So I have been neglectful of both writing in my journal and blogging about what I've done. Which has got to stop, because I want to remember what I did here. So today I am going to dump all the information of what I've done since my last blog post into this here blog post. And starting tomorrow I am going to be better again. (At least with the journal thing - being better about blogging is going to have to wait until a week from tomorrow after we get back from London.) So, here we go. I shall try to keep it quick but not leave anything out.
So pretty much all I have blogged about is first getting here, seeing the Eiffel Tower, and Laduree pastries, right? Whew. Okay, this is going to be fun. Time to start.
Here is an angry bird. That I saw in Paris. Which makes it photo worthy and blog worthy.
One day, I do not remember when, some of us went to a free concert at the Madeleine Church. It was beautiful and the singing was nice. I fell asleep during the last half (which has seemed to happen a lot since I've gotten here - but I think I am finally adjusting to the time and everything) but it was still great. Here's me in front of the church.
The view from the steps of L'eglise de la Madeleine.
So, as you can obviously tell, my classes here have started. So I have been spending time doing homework for those. One of those classes is a photography class. Another one of my classes is called Paris Walks. We have a book that some BYU professors wrote, including my program director here in Paris. He is teaching the class. It's the one class we were all required to take, and it's the time when we go over any official business we need to also. For this class, we meet every Tuesday for two hours. And then we have to do two walks in our book each week. They are step by step instructions about where to go. Like, one of the first walks I went on was the Metro walk. It told me what station to start at. Then what lines to get on. Where to get off. With cool facts about the metro along the way. It was pretty cool, but I was glad when I finally finished. Three hours underground on the metro is a long time. The other walk I did the first week was "The Anti-Walk Walk." My director, Professor Olivier, wrote it. It's all about being a "flaneur" (or flaneuse in my case). So the idea was to pretty much get lost and just wander around aimlessly for a few hours. It was wonderful and I felt like I learned a lot more about the Paris culture during it. It was nice not having a goal in mind. I just walked and absorbed my surroundings and thought deep thoughts haha. The third walk I did was the Montmartre walk. This walk was AMAZING. And it was the perfect day to do it. We pretty much started at the Sacre Coeur Basilica. So beautiful.
The view from the Basilica.
I could not help but take a picture of this couple taking their wedding pictures in the entrance of Sacre Coeur. I have seen so many brides around Paris. And, knowing me, I have taken all their pictures when I could. I should seriously start a brides around Paris series haha.
After going into the church and looking around (and taking pictures until I found out that wasn't allowed thanks to an angry Frenchman), we went to a church nearby. It's the Saint-Pierre church, and it has been a parish church since C.E. 1147. Can you believe that? I couldn't. And all I am going to post on this is a picture of the door. Very cool door if I do say so myself.
We then went to Musee de vieux Montmartre, the oldest house on Montmartre, built in the early twelfth century. It was a cute little museum and I loved it. One of the rooms was a Moulin Rouge room and it was awesome. And they had some of the original Moulin Rouge posters. Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed. We then walked to Au Lapin Agile, the oldest cabaret in Paris.
Montmartre was so beautiful and cute and I loved it. I took SO many pictures just of the streets and everything. I won't share them all though. I'll just post the pics with something meaningful in them haha. Instead of narrating the rest, I'll just show you a few.
La Maison Rose - a favorite of Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein.
Van Gogh used to live here.
The Moulin Rouge. Enough said.
That's enough of Montmartre. But remember that I highly recommend it. We also went through the little square where there's all the artists and everything. I fell in love with a lot of paintings. Particularly with two certain ones though. They were a set. And they were both parts of the Eiffel Tower. Like you'd put them a few inches apart from each other on the wall if that didn't make sense to anyone. And they were black and white. With hot pink, black, and white paint splatters. Not the best painting there, but it was like my style in the form of a painting. And I have to admit I coveted it a little haha.
Now I'm just going to just go through some things I've done. If I think of anything as I'm doing it, I will elaborate on certain stuff.
The Arc de Triomphe. I have yet to go up in it. I unluckily started my "flaneur" walk here. I walked out of the random Metro stop and was like, "Seriously?" haha. I took this picture and then started my walk (no pictures could be taken during the walk - that'd be a goal).
The Gardens at Versailles. This deserves a whole blog post, but this is just going to have to work. But I'm sure I'll be going back to Versailles again so I will give you more details next time. Here's just some pictures.
Haha. Another bride.
I promise I was having fun. The sun was just in my eyes.
I wish I could post pics of all these statues, but I won't. They were amazing. They had all the Roman gods and goddesses lining the path.
Haha so funny. And yes, another bride. They were doing a double photo shoot actually.
That was a lot of pictures. Whew. And I had the best chocolate ice cream I have ever had there.
So, this is the LDS Church building in Paris. It's where I have my classes and where church and institute are held. It's right by the Centre de Georges Pompidou and the Hotel de Ville.
And a picture of the Hotel de Ville.
For another walk, I walked around La Defense. It's like a business district.
