Thursday, June 10, 2010
Nice and Monaco :)
What an amazing trip!! I can't believe it is finally coming to a close. I will definitely be sad to leave because everything that I have seen and done has been incredible. Though I must say, that I am also ready to get back. I need a vacation from my vacation! Our days are pretty exhausting. I'm going to skip over some of our days from the bus trip. Basically we saw eight castles in four days, ate amazing food every night, probably spent more time in the bus than out of it, and learned more about castles than I thought I ever would! After a while they all started to blend together to the point where now I can't really distinguish who stayed in which castle or what they looked like. All in all, my camera and computer have tons of pictures of really pretty castles, really pretty gardens, and amazing views of old cities from the top of the towers. The names of the castles we saw are: Mont St-Michel, Angers, Langeais, Azay, Chenonceau, Amboise, Blois, and Chambord. All amazing!
We got into Paris on Friday night after more traveling on the bus and the next morning we took a flight on EasyJet from Paris to Nice, where we have been staying this whole week, We are staying in studio apartments, which really just means a pull-out couch, bunkbeds, a kitchenette, a table, and a bathroom. It has been a lot of fun because we are all in the same complex and everyone from our group hangs out with each other every day! We got in on Friday around 1pm and after we got settled in, we immediately went to the beach. We spent a good three hours at the beach. It is so beautiful! I've never seen such blue water. It's a little different here because there is no sand on the beach, it is all rocks, or little pebbles. They go all the way out to the waterfront and then there is a really large drop right into the water and it gets really deep really fast. The water is so nice-not too cold,not too hot. And the weather has been pretty nice. Sunday was D-Day, which is obviously a really big deal in France. We went to church in the Nice ward and it was fast and testimony meeting and a lot of the older people's testimonies were about their experiences during the war and how grateful they were for the debarquement, which was very cool to hear. It was also interesting to compare the Nice ward with the Paris ward. The Paris ward was mainly young single adults or young american families, whereas the Nice ward was mainly older retired couples and a few families. After church we went to the Matisse Museum and the Chagall Museum. Matisse isn't really one of my favorites because I think his abstraction goes to the point of absurdity at times. His museum had some really strange things in it, like cut out pieces of painted paper in the shapes of flowers and squiggles hanging on the walls in frames or on stands in glass cases. Chagall was a little more intriguing because his use of color was very unique. He would highlight the principal objects in an array of bright colors and then make the background more themed in a sinlge color. He was a Jewish fauvist who painted a lot of religious scenes, which were at times a bit far-fetched. We then came back to our apartments and went back the beach for a couple of hours. I've been reading "The Man Behind the Iron Mask" which is very cool to read because Dumas set it in France and Paris in the exact places that we studied and went to, so I know exactly what he is talking about! Then on Monday we went to Old Nice, which has the feel of Italy, and the Rock and the Castle, which is the royal castle built into the side of a rock cliff overlooking the city and the ocean. The streets of Old Nice were very narrow and colorful, all in cobblestone. We also did some shopping here. Tuesday the weather was incredible and the sun was perfect so we spent the whole day at the beach. Sunscreen probably would have been a good idea, because I looked like a lobster!
Then yesterday was another very cool day because we went to Monaco!! I saw Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, and Lotus cars on the roads and in the side stores. So cool! We went up to the Monte Carlo casino and walked inside. We couldn't go all the way inside without checking our bags so we just went in the entryway and took pictures outside. We also went to the Cathedral and saw Grace Kelly's grave. I looked it up, the population of Monaco is only 30,300 and is only 0.78 square miles big! We learned in our class that it is near impossible to become a citizen there--you have to prove that your family has lived in Monaco for at least seven generations. The cliff was covered in really expensive houses and the sea was covered with really expensive yachts. There was a film festival going on and we saw the red carpet all stretched out, but we were there early in the day so we didn't see any of the action on it. We did see Julie Benz from Desperate Housewives getting ready to do a talk show and Simon Baker from The Devil Wears Prada and from The Mentalist doing a talk show. There were a lot of people waiting to get their autographs. All of the souvenir shops were full of paraphernalia for the car race that happens there and with stuff with Grace Kelly on them. It was definitely a cool place to visit, and it was very picturesque. The sea was pretty choppy and the waves kept coming up strong on the dock. From the tops of the cliffs we could see the whole bay and the city below, which was an awesome sight.
