So, I’ve had this blog written for a week, but didn’t get to put it up until now. Sorry for being outdated, but enjoy!
OH, TUESDAY
Last week started out with a terrible Tuesday. It was one of my worst days in Paris for the following reasons: I had to prepare a presentation with internet that kept disconnecting and only bringing up websites in French, my Madame yelled at me when I told her I might not be home for dinner that night, I got really homesick after talking with Mom on the phone, and it poured on me when I walked home! But, fortunately for me, clothes dry, homesickness subsides, anger is softened, and deadlines for assignments pass. What started out as a bad week transformed into one of the best weekends I’ve had here! We didn’t have school on Thursday or Friday, so it was a good, long weekend of Parisian fun. Here’s how my weekend went…
THURSDAY
I met up with some friends in the morning to go to the Rodin Museum, which has become one of my favorite museums. If I were to describe Rodin’s work in one word it would be “intimate.” I loved some of his lesser-known pieces, as well as The Kiss, The Gates of Hell, and Balzac. Going into the museum, they give you a dot sticker to show you are a student, and going out, there is a pole that is covered with these, so I felt very French student-ish to put my sticker on the pole, too!
After that, we went to Hotel des Invalides to see Napoleon’s tomb. So much grandeur for such a little man! I was surprised at how big his casket was. It could have held ten Napoleons (or probably forty since he was cremated). We saw a ton of historical displays for the World Wars, too.
We had paninis and Berthillion’s ice cream for lunch (best flavor this time: lemon pralines) and then the group split up. My friend Vanessa and I went to the Champs-Elysees Theatre (in our jeans and with our backpacks, mind you!) to see if we couldn’t get last minute seats to a concert. We ended up getting 8 euro student rush tickets on the third row for a full orchestral concert! We heard Haydn, Mozart, and Chostakovitch (Haydn’s first movement and Mozart’s second were my favorites). Classical music is unbelievably better live. At one point, I thought I was going to cry because it was so beautiful. That might sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. It really was that beautiful.
FRIDAY
We went to the Conciergerie and St. Chapelle, and when we were waiting in line, I saw a familiar study abroad backpack ahead of us. Turns out, a group of BYU students from the London study abroad were in town for the weekend! We ended up showing them around for part of the day. At Notre Dame, we went up the tower to see one of the greatest views in Paris. We saw the gargoyles up close and the huge bell. It was really worth the wait! Unfortunately, we got yelled at by one of the guys working there because we thought we could go up to the top once we’d climbed about a million stairs, but they make everyone stand in the gift shop for AT LEAST five minutes before they let anyone go higher. We tried to skip that part. Turns out that the rope blocking the stairs is there for a reason! That makes twice in one week that I was yelled at.
After a quick tour of the Pompidou Center, lunch at our favorite creperie, a run through the Louvre to see Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, and a walk down the Tuileries into the Orangerie, I sent the Londoners off on their own to see Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower, which I have already done a few times. It was so great having other BYU students here—like a little piece of home! Equally great was helping them find their way around… I actually know this city! That was pretty cool to realize.
I had two hours to kill before meeting up with friends to watch the rugby match, so I went back to the Orangerie to get a better look of everything there. I saw the whole museum and ended up sitting in front of Monet’s Nympheas (panoramic Waterlilly paintings) for half an hour. Monet has always been my favorite artist, and it was magnificent to see those in person. Again, I felt like crying, it was so wonderful and inspiring. As I walked from giant canvas to canvas, I was almost gasping for breath from excitement. Seeing works of art like that is so overwhelming, emotionally, and even sometimes physically!
It was dusk and I still had an hour left before the rugby game I was meeting people at, so I did something I’d never done before in Paris… I wandered the streets by myself! It was probably the most beautiful hour of my life. I wandered over to Pont Alexander III, up the street to the Musee d’Orsay, and into a little corner patisserie. After five minutes of indecisiveness in there, I ordered some kind of raspberry whip spongecake dessert. I took my dessert, walked up to the middle of a pedestrian bridge over the Seine, and ate it on a bench while watching boats pass along. I don’t think I’ll forget this for the rest of my life.