A French woman asked me to take her picture, in French, and I did of course. And then she asked, STILL IN FRENCH, if I wanted my picture taken. So I said sure haha. Pretty much it made my day. So many people talk back to me in English when I speak in French to them. And she was one of three French people who asked me for directions or other stuff that day. I was quite proud.
The largest mosaic in the world.
An awesome statue/sculpture type thing that just looks like a bunch of straws. Loved it of course haha.
The Grand Arch at La Defense.
I struggled with actually getting my face in the picture. But I just loved these bench things.
The sleepwalker or dreamwalker or something.
Giant thumb.
Cool fountain.
The La Defense statue. And me.
The view from under the Arch. You could see like all of Paris. If you look closely, you can see the Arc de Triomphe in the middle all the way back.
Zoomed in a little bit - now can you see the Arc?
So now, the moment you all should have been waiting for . . . the reason why I fell so behind with the blogging. It's not because I have just been having too much fun (which I have), but because of some nasty little beasts. Les punaises des lits. Aka BED BUGS. Gag. But yes, it's true. The room where I am staying had a bed bug infestation. I started feeling itchy right after I got here. And then last Sunday I looked at my arms and they were COVERED in little red dots. That night I woke up in the middle of the night, turned on the light, and saw little nasty bugs scurrying away from me and into the crevices of the bed. Needless to say, I freaked out. And I have been dealing with them and trying to get rid of them this whole week. It's been a crazy and rough week, but I think we finally got rid of them. I hope. So here's some nasty pictures to show you how gross my arms were. And the rest of me for that matter. Just sime numbers . . . I had/have 30 bites on my right hand and 31 on my left. I have about 60 on my left arm (not including the hand) and about the same on my right arm. I have about 35 or so on my legs combined and about 20 on my back. I have like 6 on my neck and, luckily, none on my face. And sorry the pictures are blurry. It was hard taking pictures, especially without the flash which drowned out the bites. And no, I did not exaggerate the numbers. I counted. Numerous times. And I usually lost count and gave up. So these were all AT LEAST numbers.
I know they are hard to see. But hopefully this gives you an idea. And these seriuosly don't even do it justice. A lot of them don't show up in the pictures because of the bad quality.
And then, I got bored and nervous and antsy one night. And I decided to circle all my bites on my hands and lower arms so we could see if I got any more bites during the night. This was after we had had an exterminator come and yet I had found one on the wall the next morning. I killed it of course. So here's pictures of that.
Gross, right? Shudder. Worst experience ever.
So to end on a better note . . . here's this picture that I took of the Madeleine church. It really is a beautiful building.
P.S. I HAVE gone to the Louvre. But I didn't spend much time there so I'm just gonna wait to talk about that until I REALLY experience it.
So pretty much all I have blogged about is first getting here, seeing the Eiffel Tower, and Laduree pastries, right? Whew. Okay, this is going to be fun. Time to start.
Here is an angry bird. That I saw in Paris. Which makes it photo worthy and blog worthy.
One day, I do not remember when, some of us went to a free concert at the Madeleine Church. It was beautiful and the singing was nice. I fell asleep during the last half (which has seemed to happen a lot since I've gotten here - but I think I am finally adjusting to the time and everything) but it was still great. Here's me in front of the church.
The view from the steps of L'eglise de la Madeleine.
So, as you can obviously tell, my classes here have started. So I have been spending time doing homework for those. One of those classes is a photography class. Another one of my classes is called Paris Walks. We have a book that some BYU professors wrote, including my program director here in Paris. He is teaching the class. It's the one class we were all required to take, and it's the time when we go over any official business we need to also. For this class, we meet every Tuesday for two hours. And then we have to do two walks in our book each week. They are step by step instructions about where to go. Like, one of the first walks I went on was the Metro walk. It told me what station to start at. Then what lines to get on. Where to get off. With cool facts about the metro along the way. It was pretty cool, but I was glad when I finally finished. Three hours underground on the metro is a long time. The other walk I did the first week was "The Anti-Walk Walk." My director, Professor Olivier, wrote it. It's all about being a "flaneur" (or flaneuse in my case). So the idea was to pretty much get lost and just wander around aimlessly for a few hours. It was wonderful and I felt like I learned a lot more about the Paris culture during it. It was nice not having a goal in mind. I just walked and absorbed my surroundings and thought deep thoughts haha. The third walk I did was the Montmartre walk. This walk was AMAZING. And it was the perfect day to do it. We pretty much started at the Sacre Coeur Basilica. So beautiful.
The view from the Basilica.
I could not help but take a picture of this couple taking their wedding pictures in the entrance of Sacre Coeur. I have seen so many brides around Paris. And, knowing me, I have taken all their pictures when I could. I should seriously start a brides around Paris series haha.
After going into the church and looking around (and taking pictures until I found out that wasn't allowed thanks to an angry Frenchman), we went to a church nearby. It's the Saint-Pierre church, and it has been a parish church since C.E. 1147. Can you believe that? I couldn't. And all I am going to post on this is a picture of the door. Very cool door if I do say so myself.