We didn't do a whole lot today because the wind was too strong so all of the beaches were closed because the waves were so strong against the rocks. I spent most of the day catching up on the journals we have to show to our teacher tomorrow as part of our final. Yeah, we have been going to class too for the past week, which is a huge bummer because we have an oral final exam tomorrow that no one is ready for because we have been too busy having fun! Hopefully it won't be too hard. I'll post some picures from the main places that we've gone to. Only one more full day! I fly home on Saturday!
Also, Congratulations Whitney on graduation from high school!!!! And to Rachel, Sabrina, Banks, Kallan, and Chase for making it through another year of school! I love you and I will see you soon :)
We got into Paris on Friday night after more traveling on the bus and the next morning we took a flight on EasyJet from Paris to Nice, where we have been staying this whole week, We are staying in studio apartments, which really just means a pull-out couch, bunkbeds, a kitchenette, a table, and a bathroom. It has been a lot of fun because we are all in the same complex and everyone from our group hangs out with each other every day! We got in on Friday around 1pm and after we got settled in, we immediately went to the beach. We spent a good three hours at the beach. It is so beautiful! I've never seen such blue water. It's a little different here because there is no sand on the beach, it is all rocks, or little pebbles. They go all the way out to the waterfront and then there is a really large drop right into the water and it gets really deep really fast. The water is so nice-not too cold,not too hot. And the weather has been pretty nice. Sunday was D-Day, which is obviously a really big deal in France. We went to church in the Nice ward and it was fast and testimony meeting and a lot of the older people's testimonies were about their experiences during the war and how grateful they were for the debarquement, which was very cool to hear. It was also interesting to compare the Nice ward with the Paris ward. The Paris ward was mainly young single adults or young american families, whereas the Nice ward was mainly older retired couples and a few families. After church we went to the Matisse Museum and the Chagall Museum. Matisse isn't really one of my favorites because I think his abstraction goes to the point of absurdity at times. His museum had some really strange things in it, like cut out pieces of painted paper in the shapes of flowers and squiggles hanging on the walls in frames or on stands in glass cases. Chagall was a little more intriguing because his use of color was very unique. He would highlight the principal objects in an array of bright colors and then make the background more themed in a sinlge color. He was a Jewish fauvist who painted a lot of religious scenes, which were at times a bit far-fetched. We then came back to our apartments and went back the beach for a couple of hours. I've been reading "The Man Behind the Iron Mask" which is very cool to read because Dumas set it in France and Paris in the exact places that we studied and went to, so I know exactly what he is talking about! Then on Monday we went to Old Nice, which has the feel of Italy, and the Rock and the Castle, which is the royal castle built into the side of a rock cliff overlooking the city and the ocean. The streets of Old Nice were very narrow and colorful, all in cobblestone. We also did some shopping here. Tuesday the weather was incredible and the sun was perfect so we spent the whole day at the beach. Sunscreen probably would have been a good idea, because I looked like a lobster!
Then yesterday was another very cool day because we went to Monaco!! I saw Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, and Lotus cars on the roads and in the side stores. So cool! We went up to the Monte Carlo casino and walked inside. We couldn't go all the way inside without checking our bags so we just went in the entryway and took pictures outside. We also went to the Cathedral and saw Grace Kelly's grave. I looked it up, the population of Monaco is only 30,300 and is only 0.78 square miles big! We learned in our class that it is near impossible to become a citizen there--you have to prove that your family has lived in Monaco for at least seven generations. The cliff was covered in really expensive houses and the sea was covered with really expensive yachts. There was a film festival going on and we saw the red carpet all stretched out, but we were there early in the day so we didn't see any of the action on it. We did see Julie Benz from Desperate Housewives getting ready to do a talk show and Simon Baker from The Devil Wears Prada and from The Mentalist doing a talk show. There were a lot of people waiting to get their autographs. All of the souvenir shops were full of paraphernalia for the car race that happens there and with stuff with Grace Kelly on them. It was definitely a cool place to visit, and it was very picturesque. The sea was pretty choppy and the waves kept coming up strong on the dock. From the tops of the cliffs we could see the whole bay and the city below, which was an awesome sight.
We didn't do a whole lot today because the wind was too strong so all of the beaches were closed because the waves were so strong against the rocks. I spent most of the day catching up on the journals we have to show to our teacher tomorrow as part of our final. Yeah, we have been going to class too for the past week, which is a huge bummer because we have an oral final exam tomorrow that no one is ready for because we have been too busy having fun! Hopefully it won't be too hard. I'll post some picures from the main places that we've gone to. Only one more full day! I fly home on Saturday!
