France 2014 And How Some Things Never Change

Well it would seem that some things never change. The metro is still smelly, the macarons are still delicious, and Paris is...well it's still Paris, and I'm still a procrastinator. Much like last summer I am supposed to keep a blog of my adventures in Paris during my time here and my experience with my internship. Unfortunately time goes by so quickly in France that before you know it you're a month in and haven't yet posted...oops! However I am quickly repenting and will catch everyone up, that is if anybody besides my professor is interested in reading this...on my various escapades in the greatest country in Europe.....but don't tell the other Europeans! ;-)

This summer I have been fortunate enough to be able to return to my favorite city in the world, Paris!!! I don't know what I did to deserve yet another summer in Paris, but I think it is starting to become a tradition....an expensive tradition but one that I would definitely like to continue. This time I am doing an internship with an organisation called "Les Petis Frères des Pauvres", which literally translated into English is "Little Brothers of the Poor". Here is their mission statement, taken from their american chapter website:

"In 1939, and after a long intellectual and spiritual process, Armand Marquiset decided to dedicate his life to the poor. This project was carried out in 1946 with the creation in France of the association of les petits frères de Pauvres. He particularly committed himself in helping elderly destitute people. To love the poorest as brothers and to help them as much as possible: those were Armand Marquiset’s driving forces.

The action of the les petits frères de Pauvres is still achieved today around these fundamental values of respect and brotherhood. Volunteers and staff offer a long term accompaniment to allow people to rebuild their lives, to weave relational networks and to be released from their isolation."

I absolutely love this! I don't want  to sound soapboxy, but I firmly believe that the elderly should not be forgotten. They should be loved, respected, and taken care of in their old age. Thankfully there are organizations like Les Petits Frères that also believe in this and hundreds of "bénévoles", volunteers, who aid in the cause. I have the wonderful opportunity of visiting people each week, spending time with  them, talking, and listening to whatever it is they want to share. I find it incredibly rewarding, and at times quite fatiguing and sad to hear stories about those that feel they are alone in the world in their old age, but I feel that the good quite outweighs any negative side effects.

It's getting late and we are going to the catacombs early tomorrow morning, so thank you for reading and I will post a lot more tomorrow! :)

Giverny

Thursday May 23rd

Because we had a couple free days to travel Hayley, Savannah, Ashley and I decided to go visit Giverny. It was only a short one hour train ride to Vernon and then a 15/20 minute bus ride to Giverny. The weather wasn't amazing but it wasn't horrible either. First we went and explored the gardens, and it was like something I could have only ever dreamed of. No wonder Monet's paintings are so beautiful he lived in a gorgeous area! Everything was so green and the flowers were so colorful, I was in heaven. We got to see the lily pad ponds and even take a picture on the bridge covered in lilac, what an amazing experience! Our tickets also included Monet's house, which was also full of warm inviting colors like yellows and blues.  In the gift shop there was a video playing on Monet and I learned a lot of things that I didn't know about him including that his mood depended on the weather, and that he was so specific about his gardens that if one of his children picked a flower he would get very upset. 

The whole time I was there I couldn't stop thinking how much my family and friends back home would enjoy it, especially my Mom and it made me miss everyone a bit. I hope that one day I can come back with my Mom because I just know she would love it! :) We also visited Le Musee des Impressionists which was a smaller museum but it had some of my favorite artists such as Paul Signac. For lunch I had a quiche, always a good choice in my book, and then later some hot chocolate and ice cream. I never used to be that into hot chocolate, but since I've been here I have been hot chocolate crazy! Maybe that's on account of the rainy weather we've been getting.....regardless I'm fine with consuming lots of got chocolate as long as I don't burn my tongue in the process. I absolutely loved this whole day! :) 

Skyscrapers, Monet, and Marie Antoinette

*sorry there aren't photos, I will add them soon*

Monday May 20th

Around midday a couple of my friends and I headed out to La Defense, which is the modern area of Paris. It's full of skyscrapers and it reminded me a lot of Chicago. Though I definitely prefer old Paris it was really interesting to see a different side of Paris, full of businessmen and women and lots metal and glass buildings.  There is a giant mall there so what did we do....that's right we went shopping! I finally gave in and bought myself a leather jacket and boy am I one happy girl. Before shopping we had lunch at McDonalds, yes you read that right. I'm not gonna say its my proudest moment but I figure since plenty of the French go to them than its good enough for me. I got a hamburger and fries, and then a hot chocolate and some macaroons and I thoroughly enjoyed it all. The mall was super fancy complete with free shoe shinning machines and water fountains! You maybe thinking that water fountains aren't that exciting but they seriously are, and it's because I can never find any in Paris. Unfortunately this water fountain was dispensing warm water and not cold for some odd reason so what could've been a joyous moment was marred a bit by the warm water, oh well. 

