and raspberry and it was delicious! Normally all I get is chocolate, but this was delicious, and it didn't even make me need to drink water!  So refreshing!   After the bike rides Emily and Megan went home, but Brittany, Kellie, Rachel, Heather, Ashley and I sat by one of the ponds/lakes(?) and put our feet in the water. It was so wonderful.  Soon after Kellie and Brittany left but the four of us sat there for at least an hour.  It was so nice just chilling there with my body so hot but my feet nice and cold and just writing in my journal while enjoying the beautiful scenery. Seriously, if only life was always that chill.  We even had a little bit of excitement when this huge fish and his gang tried to eat our feet. Seriously, at one point when none of us were paying attention and Rachel's feet were in the water (I think they liked her toes better because they were painted blue)  one of the fish just appeared out of the bottom of the water out of nowhere with his mouth open ready to chomp her toe off! It was so intense, felt like Jaws. Except Kellie yelled and warned Rachel and she pulled her foot out literally a second or two before the fish got her.  Man, that was a close one.   Anyway, we went home around 5 or 5:30 but Ashley and I didn't make it back to our house until almost 7 pm.  Living in Vesinet is great, but it is kind of far from everywhere. That's okay though, if I didn't live there, I'm pretty sure I would have never gone to visit the country.  Hm, I don't really remember what I did that night. I feel like  I didn't do anything too exciting, anyway, obviously nothing that needs to be blogged about.

Saturday: Another incredible day, made even more incredible by the fact that it was my last day of class at Paris!  So awesome, right? :)  This morning I went to my 'oral exam' which was really like a 5 minute conversation in French with my professor, so easy. I loved it.  After that I spent some time trying to plan when to meet with Andrew because he was in Paris today and it was his birthday. But it's incredibly hard to plan things without a phone, turns out. Anyway, I sent him a message telling him to meet me at 5 and then I headed off with my friends to go to an open air market. We were super excited about it, and then we made it there and realized it was the same as the flea market that we had gone to a couple of weeks ago. Oh well, it was still really fun and I found some more things there, so I guess it was a success.  Then Emily, Megan, and I went to McDonalds (I know, why go when we're in France) but we couldn't find a boulangerie to buy some bread, so I caved. Anyway, it was pretty fun because I ordered my first Happy Meal in I don't even know how many years, and it came with a cool French children's book, so 4 euro well spent, I say. Except I don't know if it was worth running into the weird French Ronald McDonald, but it was good to see that no matter what country you are in, he's still scary. Some things just never change.