Also, Congratulations Whitney on graduation from high school!!!! And to Rachel, Sabrina, Banks, Kallan, and Chase for making it through another year of school! I love you and I will see you soon :)
Friday, June 4, 2010
So Many Castles!!
I figured it was time to add another post because so much has happened in the past few days! We started our bus trip around Northern and Western France on Monday morning and we just got back in Paris again a couple of hours ago. All of the places that we went to, besides Normandy, were in the Val de la Loire (Loire Valley). The Valley has 57 castles, of which we saw eight. We started our trip by going to see the Tapisserie of Bayeux, which is actually an embroidery from the middle ages that is super super long! It tells the story of William the Conqueror and Harold of England and their battle over Normandy. We followed an audioguide that explained the story on the tapestrie to us as we walked along it. We then went to Omaha Beach in Normandy where we went to the visitors center on D-Day, walked around the cemetery with the rows of thousands of white crosses for the soldiers who died there in WW2, and walked along the waterfront at Omaha Beach. We also went west a little ways to Pointe du Hoc where there were original bunkers and watch towers that had not been moved since the war. The center and the cemetery were very moving, especially because we went there on Memorial's Day. They didn't have anything special going on on Monday because they put on a big ceremony on June 6th because that actually is D-Day, but it was still cool to be there on Memorial Day. We got to crawl through some of the bunkers that had been destroyed. It was so hard to imagine that that area had ever been anything besides an incredibly calm and peaceful beach. It really was beautiful and the water was so still and blue. Even talking to our host family we found that the people here really do have a lot of respect for the American intervention in WW2 because they essentially won their freedom. That was a very good visit.
On Tuesday we went to a basilica/castle called Mont-St-Michel, which is really really beautiful. It is built entirely on a rock island and really has the feel of a middle-age kingdom. It was really foggy and rainy when we went so we didn't get to see the view out from the top, but the castle itself was really pretty. We had a French tour guide who explained the architecture of the basilica and the chapels and the great halls and things like that. The basilica itself is supported on its north and south sides by the actual rock of the island and our tour guide took us beneath the church where we got to touch the rock. Supposedly if you touch the original rock it will bring you good luck :) They had just started a prayer service when we went into the basilica so we got to see the guy start to ring the bells announcing the start of the session. After Mont-St-Michel we went to a fortress on the coast called St. Malo and just did some exploring. It too was situated on some very large rocks that we climbed around and took pictures in.
Wednesday was when we really started seeing the castles. We started with Le Chateau d'Angers which had some very pretty gardens and had a really nice view of the old city. It was used much more as a defensive point than as a home to royalty, which was evident in the architecture of the towers. It had angled openings or windows through which archers would point their arrows and not get hit themselves and high lookout towers, an area for a moat, and a draw bridge. This castle also housed the largest tapestry series in the world! It told the story of the apocalypse told in Revelations. Very cool. We got sandwiches from a boulangerie and then headed to the chateau de Langeais. We followed a French tour guide here who showed us what all of the rooms were used for and some of the famous pieces of art in them. This castle, like all of them, also had really pretty gardens and a wonderful view of the city. We have been staying in very low-end hotels this whole week, which has been an interesting experience. There have always been sketchy guys calling out to us and watching us all come into the hotel. All of the rooms we have been staying in have bunk-beds and the smallest spaces imaginable. Wednesday night the one we stayed in had communal showers and bathrooms instead of having them in the room. Yikes! We have had to carry our suitcases up really narrow flights of stairs to get to our rooms, which have keypads and codes instead of keys. The hotels have provided for some very interesting experiences haha. Fortunately this week we have also had some really good meals!! We went out to eat as a group every night this week to very fancy, authentic restaurants. They really focus on the presentation on the food which is cool. There are usually colorful sauces drizzled along the plates and little leaves on the sides. It has all been really good though. We've had salmon, veal, chicken, sorbet, chocolate lava cakes, creme brulee, YUM! All of our meals have taken about two hours because that's just how they serve dinners here. Slowly.