SATURDAY
My friends and I were meeting up at a specific metro stop, but I couldn’t remember which one we decided on, so I got off at the wrong one, of course. But what I found was awesome! I was not far from the Grande Arch de La Defense, so I took a picture of myself in front of it and sat down to wait for my friends on a bench. Some guy came over and asked me if I wanted him to take a picture for me. I said no merci, but then we kept talking in French for five minutes. At the end, he asked for my number and I said, “no.” He asked if I had a boyfriend and I said, “Yes, he is meeting me here” (yes, that was a lie). He said, “Oh, but you are very beautiful. Au revoir!” It was then that I realized I was at the wrong metro stop, so I went off to the right one. I nearly got attacked by two huge dogs on my way, but a homeless man saved me by calling out to them to leave me alone. Thank goodness for the homeless.
My friends and I went to the park Bois de Boulagne and then to the Mosque in Paris. It is the center of the Muslim community here and is so interesting to see with all its mosaics. We peered into some of the worship rooms to see people kneeling on rugs and bowing in prayer. We even took off our shoes to go inside, but thought it better for us to refrain from worshipping Allah.
Later, I was wandering around the crowded streets of Paris among all the enthusiastic (drunk) fans looking for where the England vs. France rugby match was being broadcast when I randomly ran into Vanessa. She was out with her cousin and two friends who work as au pairs in Paris, so I joined them to get crepes and watch the game. The three girls were Mexican, Swedish, and German (and Vanessa is from Mexico, too), so there were four languages being used in our conversation; French, Spanish, German, and English were all being used here and there (not to mention Charades, which is essentially a universal language). It was quite the foreign experience, and so much fun!
On the way home, Vanessa and I were approached by a few crazies. One time when an old man was talking to us and we couldn’t get rid of him, some guy our age came up and said, “Come have a drink with me,” and on the side, “Not for my sake. I don’t give a *.” He ushered us away from the man into a brasserie where we kindly thanked him and he nodded and walked away. Maybe there are some nice people in Paris after all! Unfortunately, France lost the match, so there were a lot of angry drunks around. On the metro ride home, people were throwing glass bottles out the window and yelling. Some strange British man wearing a wig who didn’t understand the concept of personal space kept asking me for change to ride the train that we were already on! It was a wild night in Paris!
NEWSFEED FOR THIS WEEK
--The metro went on strike on Thursday and it has continued into Friday, meaning that we are stuck out in the suburbs. Good news is we don’t have to go to school, but the bad news is that we can’t go anywhere in Paris. Also, we had to cancel our plans for the Paris ballet and we might not get to go to be on a French TV talk show to which we were invited.
--My director and his wife had four of us in the program over for FHE/dinner the other night and I cannot express how nice it was to be in a priesthood holder’s apartment. I never thought I could notice the difference so drastically. Feeling so warm, peaceful, and comfortable, I really felt like I was home. I didn’t want to leave, but with the metro strike, we had to catch our train right after dinner. It was such a pleasure, though!
--I found a place to live when I go back to BYU in the winter and it is with my best friends in Chattemtown! Even though I love it out here, I’m looking forward to a good time when I get back. Staying up late in our living room talking, going to dances, driving with the windows rolled down and singing along loudly to the music, etc. will be such a blast with my friends again!
--The whole laundry situation is getting a little ridiculous. Rebecca and I wanted to take our wet socks and underwear back to my room’s heater to dry (the dryer doesn’t work), but Madame won’t let us take wet clothes out of the laundry room. So, to get the clothes out of there, Rebecca stuffs all the wet clothes into the puffy coat she is wearing to smuggle them back to my room. We’re stuffing the coat and whispering in the laundry room (Madame is in the next room), and Rebecca zips up the coat, turns sideways to show her profile, and asks me “Can you tell?” I mouth back with the lie, “No,” but her coat is huge and I could definitely tell it was stuffed with clothes! We barely made it back to our rooms without bursting with laughter. The next five minutes were spent trying to stifle our laughter in the blankets on the bed, wiping tears from our eyes. It’s absurd that we have to smuggle our clothes in the first place. Madame even made us sit down and pick the lint out of our pockets before we washed our jeans.
That’s all for now! I’m hoping to keep updating this blog, but the program is half over already and I just find myself getting busier and busier. I’m trying to make the most of my time out here, so I apologize if the quality of the blog goes downhill a little (don’t hate!). I love you all and I can’t wait to hear from you and what everyone is up to in the states!