 After buying lunch we met up with Heather and Rachel and went to the Bois, that huge park I'm pretty sure I mentioned earlier (a different post). We ate lunch at the park and literally just walked around for hours.  Honestly, we were trying to find the big lake in the middle of the park so we could ride on the rowboats, but by the time we found them (an hour or 2 later...this park was huge!) I didn't have time (because I needed to meet up with Andrew)  So we ended up just chilling by the water again, which was still pretty fun.  (I'll ride a boat [row or paddle] on the lake another time, I'll add it to the bucketlist)  Anyway, I went to the place I was supposed to meet up with Andrew at, hoping that he would be there (because honestly I had no way to know if he would even read it before we had to meet up) so..he wasn't there and I didn't get to meet up with him. So I went back to the institute building and sent him another message and then we went to my friends house in Paris and freshened up. By then we were starving so we decided to just go to sushi for dinner anyway, even though we were originally going for Andrew's birthday :P
oh well, we went and it was delicious even if they didn't give me any eel sauce.  Still loved it.  Luckily, Andrew called my friends cell phone, so we planned to meet up at the Eiffel Tower around 10 or so, we were just playing it by ear and planning on texting when we both finished our plans. By 10 we were finally ready to head over to the Tower (finished dinner and everything) but I still hadn't heard from him, so I texted him. By 10:30 we had arrived and still nothing, so I called him only to find out that he had been waiting for me for like 40 minutes there. For whatever reason, he received my texts, but I didn't receive any of his, so that was great (not)  Anyway, it was super sad because after 10:30 they don't allow you to go to the top of the Tower any more, so we didn't get to do as planned. (heartbroken) but it was fun because I did get to watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle with Andrew.
 It was weird because I felt like I was in Provo again talking to him, but then we were hanging out at the Eiffel Tower.  Crazy, huh? Except sort of awkward because my friends decided that because I was meeting one of my guy friends at the Eiffel Tower that we needed to kiss. So when I finally met up with Andrew they kept trying to leave me behind.  But obviously, that wasn't even the plan at all, so Andrew and I just kept trying to not get lost, and he didn't even have any idea what was going on and he's like 'why do your friends keep leaving you behind?' Like I was going to answer that.  Anyway, it was way fun getting to see him and watch the tower together, but we didn't have a lot of time together. As soon as the tower stopped sparkling, my friends were in a huge hurry to book it home so I told him to come to church tomorrow and then we ran to the metro. It was already 11:15 by the time we made it to the metro, and we had to go to our friends house to pick up our stuff, and then make it all the way back to Vesinet/Chatou Croissy by 1am when the metro closed. But the first metro was closed for an unknown reason, so we wandered around (following the other lost people) until we made it to the other metro stop.  However, we stood around for about 20 minutes waiting for a metro, with nothing happening. We knew something was going on because the same announcement kept repeating every couple of minutes at the metro stop but I couldn't make out much. Eventually we figured out that there had been an accident with the metro, which is why it was held up. We didn't know much else, but we decided to walk around and find another stop to take that might actually be working.
 It was funny because I thought it was kind of an adventure, wandering around looking for a metro, trying to figure out if we can make it home before the metro closes. (I know when Mom reads this she will freak out but honestly it was an adventure)  By the time we found another metro we knew for sure that we weren't going to make it to both places, so the girls offered to bring our bags to us to church tomorrow. Super nice of them, except for the fact that the keys to my house were in my bag.  However, the problem was solved (in a way) when we figured that we wouldn't even be able to make it to our houses before the metro closed. So we ended up staying with our friends who lived in Paris.  Luckily their host mom was gone and they lived in the city.  So we all had a giant sleepover at their house. I slept on the floor :) (Adventure is out there!)  However, on the metro to their house we had another weird metro encounter.  It's past midnight at this point and we're all kind of tired and out of it and I look back and see this random black sheet in the metro and I was like "Rachel, has that sheet always been there?" "What sheet?" as she looks back, a head pops up over the metro and starts doing a weird dance puppet show thing.  So odd. Luckily ours was the next stop.










 (Oh and this was us having a fifteen second dance party on the metro because we were ALL ALONE. That never happens. so we thought we would celebrate by dancing and taking pictures.

Sunday: Downside, I felt really gross from being outside almost all day, and then sleeping in my clothes (or underclothes) but then putting the same clothes on Sunday morning.  I might have skipped church and gone home to clean up and sleep but I had just told Andrew to meet me at church.  So I decided to at least go to sacrament meeting, because I had to show him the way anyway and it was my last Sunday in Paris.  So I met up with him and his friend Allison to go to church (still feeling super gross-I mean, come on, no shower, the same dress...probably too much detail for a public blog) Anyway, it was almost like fate was against me, because we get to church and I'm ready for sacrament meeting, and it turns out today is ward conference or something so we had 2 hours of talks and what not and then sacrament at the end.  It's like they knew that I was planning on leaving early!  Needless to say, I ended up staying the whole time instead of leaving early. And because it was my last day I figured I should hang out with Andrew and Allison, so instead of going home immediately and showering and packing, I hung out in Paris with them.  Pretty much we spent like 2-3 hours next to the Seine just talking. It was way fun.  However, I was ready to go home when we said goodbye around four.  I fell asleep on the metro reading my book.  But this was more than the normal doze that I normally do, because I was so out that I wasn't even hearing the voice announce the different stops;...result: I completely slept through my stop. I bet no one saw that one coming!  Yah...I woke up super hot and sweaty just chilling by myself on the metro at the end of the line, and it wasn't even moving anymore, just sitting there.  I was like..."well, I've never been here before." Luckily I got off and looked around and realized that in about 10 minutes it would take the same route back into Paris, so I just sat back down and rode back to my stop. But the whole time I'm sitting on the metro, sweating like none other and just wishing that I had gotten off the first time so I could already be home. 