Thursday we went to chateau Azay le Rideau, Chenonceau, and Amboise. Needless to say they are all starting to get jumbled up in my head about which is which. Azay-le-Rideau was built on a really beautiful river under Francois I. Chenonceau was a really cool one because it was originally gifted to Diane de Poitiers (Henri II mistress of whom Catherine de Medicis was very jealous) but when Henri II died in a freak jousting accident, Catherine took it for herself and made a lot of renovations to it and kicked Diane out! This one really felt like a castle because we got to go through the kitchens, the bedrooms, the dancing halls, the gardens, the chapel, and basically everywhere. Then we went to Amboise which had both Gothic and Renaissance architecture and styles. It also had the grave of Leonardo da Vinci! We followed another French tourguide on this one. So many tourguides and audioguides. This one really marked the marriage between Charles VIII and Anne de Bretagne because they brought Brittany into the kingdom.
Today, Friday, we went to the chateau royal Blois which had Classical, Gothic, and Renaissance styles. It was a site of much religious conflict and had a really cool helixed staircase on the outside. Then we went to Chambord. I am sad that we saved this one for last because it really was the coolest one, but we were just so castled-out that we didn't want to see anymore. It had a double-helix stair case in the middle of it that was inspired by da Vinci that is really its hallmark. This one had 282 fireplaces and 487 rooms! We really only took the stairs up to the top and took pictures from the top without looking around inside too much. For some reason it was filled with modern art, which was kind of out of place.
Anyway, there's the basic gist of what we have been doing this week. There really is so much more to say about it, but I'm tired of talking about castles now. We've listened to hours of audioguides and tourguides this week about castles, architecture, furniture, paintings, gardens, churches and the like and it has been very cool to see! But I'm glad it's done haha. I'll post some pictures. We're taking a plane down to Nice tomorrow morning where we will get to enjoy the Mediterranean for a week :)
A Bientot!
On Tuesday we went to a basilica/castle called Mont-St-Michel, which is really really beautiful. It is built entirely on a rock island and really has the feel of a middle-age kingdom. It was really foggy and rainy when we went so we didn't get to see the view out from the top, but the castle itself was really pretty. We had a French tour guide who explained the architecture of the basilica and the chapels and the great halls and things like that. The basilica itself is supported on its north and south sides by the actual rock of the island and our tour guide took us beneath the church where we got to touch the rock. Supposedly if you touch the original rock it will bring you good luck :) They had just started a prayer service when we went into the basilica so we got to see the guy start to ring the bells announcing the start of the session. After Mont-St-Michel we went to a fortress on the coast called St. Malo and just did some exploring. It too was situated on some very large rocks that we climbed around and took pictures in.
Wednesday was when we really started seeing the castles. We started with Le Chateau d'Angers which had some very pretty gardens and had a really nice view of the old city. It was used much more as a defensive point than as a home to royalty, which was evident in the architecture of the towers. It had angled openings or windows through which archers would point their arrows and not get hit themselves and high lookout towers, an area for a moat, and a draw bridge. This castle also housed the largest tapestry series in the world! It told the story of the apocalypse told in Revelations. Very cool. We got sandwiches from a boulangerie and then headed to the chateau de Langeais. We followed a French tour guide here who showed us what all of the rooms were used for and some of the famous pieces of art in them. This castle, like all of them, also had really pretty gardens and a wonderful view of the city. We have been staying in very low-end hotels this whole week, which has been an interesting experience. There have always been sketchy guys calling out to us and watching us all come into the hotel. All of the rooms we have been staying in have bunk-beds and the smallest spaces imaginable. Wednesday night the one we stayed in had communal showers and bathrooms instead of having them in the room. Yikes! We have had to carry our suitcases up really narrow flights of stairs to get to our rooms, which have keypads and codes instead of keys. The hotels have provided for some very interesting experiences haha. Fortunately this week we have also had some really good meals!! We went out to eat as a group every night this week to very fancy, authentic restaurants. They really focus on the presentation on the food which is cool. There are usually colorful sauces drizzled along the plates and little leaves on the sides. It has all been really good though. We've had salmon, veal, chicken, sorbet, chocolate lava cakes, creme brulee, YUM! All of our meals have taken about two hours because that's just how they serve dinners here. Slowly.
