Espana

I'm going to write one final Paris wrap up blog when I'm back in the states.  But i'm waiting for some of the pictures that my friends took to get put up on facebook so I can use them. 

I like Spain.  I would come back here.  It’s hot and colorful. Reds, oranges, yellows, blues, greens.  A rainbow of prints.  

The people are thin and wear sandals and shorts.  Loose tops, dresses with prints, converse, short skirts and linen pants that look like pajamas.  The girls have nice legs.  The shopping is cheap and the food is yummy.  Tapa hopping is popular and paella is delicious with Spanish rice and chicken and peas.  I like the olives and the cheese.  I liked the Prado.  We had a tour with my Dad's cousin John Rosenburg who is the humanities dean at BYU and did study abroad to Spain.  He knows everything about everything.  We were in the Museum for 5 ½ hours. 

I really like the Mercado.  Its this big market building with stands of all sorts of foods inside.  Emanadas, frozen yogurt and helados, chips with eggs on them, fish, meats (curred hams), fancy cheeses, stuffed olives... everything 

this is the mercado at night 

Literally everyone does come out at night too.  Dinner is at 10 and the people roam the streets late into the night.  The sun doesn't go down until about 10 anyway. 

Today we went to see the Spain temple. It was breathtaking 

thats a new spanish dress i bought.. for only 12 euros! 

Anyway, Madrid is beautiful and I love it. Here is a final picture of some of the streets lined with trees and colorful buildings with windows and flowers 

Côte d'Azur

I went on a last minute, spur of the moment, insane trip down to the South of France with my friends Savannah, Megan, Ashley, Sierra, and Rachel this weekend.  I came in from Belgium Thursday night and we spent the night at a hotel called “F1 Roissy PN2” in Paris by the airport so that we could catch our 7:00 am flights.  I’m not kidding about the name.  It was such a funny hotel with the bathrooms down the hall.  The showers turned on for thirty-second intervals and were freezing cold.  I slept for a total of 3 hours before having to figure out how to fly by myself in France.  Everything went without a hitch and I feel so proud to know how to travel in a foreign country alone!

            Our hostel in the South was amazing!  

(beach cover-ups and heels in our hostel with Savannah and Sierra)

It was part of a group of hostel’s called “Hostel International.”  I stayed in a bunk bed dorm with 8 beds for women.  We had us 6 in the same room and then a young Korean girl and an old Australian woman.  She was 56 and she has cancer.  She told us that is why she is traveling all over Europe.  She is a “true hippy” in her words.  She only wears clothes in purple or green. She told us we could borrow her clothes and tried to get us to wear one of her crazy medieval purple lace dresses out on the town.  It was difficult to say no to that….

            Every day she woke up and demanded where she was and almost scratched her hair off. She was a very paranoid sleeper.  She told us stories about her crazy life.  I think she’s lonely to be traveling alone but she is so courageous for living her dreams.  She had a photo album with her and she kept it open on our table in the room to a picture of her dog.  She said he would “watch over the room.”  She would make demands of her picture like “make sure no one gets in today, keep our room safe.”  Or “make sure the men leave these girls alone.”  The Korean girl said like 2 words ever.

            We visited Nice, Cannes, and Villefrance sur-mer.  All we did was go to the beach, which is good because I’m going to Nice for a longer time with Parents when they come down here. It was amazing!  It was like Paris by the ocean with nicer people and Italian influence! The houses were beautiful old buildings in pastel colors.  The water was a beautiful turquoise and the weather was warmer and salty like the beach.  Cannes was overrated.  We went there because we were told that the beaches are sandy but I prefer New Port to Cannes.  Villefrance sur-mer is a small rocky beach with a beautiful port and houses overlooking a cliff.  It was our favorite spot.

Villefranche sur-mer

  Nice has a great night atmosphere too.  Its safe because everyone is walking around all night and the lights make it as bright as day.  All I wanted was to find someone to take us out on their yacht.  No such luck!

Cocoa Beach in Nice, France 

            Being by the beach made me ridiculously homesick.  I kept thinking about Santa Cruz and New Port and how much I miss and love my family.  I really am so blessed to live where I live.  France has just made me want to travel and see everything; but I am lucky to know that the things I have seen in California really are some of the most amazing in the entire world.  Going to the Côte d’Azur has also made me want to go to the warm blue beaches in the Caribbean and Mexico… my next trip will be to Cabo! 