By the time I finally did wander home it's past 5 pm and Nannick is like "oh hey Laura, where have you been." So I pretty much tell her the story of my life for the past day and she acts all grandmotherly and sympathetic and feeds me some cheese thing. It was delicious (oh I forgot to mention that I hadn't eaten for like 20 hours at that point, which is why she fed me food)  Anyway, tonight was our last dinner with Nannick which was really sad, but exciting too just to start another portion of our trip.  It was fun, talking with her like usual. I'm going to miss those meals, and all of her corrections, and funny stories. She's such a sweet old, lady. We're going to be penpals!   Also, it was sort of raining while we ate dinner, and she knew that I loved to go be barefoot in the rain (because last time it stormed I went and danced in the backyard) so she and I walked around the backyard together. It was so fun. Plus, Ashley said that from behind it looked like I was walking with Bilbo Baggins, so that's pretty much the coolest thing ever, right? :)  But after dinner, the main thing I did was pack up my room. Kind of sad, but like I said. A new beginning, right?

Monday: We had to be at the Hotel de Ville in Chatou-Croissy by 8:45 this morning for the bus to pick up all of us suburb people, and it was so cute because all the (host) parents stayed until the bus came so they could wave goodbye as we drove away. And it was super cute watching all the parents meet and mingle, and talk about their children. Honestly, I felt like an elementary school child again. Nannick was so cute, I'm going to miss her! I should thank David for teaching me my best french phrase "sache que je t'aime et que tu me manques deja." (translation: "know that I love you and miss you already.") because Nannick just loved it whenever I said that to her. I even wrote it on a piece of paper and held it up to the window as we were about to drive away for her to read.  And that was the end of my time in the little town of Vesinet and Paris!  But the bus trip was actually really fun.  For a while I stayed up and talked to Emily and Megan, but honestly, staying awake on moving vehicles is impossible for me. So I fell asleep eventually. But it was such an amazing day.  The first stop of the day was Bayeux which was super epic because I totally learned about this in my civilization class The Pen and the Sword.  We had an audio guide which told us the story of the Bayeux tapestry while we looked at it and it was actually super epic. Seriously, my favorite thing so far.

But the good day didn't end there, because after that we went to Omaha Beach, which was actually the code name for Normandy beach in WWII (I think) and we visited this memorial. It was amazing how the timing worked out, because I didn't even realize it was Memorial Day until we were there. Crazy, huh?   It was super sad, but moving, and amazing too.  It was weird reading about the war because it was what, roughly 70 years ago? and compared to all the other castles and history we've been learning, that's super recent.  And going to the beach was fun but sort of weird. I felt weird having fun their because of all the people who died there, it was like when you laugh in the chapel at church and you feel like you're not supposed to have fun in such an important place. But honestly, being at the beach was so amazing and the weather was great.  Right after that we went to the cliff where a bunch of our soldiers had scaled the wall and it was beautiful there. Seriously, it looked like Pride and Prejudice again, so it was hard to imagine what it must have looked like at that time. I mean, Pride and Prejudice (or Anne of Green Gables) when I looked out to sea and saw the cliffs, but when I turned around I saw  craters everywhere. Of course, the craters were all green and grassy now, but still craters.   After that we all went out to dinner and it was so yummy. Seriously, so much better than the food at the first 2 group restaurants we went to.  Plus I roomed with Rachel at the hotel (not the Rachel that I normally hang out with) so it was fun spending time with someone new at the hotel.    This bus ride is super fun so far, I'm liking it a lot. Plus, it's fun seeing how its bringing people in our group together.