Thursday we went to chateau Azay le Rideau, Chenonceau, and Amboise. Needless to say they are all starting to get jumbled up in my head about which is which. Azay-le-Rideau was built on a really beautiful river under Francois I. Chenonceau was a really cool one because it was originally gifted to Diane de Poitiers (Henri II mistress of whom Catherine de Medicis was very jealous) but when Henri II died in a freak jousting accident, Catherine took it for herself and made a lot of renovations to it and kicked Diane out! This one really felt like a castle because we got to go through the kitchens, the bedrooms, the dancing halls, the gardens, the chapel, and basically everywhere. Then we went to Amboise which had both Gothic and Renaissance architecture and styles. It also had the grave of Leonardo da Vinci! We followed another French tourguide on this one. So many tourguides and audioguides. This one really marked the marriage between Charles VIII and Anne de Bretagne because they brought Brittany into the kingdom.
Today, Friday, we went to the chateau royal Blois which had Classical, Gothic, and Renaissance styles. It was a site of much religious conflict and had a really cool helixed staircase on the outside. Then we went to Chambord. I am sad that we saved this one for last because it really was the coolest one, but we were just so castled-out that we didn't want to see anymore. It had a double-helix stair case in the middle of it that was inspired by da Vinci that is really its hallmark. This one had 282 fireplaces and 487 rooms! We really only took the stairs up to the top and took pictures from the top without looking around inside too much. For some reason it was filled with modern art, which was kind of out of place.
Anyway, there's the basic gist of what we have been doing this week. There really is so much more to say about it, but I'm tired of talking about castles now. We've listened to hours of audioguides and tourguides this week about castles, architecture, furniture, paintings, gardens, churches and the like and it has been very cool to see! But I'm glad it's done haha. I'll post some pictures. We're taking a plane down to Nice tomorrow morning where we will get to enjoy the Mediterranean for a week :)
A Bientot!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Last Weekend in Paris
It's true. Today is our last day in Paris. We've been here for four weeks now. Tomorrow morning we are leaving on a week long bus trip in the north of France and in the West. We will be visiting Normandy, Mont-St-Michel, and a LOT of castles. The week after that we will be flying to Nice and enjoying the beach! It is sad that we have to leave Paris now, but I can definitely say that I have done everything and seen everything that I wanted too! I can't even tell you how many museums I have been to. Over 20 I think. We went to about five a week. Crazy huh? But I really enjoyed them. I went to the Musee d'Orsay yesterday because I hadn't been there yet and it was amazing. I loved that I recognized a lot of the pieces and the artists! What they teach us in school actually exists! Haha. It was mostly impressionists, which are my favorite. On friday we went to Versailles again because the first time we didn't get to go to the gardens because it was raining, and a trip to France isn't complete without seeing the gardens at Versailles! The view was incredible. We said when we were taking pictures that the backdrop didn't even look real because it was so perfectly kept. It could have been a screen with the gardens projected on it in the distance and I would not have been surprised. Unfortunately they were still in the process of planting flowers, so there weren't too many out, and they didn't have the fountains on either, but it was still very beautiful. That night we went to the Eiffel Tower and we went to the top! Amazing view! I persuaded everyone to take the stairs up with me haha. It was a lot of stairs!! The stairs only take you to the second floor and then an elevator takes you to the very top. Needless to say my legs got a good work out from the stairs! We had our last dinner with the Boissy's tonight and they made us crepes, which were delicious. Today is the French Mother's Day so we bought Madame Boissy some chocolate and wrote her and Monsieur Boissy a thank you note, which they were very pleased with. They have really been impressed with how good our french is. They told us we are the best students at french that they have ever had stay with them, and they've been having students for 13 years! Maybe they were just being nice haha. Anyway, that's my update for now. I have to pack everything tonight because we're leaving early in the morning. I'm not sure how much internet I'll have because we're staying in bed and breakfasts and small hotels during our bus trip. I'll add some pictures and videos here and some more to facebook. Je vous aime! Au revoir!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
If you're interested, I have a lot more photos posted on my facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=223105&id=540243083
Au revoir!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=223105&id=540243083
Au revoir!