We then went to Musee de vieux Montmartre, the oldest house on Montmartre, built in the early twelfth century. It was a cute little museum and I loved it. One of the rooms was a Moulin Rouge room and it was awesome. And they had some of the original Moulin Rouge posters. Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed. We then walked to Au Lapin Agile, the oldest cabaret in Paris.
Montmartre was so beautiful and cute and I loved it. I took SO many pictures just of the streets and everything. I won't share them all though. I'll just post the pics with something meaningful in them haha. Instead of narrating the rest, I'll just show you a few.
La Maison Rose - a favorite of Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein.
Van Gogh used to live here.
The Moulin Rouge. Enough said.
That's enough of Montmartre. But remember that I highly recommend it. We also went through the little square where there's all the artists and everything. I fell in love with a lot of paintings. Particularly with two certain ones though. They were a set. And they were both parts of the Eiffel Tower. Like you'd put them a few inches apart from each other on the wall if that didn't make sense to anyone. And they were black and white. With hot pink, black, and white paint splatters. Not the best painting there, but it was like my style in the form of a painting. And I have to admit I coveted it a little haha.
Now I'm just going to just go through some things I've done. If I think of anything as I'm doing it, I will elaborate on certain stuff.
The Arc de Triomphe. I have yet to go up in it. I unluckily started my "flaneur" walk here. I walked out of the random Metro stop and was like, "Seriously?" haha. I took this picture and then started my walk (no pictures could be taken during the walk - that'd be a goal).
The Gardens at Versailles. This deserves a whole blog post, but this is just going to have to work. But I'm sure I'll be going back to Versailles again so I will give you more details next time. Here's just some pictures.
Haha. Another bride.
I promise I was having fun. The sun was just in my eyes.
I wish I could post pics of all these statues, but I won't. They were amazing. They had all the Roman gods and goddesses lining the path.
Haha so funny. And yes, another bride. They were doing a double photo shoot actually.
That was a lot of pictures. Whew. And I had the best chocolate ice cream I have ever had there.
So, this is the LDS Church building in Paris. It's where I have my classes and where church and institute are held. It's right by the Centre de Georges Pompidou and the Hotel de Ville.
And a picture of the Hotel de Ville.
For another walk, I walked around La Defense. It's like a business district.
A French woman asked me to take her picture, in French, and I did of course. And then she asked, STILL IN FRENCH, if I wanted my picture taken. So I said sure haha. Pretty much it made my day. So many people talk back to me in English when I speak in French to them. And she was one of three French people who asked me for directions or other stuff that day. I was quite proud.
The largest mosaic in the world.
An awesome statue/sculpture type thing that just looks like a bunch of straws. Loved it of course haha.
The Grand Arch at La Defense.
I struggled with actually getting my face in the picture. But I just loved these bench things.
The sleepwalker or dreamwalker or something.
Giant thumb.
Cool fountain.
The La Defense statue. And me.
The view from under the Arch. You could see like all of Paris. If you look closely, you can see the Arc de Triomphe in the middle all the way back.
Zoomed in a little bit - now can you see the Arc?
So now, the moment you all should have been waiting for . . . the reason why I fell so behind with the blogging. It's not because I have just been having too much fun (which I have), but because of some nasty little beasts. Les punaises des lits. Aka BED BUGS. Gag. But yes, it's true. The room where I am staying had a bed bug infestation. I started feeling itchy right after I got here. And then last Sunday I looked at my arms and they were COVERED in little red dots. That night I woke up in the middle of the night, turned on the light, and saw little nasty bugs scurrying away from me and into the crevices of the bed. Needless to say, I freaked out. And I have been dealing with them and trying to get rid of them this whole week. It's been a crazy and rough week, but I think we finally got rid of them. I hope. So here's some nasty pictures to show you how gross my arms were. And the rest of me for that matter. Just sime numbers . . . I had/have 30 bites on my right hand and 31 on my left. I have about 60 on my left arm (not including the hand) and about the same on my right arm. I have about 35 or so on my legs combined and about 20 on my back. I have like 6 on my neck and, luckily, none on my face. And sorry the pictures are blurry. It was hard taking pictures, especially without the flash which drowned out the bites. And no, I did not exaggerate the numbers. I counted. Numerous times. And I usually lost count and gave up. So these were all AT LEAST numbers.
I know they are hard to see. But hopefully this gives you an idea. And these seriuosly don't even do it justice. A lot of them don't show up in the pictures because of the bad quality.
And then, I got bored and nervous and antsy one night. And I decided to circle all my bites on my hands and lower arms so we could see if I got any more bites during the night. This was after we had had an exterminator come and yet I had found one on the wall the next morning. I killed it of course. So here's pictures of that.
Gross, right? Shudder. Worst experience ever.
So to end on a better note . . . here's this picture that I took of the Madeleine church. It really is a beautiful building.
P.S. I HAVE gone to the Louvre. But I didn't spend much time there so I'm just gonna wait to talk about that until I REALLY experience it.