Waffles & Frites & the (belgium) 15

(sorry for the glare, I guess I forgot to turn off flash!)

I’m going to have to blog twice today because there is no way I can fit the past couple of days into one coherent thought.  I haven’t been in Paris since Wednesday, which is why I’ve been so hard to contact!  It’s been hard not hearing from home, but luckily I really love my friends here and they have become like family to me.  This Wednesday I went to Belgium! And I love it there!  

(this picture is me, loving Belgium)

We visited Bruxelles and Bruges.  Bruxelles is where the EU has its headquarters.  We got a tour of the inside by someone high up (he didn’t exactly tell us but I know he votes on issues and has a really nice office with a view) who is a friend to BYU.  He’s not Mormon though and some of the jokes he made during the presentation were hysterical and slightly inappropriate.  He is the first “tour guide” to treat us like adults and not high schoolers (which is probably all my fault since I’m often mistaken for a 15 year-old).  I would love to work at the EU. It’s big and bright and beautiful with windows everywhere and clean modern lines. BYU has an internship at the EU in Bruxelles that I want to do more research on.  It’s the most diverse place in the world with people from 27 (they just added Croatia I think or another C named country) countries speaking all different, beautiful languages.  It is so inspiring to hear people who can speak 3, 4, even 5 or 6 languages.  They are my role models and some day I know it will be me too.

            Being in Paris and especially Bruxelles has taught me that I love living in the city.  Of course I love the country and that has a totally different vibe, but I can be just as happy walking among skyscrapers and jam-packed building in cities that never sleep.  Rachel and I are talking about studying for a semester in NY.  I’ve heard great things about that city, apparently its pretty famous.

           (those are both pictures of Bruxelles just on the streets. I like how in the second one you can see the skyscrapers in the background contrasting with the old buildings)  

Bruges was completely different than Bruxelles; the contrast is startling.  It’s a small quaint town with beautiful architecture and delicious food.  

They speak Flemish and would prefer that we speak with them in English than French.  Belgium is so politically divided between the French speakers and the Flemish speakers (Dutch).  The political tensions are mind blowing.  It’s the first time I’ve ordered food in English for months and we kept accidently slipping into old habits.

(To me flemish and german look like someone tried to type with their elbows and pushed a whole lot of wrong letters.)

            Belgium has more cobblestone streets than Paris.  It’s more laid back and the people are nicer because the customs are different than the French.  I knew when I was back in Paris because people gave me stony stares and bumped into me on the metro and cut in front of me on the street.

            Other things we did in Belgium include a boat ride down the canal in Bruges and a visit to a Flemish museum in Bruxelles. I loved the museum which also had a surrealism section. I’m happy to say that surrealism is now one of my favorite kinds of art! Unfortunately I couldn’t take any pictures in that section.  The Flemish paintings had weird depictions of Hell and so many bizarre things going on at once.  You could stare at the same painting and see a hundred different things.  My favorite thing was a squirrel on a chain kept as a pet in one of the medieval periods paintings. I’ll get one of those as a pet for my children.

    Of course there were tons of waffles, frites, and chocolate consumed. They’re more known for their filled chocolates than their plain chocolate bars.  I accidentally ordered a champagne flavored one.  It was shaped like a mushroom!

Dordogne Pèrigod

Before I talk about our weekend trip, I want to say that I went to the most awesome fireside in Paris with Sister Dalton today.  It was directed for the Young Women but it was so amazing and I am a young women still in heart so while some of the stuff for the high schoolers didn't apply to me, so much else did.  I'm making huge decisions, even if they aren't deciding what college i'm going to or what I want to study.  I'm going on a mission and she talked a lot about that too.  I got a picture with her with my group of girls: (the thumbs up thing is from her talk saying that we're taking her challenge and we're 100% doing it.  She said that whenever we see her we have to do this.)

 I also started crying right before she gave me a hug and she told me "us blonds have to stick together because we get emotional." It was so sweet.  My group of 8 was standing behind her while others were getting pictures and shaking her hand and when she turned around she said "I could feel your spirit from behind me.  You all have such a strong spirit about you!"