OH, TUESDAY
Last week started out with a terrible Tuesday. It was one of my worst days in Paris for the following reasons: I had to prepare a presentation with internet that kept disconnecting and only bringing up websites in French, my Madame yelled at me when I told her I might not be home for dinner that night, I got really homesick after talking with Mom on the phone, and it poured on me when I walked home! But, fortunately for me, clothes dry, homesickness subsides, anger is softened, and deadlines for assignments pass. What started out as a bad week transformed into one of the best weekends I’ve had here! We didn’t have school on Thursday or Friday, so it was a good, long weekend of Parisian fun. Here’s how my weekend went…
THURSDAY
I met up with some friends in the morning to go to the Rodin Museum, which has become one of my favorite museums. If I were to describe Rodin’s work in one word it would be “intimate.” I loved some of his lesser-known pieces, as well as The Kiss, The Gates of Hell, and Balzac. Going into the museum, they give you a dot sticker to show you are a student, and going out, there is a pole that is covered with these, so I felt very French student-ish to put my sticker on the pole, too!
After that, we went to Hotel des Invalides to see Napoleon’s tomb. So much grandeur for such a little man! I was surprised at how big his casket was. It could have held ten Napoleons (or probably forty since he was cremated). We saw a ton of historical displays for the World Wars, too.
We had paninis and Berthillion’s ice cream for lunch (best flavor this time: lemon pralines) and then the group split up. My friend Vanessa and I went to the Champs-Elysees Theatre (in our jeans and with our backpacks, mind you!) to see if we couldn’t get last minute seats to a concert. We ended up getting 8 euro student rush tickets on the third row for a full orchestral concert! We heard Haydn, Mozart, and Chostakovitch (Haydn’s first movement and Mozart’s second were my favorites). Classical music is unbelievably better live. At one point, I thought I was going to cry because it was so beautiful. That might sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. It really was that beautiful.
FRIDAY
We went to the Conciergerie and St. Chapelle, and when we were waiting in line, I saw a familiar study abroad backpack ahead of us. Turns out, a group of BYU students from the London study abroad were in town for the weekend! We ended up showing them around for part of the day. At Notre Dame, we went up the tower to see one of the greatest views in Paris. We saw the gargoyles up close and the huge bell. It was really worth the wait! Unfortunately, we got yelled at by one of the guys working there because we thought we could go up to the top once we’d climbed about a million stairs, but they make everyone stand in the gift shop for AT LEAST five minutes before they let anyone go higher. We tried to skip that part. Turns out that the rope blocking the stairs is there for a reason! That makes twice in one week that I was yelled at.
After a quick tour of the Pompidou Center, lunch at our favorite creperie, a run through the Louvre to see Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, and a walk down the Tuileries into the Orangerie, I sent the Londoners off on their own to see Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower, which I have already done a few times. It was so great having other BYU students here—like a little piece of home! Equally great was helping them find their way around… I actually know this city! That was pretty cool to realize.
I had two hours to kill before meeting up with friends to watch the rugby match, so I went back to the Orangerie to get a better look of everything there. I saw the whole museum and ended up sitting in front of Monet’s Nympheas (panoramic Waterlilly paintings) for half an hour. Monet has always been my favorite artist, and it was magnificent to see those in person. Again, I felt like crying, it was so wonderful and inspiring. As I walked from giant canvas to canvas, I was almost gasping for breath from excitement. Seeing works of art like that is so overwhelming, emotionally, and even sometimes physically!
It was dusk and I still had an hour left before the rugby game I was meeting people at, so I did something I’d never done before in Paris… I wandered the streets by myself! It was probably the most beautiful hour of my life. I wandered over to Pont Alexander III, up the street to the Musee d’Orsay, and into a little corner patisserie. After five minutes of indecisiveness in there, I ordered some kind of raspberry whip spongecake dessert. I took my dessert, walked up to the middle of a pedestrian bridge over the Seine, and ate it on a bench while watching boats pass along. I don’t think I’ll forget this for the rest of my life.