Monday, May 24, 2010
Faffy London Excursion
What a weekend! We just got back a couple of hours ago from our weekend trip to London...which was awesome!! We left early Friday morning (flight at 8:50, so we left the house at 6) and got back today, Monday, (flight at 6am so we left the apartment at 2:15!). It was crazy. It was really cool to be able to travel by ourselves and without our big group. It was just me, my roommate Meridith, and Britt. We stayed with Meridith's older brother's mission companion who is married and lives just 30 minutes in an apartment outside of London. His name is Julian and his wife's name is Kimber (she's from california and he's from england) and they were super nice and very helpful! They met while Kimber was doing a BYU study abroad in London and then got married two years later after a long distance relationship and summers together. Anyway, they are a very cool and very nice couple. They were actually visiting family saturday and sunday so they left us the keys to their apartment and told us to make ourselves at home. We had to take a bus (a double-decker red one!) to the underground or the tube that would take us to the city. On Friday we saw the London Bridge, the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, Portabello Road, and the National Art Gallery Museum. The museum was very cool because it included pieces from a lot of the painters that I had learned about in humanities and french class, so I could recognize a lot of them. We came back the apartment with Julian and Kimber and she had made pizza/spaghetti/noodles dish for us and we watched episodes of Arrested Development because they had them all on DVD and its their favorite show. We got up Saturday and had some interesting experiences with the shower...For some reason Europe just hasn't figured out how to get water to work right. We had to flip three switches to turn on the hot water and you had to turn it on an hour before if you wanted an hour's worth of hot water. Then you had to barely turn the hot knob, then turn the cold knob all the way to get a lot of pressure, and then adjust the temperature with the hot knob again. Yeah, it was bizarre and we didn't have much luck with it. Saturday we went to buy Wicked! tickets first thing because none of us had ever seen it and that was something that we really wanted to do. Then we went and saw the Parliament buildings, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, and the Millennium Bridge. Meridith was very excited because they shot a scene from Harry Potter on the Millenium Bridge on the Thames. It was basically like fair grounds around the London Eye and there were a lot of street performers. One guy was balancing a soccer ball on a stick coming out of his mouth and then a bottle on top of the ball and another ball on top of that and another bottle on top of that! They were fun to watch. We missed the visiting hours for Westminster Abbey, so we couldn't go in, but the outside was very pretty. Then we to eat dinner at a place Julian and Kimber recommended to us called Wagamama's, which was very good. It was like ramen meals and asian plates. Then we went to Victoria station and saw Wicked! and it was awesome!! Seriously, such a good show. I thought it was very good. The costumes were awesome and their voices were incredible. I really recommend that everyone see it. I still have the songs stuck in my head. Then we went back to the apartment and tried like 8 different kinds of candies that we had never seen before--all good, and we watched more Arrested Development. Sunday we had some more fun with the shower and then we headed out to see more of London. We went to the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, and back to Westminster Abbey to hear an organ recital (it was the only way we could get inside, but it was still very cool!). The British Museum was very cool because it had a huge variety of things to see from every part of the world and every time period. We saw the Rosetta Stone, mummies, money from all over the world, Egyptian statues, Greek and Roman statues and columns...just everything. Buckingham Palace wasn't too exciting, basically just because it was so hot! They didn't have any of the guards with fluffy hats out for us to mess with, but it was a pretty building. Then we went back to hear the organ recital and then we took a nap outside of the cathedral. We didn't go to sleep last night because we didn't want to not wake up, so I'm pretty tired right now. We had to leave at 2:15 am to get a night bus, to get to another night bus, to get onto the train, to go to the airport, to get on a plane, to get on a train, to get on another train before walking home. Needless to say we were exhausted and it was a long trip home. We had a lot of fun together though and it was a terrific weekend!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
It's Finally Warm!!
I don't know about the US, but it has been far too cold here the past two weeks! Even my host family has said that this "froid" is very rare for Paris in the spring. BUT, fortunately, yesterday it finally started getting warm, and now it is warm enough not to wear coats, which is awesome. Our director told us not to bring long sleeve shirts besides a sweatshirt and a light weight coat, so no one has had warm clothes to wear the past two weeks and we had to wear our coats instead of our cute spring clothes everyday, sad huh? Finally the sun has come out and we were able to lay out in the Jardins du Luxembourg today and get some color. The past few days have been very eventful. We have this thing called a "Walks Book" which includes 21 "walks" around Paris that we have to do while we're here. The walks were written by our french teachers and they are basically tour guides to both well-known monuments and the less-visited parts of the city. Today we did the Montmartre walk, which was absolutely gorgeous. The Basilica of Sacre Coeur is the "white church" that sits on top of Montmartre hill. From the top you can see the whole city. We climbed some 200 steps up to the top. There were a lot of people enjoying the sun, their lunch, and the entertainers sitting on the steps. One man was dressed all in silver and he had painted his whole body silver and he