My study abroad is close to being over.  I'm already feeling sad about coming back home.  It will be a bittersweet parting.  I am excited to see my parents though and show them around a little bit!

Dordogne was beautiful.  It was picture perfect like a postcard or a pinterest picture.  It was the charming, quaint "provincial life" from Beauty and the Beast.  We went to a cave where it was illegal to take pictures (so I secretly snapped a few which all turned out dark and blurry).  It looked just like Indiana Jones so I felt like i'd seen it before.  We then stopped by some castles, a historical pilgrimage sight and then the "most beautiful village in france."  It is literally considered the most beautiful.  Here are some pictures:

We spent two nights in a hotel in Sarlat but we only visite the town one day.  We ate fois gras.. well everyone ate it but I cut mine up in cute shapes and made towers of foie gras and bread and salad for the waiter.  I think he probably appreciated that.  I had a hard time eating the duck too because the meat is SOO dark.  Like practically black.  The people here are crazy about their walnuts too.  Walnut wine (no joke), walnut jam, cakes, chocolates, nougats, ice cream and just about any walnut thing you can think of.  They have laws to verify the validity of the walnuts origin.  If your not a Pèrigod walnut, you have no chance.  Sarlat has a outrageously huge market on Saturdays which is a major reason for our visit there.  The market is preserved as a historical monument and is protected under the law.  Its huge! And so french looking in every way. 

those are the tents from the fair. Every little side street and ally way has more tents.  So big, I could never capture it in one photo. 

those are more pictures of the market with cliché French ideas that hold true.  Lots of cheese, wine and flowers. 

 

Happily (ever after)

This weekend we will be in Dorgdone (Périgod) which is where the movie Ever After took place!! Good thing I love that movie to pieces. I remember when I was young watching it all the time.  Mom took me to the Spaghetti factory and while we were waiting I went to "Toys that Teach" (the most awesome toy store in the world) and bought a little bag of gold stones.  Then when I got home, I reenacted the scene in ever after where she drops her bag of gold coins all over the table and states "I slaughtered them!" I got the accent down pretty well.
I don't have very much to say but I wanted to write anyway because I've been missing my family lately.  I am really glad to have made some great friends on this trip. It's just a bummer because it's not like my plate is overflowing with girl friends... and now that I have them I'll never see them again! Because of the whole mission/marriage/children thing. Luckily one of them (Rachel) lives in the bay area so we will go to San Francisco together this summer and she may come and visit Sacramento. Mom and Dad will love her because she's so smart and speaks French and Portugese and she's quiet and nice. Today we saw castles. AGAIN. I hate château's! I don't even care that I wanted to be a princess for years when I was a kid! I'd be happy if I never saw another one again! Tomorrow we're going to see a cave and walk around an old little city. Oh but cool fact, one of the castles I went to today was the city where Chocolat that film with Johnny Depp that mom and I use to watch together is filmed.  I would recommend reading the book to that movie especially to Tana because it was really good.
Tonight I had mushrooms for an entrée, duck for dinner made in this strange looking salty crunchy bag thing.  Those are foods from this region which is apparently considered the place with some of the best cosine in the world. They're known for foie gras, duck/goose, walnuts and apple cake type things.  Its funny because those are all foods i'm not fond of. Another lesson in how horrible I am at trying new foods/ eating things I don't like!
More later when I have more interesting things to share!
I love you all!

It's a beautiful day in Versailles.

For our final open day this Monday the weather in Paris was fantastic. It was sunny, warm(er), and there were only a few pluffy clouds meandering across the sky.  We took the opportunity to visit the Gardens of Versailles. Since we have horrible luck with timing in France, all the buildings were closed because it was a Monday. Mondays are like weekly holidays in France.  We didn't want to go into the châteaux since that was a disaster last time but we did want to visit the Petit Trianon which was Marie Antoinette's village/house.  We all recently watched the movie with Kirsten Dunst and have gone a little overboard in loving her. Her life was sooo amazing. Just wait until you see her gardens. She had acres to skip gleefully and huge expansive meadows to lay in. Its too bad she lived a short life which ended by her beheading in the name of Revolution. Other than the last part, I wouldn't have minded being the queen of France. First we had a little picnic by the lake in the gardens. This is me lounging with the castle of Versailles in the background

Then we rented bicycles and biked around the property. Stopping to explore secret gates and sit in beautiful meadows dreaming that we were princesses or fairies. 