SATURDAY
My friends and I were meeting up at a specific metro stop, but I couldn’t remember which one we decided on, so I got off at the wrong one, of course. But what I found was awesome! I was not far from the Grande Arch de La Defense, so I took a picture of myself in front of it and sat down to wait for my friends on a bench. Some guy came over and asked me if I wanted him to take a picture for me. I said no merci, but then we kept talking in French for five minutes. At the end, he asked for my number and I said, “no.” He asked if I had a boyfriend and I said, “Yes, he is meeting me here” (yes, that was a lie). He said, “Oh, but you are very beautiful. Au revoir!” It was then that I realized I was at the wrong metro stop, so I went off to the right one. I nearly got attacked by two huge dogs on my way, but a homeless man saved me by calling out to them to leave me alone. Thank goodness for the homeless.
My friends and I went to the park Bois de Boulagne and then to the Mosque in Paris. It is the center of the Muslim community here and is so interesting to see with all its mosaics. We peered into some of the worship rooms to see people kneeling on rugs and bowing in prayer. We even took off our shoes to go inside, but thought it better for us to refrain from worshipping Allah.
Later, I was wandering around the crowded streets of Paris among all the enthusiastic (drunk) fans looking for where the England vs. France rugby match was being broadcast when I randomly ran into Vanessa. She was out with her cousin and two friends who work as au pairs in Paris, so I joined them to get crepes and watch the game. The three girls were Mexican, Swedish, and German (and Vanessa is from Mexico, too), so there were four languages being used in our conversation; French, Spanish, German, and English were all being used here and there (not to mention Charades, which is essentially a universal language). It was quite the foreign experience, and so much fun!
On the way home, Vanessa and I were approached by a few crazies. One time when an old man was talking to us and we couldn’t get rid of him, some guy our age came up and said, “Come have a drink with me,” and on the side, “Not for my sake. I don’t give a *.” He ushered us away from the man into a brasserie where we kindly thanked him and he nodded and walked away. Maybe there are some nice people in Paris after all! Unfortunately, France lost the match, so there were a lot of angry drunks around. On the metro ride home, people were throwing glass bottles out the window and yelling. Some strange British man wearing a wig who didn’t understand the concept of personal space kept asking me for change to ride the train that we were already on! It was a wild night in Paris!
NEWSFEED FOR THIS WEEK
--The metro went on strike on Thursday and it has continued into Friday, meaning that we are stuck out in the suburbs. Good news is we don’t have to go to school, but the bad news is that we can’t go anywhere in Paris. Also, we had to cancel our plans for the Paris ballet and we might not get to go to be on a French TV talk show to which we were invited.
--My director and his wife had four of us in the program over for FHE/dinner the other night and I cannot express how nice it was to be in a priesthood holder’s apartment. I never thought I could notice the difference so drastically. Feeling so warm, peaceful, and comfortable, I really felt like I was home. I didn’t want to leave, but with the metro strike, we had to catch our train right after dinner. It was such a pleasure, though!
--I found a place to live when I go back to BYU in the winter and it is with my best friends in Chattemtown! Even though I love it out here, I’m looking forward to a good time when I get back. Staying up late in our living room talking, going to dances, driving with the windows rolled down and singing along loudly to the music, etc. will be such a blast with my friends again!
--The whole laundry situation is getting a little ridiculous. Rebecca and I wanted to take our wet socks and underwear back to my room’s heater to dry (the dryer doesn’t work), but Madame won’t let us take wet clothes out of the laundry room. So, to get the clothes out of there, Rebecca stuffs all the wet clothes into the puffy coat she is wearing to smuggle them back to my room. We’re stuffing the coat and whispering in the laundry room (Madame is in the next room), and Rebecca zips up the coat, turns sideways to show her profile, and asks me “Can you tell?” I mouth back with the lie, “No,” but her coat is huge and I could definitely tell it was stuffed with clothes! We barely made it back to our rooms without bursting with laughter. The next five minutes were spent trying to stifle our laughter in the blankets on the bed, wiping tears from our eyes. It’s absurd that we have to smuggle our clothes in the first place. Madame even made us sit down and pick the lint out of our pockets before we washed our jeans.
That’s all for now! I’m hoping to keep updating this blog, but the program is half over already and I just find myself getting busier and busier. I’m trying to make the most of my time out here, so I apologize if the quality of the blog goes downhill a little (don’t hate!). I love you all and I can’t wait to hear from you and what everyone is up to in the states!