was posing as a statue of an elf. Two others were white monks. We went behind the church and saw the rest of Montmartre, which was very cool. It is a lot of narrow, cute streets-all cobblestone. Montmartre is home to the first cabaret in Paris, Le Lapin Agile, as well as the homes of Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Renoir, Picasso, and it includes the Moulin Rouge (SO cool!). We went and saw all of these places. Cool huh? The streets were very pretty, except now the area has become filled with tourist shops and vendors. Yesterday we went to the Monet museum, which was very cool to see. We saw a lot of his famous pieces like Lilypads, the Haystack, Japanese Bridges. It is awesome to be able to see the original version of the pieces that I had learned about before coming here. We were also able to see some of the original posters by Toulouse Lautrec and the actual place where Renoir painted Le Moulin de la Gallette. We have had dinner with our host family the past two nights and it has been very good. Madame Boissy is a very good cook. Yesterday we had chicken with creme fraiche sauce and pommes de terre purées (mashed potatoes) and une tarte citron (lemon tart) for dessert. Today we had spaghetti with cut up ham and parmesan and le fromage blanc for dessert. It has definitely become easier to talk with my host family over the past couple of weeks. It kind of surprises me how up-to-date they are will global and french politics and with the history of France. We come home and tell them about what we learned about that day and where we went and they always know what we are talking about. It makes for good conversation. They told us that we probably know Paris better now than most parisiens; which makes sense because I can say that I know Paris better than Chicago or Milwaukee. Anyway, that's my update for now. We are leaving for London on Friday and I am very excited! I love you all, bisoux
Saturday, May 15, 2010
LOVES European Football!!
WOW!! What a day! Probably my most exhausting day of the trip so far, but it was incredible!! I just got back home from the soccer game: Paris Saint-Germain v. Montpellier. It was absolutely amazing. We went to the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris so obviously Paris SG was the home team. We went to the stadium yesterday and bought the cheapest tickets (30 euros) and figured we would just take whatever we got, but we could not have picked a better place to sit. True we were pretty far up, but we were right in with all of the crazy people cheering the entire game! I think soccer here is a bigger deal than any sport is to the US. We took the metro there and there were people singing the team songs and yelling and just getting so pumped even two hours before the game and when they started singing their songs everyone on the metro sang along with them. It was interesting to see how the people here reacted differently to the game than we do. They pay really close attention to the game, but it is still very social and they chant and sing and scream without stopping the entire game, but they don't really make a huge deal about calls that the refs make and they didn't get really anxious when our team was getting close to scoring. They just kept on chanting. PSG ended up losing 1-3 to Montpellier, which made the fans very mad. Whenever anything went wrong or if someone on our team made a mistake they would boo their own players very loudly and everyone would raise their arms waving the middle finger to them. We picked up on some of the cheers. The tunes were almost all from familiar chants and nursery rhymes so if we couldn't understand the words, we just yelled things that sounded similar. Who knows what we were saying. The section we were in was called the Kop of Bologna and it was absolutely crazy. The same people come to the same sections for every game the entire season so a lot of people knew each other. They had a leader with a microphone and they had set up speakers around the Bologna section so the Bologna leader would start chants and songs and everyone would follow in. We didn't know this ahead of time, but this was the last game of the season, so it was even more crazy than normal. I took a video of it and I'll post it, but on the other side of the stadium the fans set off at one point around 10 flares in the stands and they started throwing them down onto the field so they had to stop the game! someone lit a flare just two rows directly in front of me too. And there were several others around the stadium. I bought a PSG scarf and it is very cool. Everyone at these games has a scarf and they hold them up like banners for certain cheers. We were around some very interesting people. They guy next to me was rolling stuff in with his cigarettes and was blowing his smoke in my breathing area--didn't really appreciate that. The guy in front of me was at one point smoking a cigar and then he moved on to a rolled cigarette and then smoked like 3 more cigarettes during the game. There was a lot of smoke everywhere.
The game was really cool though! Montpellier was definitely the better team. PSG didn't get very many good looks at the goal, which made the fans more upset. I tried to get some pictures of it, but we could see the Eiffel Tower lit up in the background behind the stadium and it just made the whole experience incredible! Oh! and there was a "manifestation" as we were walking to the game. Basically hundreds of people filled the street and were demonstrating by chanting that they didn't approve of something the Ligue 1 was doing. So cool to see!!
For one of the chants we had to put our arms around our neighbors and all link in huge lines across the stands and then we would jump repeatedly to the right and then to the left with the beat. That was a fun one because I was next to the guy who was rolling cigarettes. After the game finished, the entire Bologna section stayed in their seats and the leaders kept leading cheers for another hour after all of the players had left the field. I think this was because it was the last game and they didn't want it to end and also because they were still mad for losing. Anyway, it was absolutely incredible. Just how I had imagined--it was so crazy!! I love european football!!