Today I went to the Musée d'Orsay.  It was so big. In my opinion since the major works are on the 5th floor I would start there so you don't get tired with everything else. Which is definitely possible (and happened to me).  I was a little sad that there was no photographing in the museum. I saw Renoir, Monet, Pissaro, Van Gogh, Degas... it was amazing. My favorite was Degas. Renoir was my least favorite which surprised me.  We also checked out a visiting exhibit about dark romanticism . It was almost as scary as the Palais de Tokyo or the exit from RER C (which is a really long enclosed ramp with cement walls in a basement like setting with graffiti all over, or the time when Savannah's way was blocked by a guy (with a crazy eye mind you) on the streets and we turned and ran.  I got to watch some clips from Dracula and some silent French horror movies though. We saw a play (The Bald Soprano) in French.  Apparently its been running for 50 strait years in France because it was SUCH a hit. I understood a lot but the play is so bizarre that I'm going to go read it in English. This was our little theater. 

also today I ate a snail. 

Monet & Me

Today we headed to Giverny. It was a 1 hour train ride outside of Paris, but so worth it! Especially if you have grown up admiring Monet's artwork!  His gardens are to die for. His house is beautiful and sunny. We watched a video about him in the gift shop. I was surprised to learn that he was manic/depressive.  His mood was also dictated by the weather. Bad weather would drop him into a depression where he wouldn't move for several days. He was also OCD about his flowers. If his children picked the flowers, he would go crazy. We joked that hes probably rolling over in his grave watching thousands of people stream through his gardens each day...
Another crazy fact we learned is that he had a gardener to remove the raindrops from the lily pads each day... I don't even know how that is possible? Did the gardener wade into the water and wear like special gloves to gently brush off the the raindrops clinging to the surface of the garden? any way, here are some pictures.  One picture is in the main garden and the other is in the water garden with my friend Ashley.

Now I want to do a small stint on the Paris Metro... 

Parisian Metro Etiquette

A short guide to navigating the metro like a native 

• The doors to the trams open 3 different ways depending on which line you are riding. More populated lines especially touristy ones (like line 1)  open for you.  Other lines have handles that you swing up (Not down! this is an embarrassing mistake because the door won't open! been there done that...) some have big square buttons that say "push here to open" in french. 
• If the train stops for a long time and no one moves and someone gabs rapidly in french over the intercom, they're probably just saying "sorry for the momentary interruption  be patient, we'll be moving soon." If the train stops and everyone gets out... you'll probably want to follow. 
• Know where your going all the way to your destination before you get on your train. Look for the stops at the end of the lines your taking to know which direction you need to head in since the metro will go both ways.  They're usually signs which list all the stops on the particular line so you can make sure that your right
• Keep you pass ready in your hand when your approaching the entrance area of the metro/changing line/exiting the metro. To get through, you simply drop your pass on top of the purple area until a green light shows and it makes a little binging noise. Push through the turnstiles immediately after or you'll be locked out.  Once you've scanned your pass and not gone through, there is no hope and you are trapped forever. 
• if you want to be french, skip the above bullet and proceed to hop over the barriers or sneak in behind another person. Going underneath is also a viable option. If a cop is watching or there is an information desk in close proximity, who cares! They won't stop you so don't worry about it! 
• If you want to look french while riding, simply grab one of the free newspapers and pretend to read.  Big headphones and dazed stares also work. 
• Feel free to squeeze by people to get to an empty seat if the metro is jam packed. If not, try to sit diagonal or side by side. Avoid sitting directly across. 
• sit strait up in your chair so your knees don't poke into the person across from you/into the aisle/ in the way of the door
• there are chairs right by the doors that you can pull down to sit on.  Its fine to use these unless the metro is standing room only. Then it is polite to stand up so there is more room 
• Don't make eye contact with any of the metro performers. Don't laugh when the accordion players play cheesy french music during your ride. They will know you are foreigners and they will lurk for money. 
• Finally, my personal favorite unspoken role is the usage of the escalators in the stations. Right side is standing, left side is walking. Not all over Paris though. Just in the Metro's. 

Have I mentioned that I love riding the Metro's in Paris?