Tuesday:  Sadly, I stayed up till 2 am reading Midnight Sun, because I'm still a hopeless reading addict, regardless of where I live. However, I was up and ready to go on time. Plus I loved the breakfast at the hotel, they have this dark chocolate hot chocolate that I drank 3 cups of and it was amazing. Seriously, what a way to start the day.  Then we drove for a couple of more hours. Honestly, I always have really great intentions to write in my journal, but when the bus gets going I'm out. (So now even though I'm almost caught up in my blogging, I still have so much journaling to do.....tomorrow!...right.)  Anyway, we started out at this really cool castle that used to be an island.  Now they have a road leading to it, but I think they are trying to make it into an island again.  It was super fun to explore and looked really great. We had to wait a while to begin, so I got impatient and climbed down the side of a wall and was walking around the shore, but then some of my friends started yelling "Laura, come back." so when I ran back and climbed back up, the teacher said something about there being quicksand down there...so that's good, ya know? You can never have too much quicksand to attack unsuspecting tourists, like myself. Luckily, when my shoes sunk a couple of inches into the mud/sand I figured it wasn't a good sign so I had already backed up and was walking on safer routes, but still, it was pretty funny (I guess it wouldn't have been so funny if I had you know, gotten eaten by quicksand, but I didn't!)  Anyway, it was a super epic castle, and the day was all foggy/misty so it looked even cooler.
 Plus then we drove to a town that's completely surrounded by this wall from back in the old days, for protection of course. So we walked around the wall and enjoyed the scenery but eventually everyone ended up down by the beach again. Even though this was more ocean-ish and gross than yesterday, with the seaweed and nasty things on the sand. But it was still super fun. :) Of course, in between these fun things we are doing is bus time, but I don't really write about that because I literally sleep almost every time I get into my seat. Kind of a problem, but kind of not I suppose. I'll go with not, since it's not going to change.  Anyway, dinner tonight was really good again, but I an't believe how quickly time passes here. It's generally almost 10 pm by the time we even get into our hotel rooms and then I feel like I have so much to do. Seriously, having this blog written really takes a load off, but I know writing in my journal will take even longer :P Oh well. I'm looking forward to breakfast tomorrow, but since it's a new hotel I have no idea what it will be like. Another adventure! Anyway, I better get to bed because it's almost 1 am and I'm super tired already. Tomorrow I will add pictures to this blog and actually post it online :)





Wednesday: Probably the coolest Laura day of the whole trip, seriously I think this day was catered for me!  We started out with a castle where there was this huge tapestry of the Book of Revelations. Sadly, I ended up with an audio guide in French, and I'm not yet at the point where I know all those random biblical terms and what not.  But it was really cool to look at. But again, I always prefer exploring the outsides of castles and gardens and what not. It was cool, I always like getting to walk along the ramparts.  After that I went to lunch with Heather, John, Emily, and Megan at the Creperie du Chateau and I had a really hard time deciding what to order, so I ordered the crepes that let the chef choose the topping and one of the ones he gave me was speculoos! It was a sign of the good day to come :)



After that we went to the Chateau et parc de langeais and it was really fun because 1) we didn't have a tour guide, so it was sort of like just getting to explore the castle and 2) it was raining and thundering, which just makes everything more epic!!!  When we finished the tour we had about 20 minutes to ourself, so I went and explored the grounds and it was super great because it was still raining.  I found a teeter-totter that I took a picture of with my friend, a cool knight cut-out thing that you can put your face in, and finally, and most epicly, a hUGE TREEHOUSE! Seriously, a dream come true. I love it. I want it. Someday, it shall be in my backyard.  Sadly, we didn't have much time, so we had to go back to the bus. But it started pouring on the walk back, so I still had the chance to play (/walk) in the rain, and I got soaked. It was great. I thought it was funny because we were eating at a nice restaurant tonight and we were all soaking wet, but then we ended up going to the hotel first so we all looked somewhat presentable...(sad). Anyway, dinner was delicious and started with this super addicting mango juice. Ahh...I love it. Except when they brought refills, it was just regular orange juice, but it looked the same, so I took a sip but then it was disappointing!  But anyway, the meal was delicious, but I don't have much to say about the hotel.

Thursday: today was a bit of a doozy, we visited 3 castles. By that time, I didn't even feel like I was appreciating it, but the first one was really cool because it looked like a fairy tale castle. The second castle was really cool because it had a playground where I could swing and explore the gardens with Megan and Emily, and the final castle really wasn't that cool but it was interesting for another reason.  Right after we buy our tickets and are meeting up with our tour guide, I hear someone yelling my name, and I look over and I see Allison! Andrew's friend from UVU that I just met on Sunday, which means that Andrew was also around.  I ran into him a few minutes later and it was so funny. Seriously, why was I trying so hard to meet up with him on Saturday if I was just going to meet him at some random town in France. What are the chances that we'd be at the same castle, at the exact same time, at that random town (especially when I thought he was supposed to be in Paris this week?) haha so random.