The game was really cool though! Montpellier was definitely the better team. PSG didn't get very many good looks at the goal, which made the fans more upset. I tried to get some pictures of it, but we could see the Eiffel Tower lit up in the background behind the stadium and it just made the whole experience incredible! Oh! and there was a "manifestation" as we were walking to the game. Basically hundreds of people filled the street and were demonstrating by chanting that they didn't approve of something the Ligue 1 was doing. So cool to see!!
For one of the chants we had to put our arms around our neighbors and all link in huge lines across the stands and then we would jump repeatedly to the right and then to the left with the beat. That was a fun one because I was next to the guy who was rolling cigarettes. After the game finished, the entire Bologna section stayed in their seats and the leaders kept leading cheers for another hour after all of the players had left the field. I think this was because it was the last game and they didn't want it to end and also because they were still mad for losing. Anyway, it was absolutely incredible. Just how I had imagined--it was so crazy!! I love european football!!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Busy busy days!
I'm sorry for not keeping up with writing on here and telling you about all of the awesome things I have been doing here! Instead, I have been out doing awesome things haha! Seriously our days are so long. We get up around 8 and leave for class in Paris and then we don't come back home until after midnight. We've been doing this everyday so we carry around our backpacks everywhere and we eat from vendors on the streets most of the time. Everything is so interesting and this has been an incredible experience so far. The problem is that I'm taking two classes out here at the same time and it is difficult to keep up on all of the reading and writing that I am supposed to do for the class. Today after class (yes everyone here goes to school on saturday) we came back to our house in the suburbs and we have spent the day getting caught up on homework and journal entries. I just wrote 9 pages worth of journal entries because part of our class is that we have to write reports or summaries on the different "walks" that we do around Paris. I just finished writing about our trip to Chartres a couple of days ago, our visit to the flea market, our walk around the Latin Quarter, and our walk through the Jardins du Luxembourg. There are monuments and historic things around every corner here. The people are very interesting too; not necessarily in a good way though. There are four things about Paris that I do not like: 1. EVERYONE smokes, even young teenagers and old people. The streets and sidewalks are covered in cigarette butts and people smoke in buildings and restaurants and just everywhere. It's gross. Fortunately the museums are smoke free, but I think I permanently smell like cigarette smoke all the time now. 2. The metros smell like urine, which is just gross. This brings up another interesting thing. There are hardly any public restrooms in Paris and if there are you have to pay to use them. So one of our french friends told us that a lot of men just pee where ever they want, especially the corners of the metros, because they don't have restaurants around. Our director always tells us to "start on empty" because there are few places that have free and functioning public restrooms, called toilettes. 3. There is so much nudity in Paris! Posters, post cards, signs, movies...it's also gross. It's one thing when it's in art in museums, but it's different when it's posted on a wall on busy streets in the city. 4. Everyone drinks a lot. There aren't any open-alcohol regulations so people drink on the metros and in front of cathedrals and places like that. It makes walking around the city at night difficult because there are so many crazies out. Okay, I think I'm done venting for now. Those are just some things that are not so great about Paris, but there are plenty of good things! I really like the Latin Quarter, so named because it has some of Paris's largest universities there, because there were a lot of students there and shops that weren't too expensive. I think I've seen a new cathedral or basilica everyday that I've been here. Yesterday we went to the Basilica of Saint-Denis, which was awesome. I'm thinking a lot of my pictures are starting to look the same because they are all from the inside of churches, but really they are all so different and there is so much symbolism in each one! We had an amazing tour guide yesterday who showed us around Saint-Denis. She spoke very fast in french, but her pronunciation was great so I really understand the majority of what she said. It was a really interesting tour because the Basilica holds the bodies of almost all of Frances kings and queens so by talking a little bit about each one it was basically a review of all of the french history I have every learned, so it was really cool. I have made some really good friends out here and we have a lot of fun together. Unfortunately we have a 9:1 girl to guy ratio, so no prospects there haha. We do have a great group though and a great director. It has been great getting to work really closely and get to know our director. He's a a little man but he's a big ball of stress and I think it's funny. Anyway I have to take an exam now so I better go study! I'll try to keep more posts coming! Bisoux bisoux
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
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