Friday: Today is our last day of the bus trip, kind of sad, but also exciting because we're going to Nice. THE BEACH! so excited! BEEEAAACCCCCHHHHHH. I'm finally going to wear the swimsuit Mom bought me for my birthday! Hooray. The only downside is that we have to fly their, so I don't really want to have to deal with that. Today we started out with a castle which I thought was going to be cooler than it actually was. It was the castle where Jeanne d'Arc rallied the troops to go put the king (one of the Charles) on the throne. Epic, but the guide didn't even say anything about her. Sad day.  After that we explored another castle, which was fun because it was without a guide. So really I just walked around trying to find any doors that weren't locked, and I climbed to the top and took pictures. And then I got ice cream with some friends, so it was fun.  Then we had a 3 hour bus ride back to Paris, which I slept the entire time. And now I'm chilling in my hotel room with some friends. I really need to make my bag about 10 pounds lighter than it is (or I'll be charged 12 euros a kilo tomorrow) but I don't want to. So it might be time to watch the Swan Princess. And hopefully I'll get pictures on here eventually.  Audios friends!
Also, it's June now! I'll be home in 19 days. That's crazy to think about. I've been here so long. Loving it.

 Saturday:Today was such a great day. :) Well at least once we got past all the craziness at the airport and trying to make it to Nice. But once we got here it was so amazing. Really, it's gorgeous here.  The first thing I did after getting somewhat settled was grocery shopping. However that turned into buying a lunch and eating it at the beach, because it's so beautiful. And that sort of turned into swimming in the beach, with our clothes on. But the water was so blue and clear (and salty) it was impossible to resist. Seriously, I was swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Legit, right? That place is full of dreams, clear water, salt, and great white sharks.
Sadly, because we decided to swim in our clothes, we also ended up grocery shopping in our clothes, which naturally resulted in getting lost in our wet clothes carrying huge sacks of groceries (naturally, I've been in a new city for at least 2 hours so I'm obligated to get lost. Hooray for my sense of direction. It never fails me. At least when it comes to getting lost...maybe from now on I should recognize my instincts, and then do the opposite...) Anyway, after about 30 minutes my wet blue jeans were incredibly uncomfortable but luckily we made it home soon and I took a shower (smelling like a fish isn't too pleasant)  the rest of the night was taken up with moving in, putting away food, eating, returning to the beach again, and going on adventures with Rachel that included possibly setting off the alarm in an attempt to find the roof but really the alarm had nothing to do with us...Good times.

Sunday: Rachel and I woke up at 5:50 to watch the sunrise, but as we sat outside, watching the sky get lighter and not seeing any rising, we realized that maybe we weren't looking in quite the right direction. So we're going to try again once we have a better vantage point and a compass. Hooray!

Church today was really awesome. I felt like the ward in Nice really enjoyed having us there. The sunday school teacher tried really hard to speak slowly so we all could understand, and it worked! we did :)  And there was a cute guy. Hooray. Not that I talked to him (no, he wasn't asian)  In sacrament I decided to sit with some random french family instead of the rest of the BYU students because I wanted to make friends. It was fun because it was sort of like sitting with my family. Plus it was mother's day so it was fun getting to hear the primary sing. Also it was testimony day and a couple of kids from the program shared their testimonies. I was super impressed because that would have been scary!
After church we went to a Matisse museum, which was this red building. It was pretty cool, but I honestly enjoyed the Chagall museum more. His use of colors really caught my attention and it wasn't boring like a lot of the others (they start to get repetitive)  This is a picture of one of Chagall's works, and the other is a picture of Nice that I snapped while wandering around the city (when we were looking for the second museum)  Anyway, besides doing homework, writing in my journal, spending forever on this blog, talking to my family, and eating dinner, I haven't gotten anything done....okay that's a pretty good list. But now it's already somehow 11:30 so I should get off my friends computer and go to bed.

 

So, I would apologize for the fact that this is ridiculously long (I've written about 9 days here!) but I'm assuming that if you are reading this then it's because you want to, not because you have to.  So no apologies for anyone!

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

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?