Tuesday May 21st

The morning commenced with school and a midterm, and I've got to say it is hard to juggle school and sightseeing and everything else. There is just so much to do! Then we went to the Musee de Marmottan. This museum has a lot of paintings by Monet and other impressionists, so definitely right up my alley. In the basement of the building there was an exhibit of paintings by a female impressionist painter (I'm having trouble remembering her name right now), and I've got to say I did not enjoy her stuff. I've never been one of those people that can look at a painting and analyze it and such, so I just go by what I like and don't like. Needless to say I like a lot of pretty paintings! :) 

Wednesday May 22nd

Today started out with a morning stroll through the market at La Motte-Picquet. I loved it! It was just so full of life and all sorts of different and interesting smells and people and things. I didn't buy anything but it was still great. Then we hopped on the metro to go to the catacombs, and apparently it was right outside of the metro stop but we spent a good 10/15 minutes looking for it until we figured it out. I've noticed that stuff like that happens a lot, probably a side effect of not having smart phones and 3G everywhere we go....which in my opinion is actually not such a bad thing. As it happens sometimes the catacombs were closed. I thought the sign was a bit mysterious and scary, maybe somebody tried to steal some bones or something.....who knows! What I do know is that I was bummed it was closed because I had just gotten up the courage to venture down in the land of the dead, but oh well...I'm pretty sure they will still be there when I come back. Then it was back on the metro and over to Sainte-Chappelle and La Conciegerie. The stained glass in Sainte-Chappelle was absolutely astounding! In terms of cathedrals it is on the smaller size but the windows made it seem so much bigger with the light streaming through them. Each of the windows displays a story from the Bible which made it very interesting to look at each and think about the amount of work put in to each one in order to convey a particular story or message. La Conciergerie was something I had wanted to visit the last time I was in Paris but hadn't had the chance to. It served as a prison during the French Revolution and was where Marie Antoinette was held right before she was executed. The actual area where her cell was is now part of a chapel so there was a cell re-done to imitate what hers might have looked like. It was sad to think about all the innocent people that were killed and it has prompted me to want to learn more about that period of time in French history. Overall a great day! :) 

Brocante and happiness!

Sunday May 19th

Sunday means church and so to church we went! Everybody in the Paris ward is really nice and other than fighting a bit of a desire to sleep it was a pretty darn good three hours. Afterwards we journeyed over to Rue Claire for a Brocante, basically like a big vintage fair...so super up my alley. I could definitely spend all day at something like this and we pretty much did! I noticed that there was a lot of old silverware so if you were looking for fancy old silverware that was definitely the place to buy it, sadly I was not in the market for that but I did buy a vintage sea foam green skirt (modest length and all!).

Rachel and Savannah looking adorable at the Broacante

I can't believe that this is what my Sunday was like, talk about perfect! Sundays are one of the days that we have dinner with our host family so it was a nice opportunity to eat good food and have good conversation, or at least try to (the French is still a work in progress). The weather was iffy and is still continuing to be kinda gray and cloudy and I catch myself more often than I would like complaining about being cold when I should just look up and remember that I'm in Paris and that life is wonderful! I feel terrible for stealing it but my friend Sierra, who is on this study abroad program, posted this amazing quote on her blog that I just have to share:

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.”

-Shauna Niequist

Chateaus and some weird art!

Friday May 17th

Back to castling (my new verb which means visiting lots of castles)  after a fun filled night in Chemery! Breakfast was very yummy and included lots of bread and yogurt (which is super amazing here in France, I don't know what it is, it's just better!) After saying goodbye to our little castle and the dog (who for some reason still would only let me pet him for a second before he moved onto somebody else with better hair or something like that) :) we went to Chambord. It was freakishly huge and beautiful!!! The picture below is of my sweet friend Michaelanne in front of the chateau.

I feel like I should issue an apology here for all the exclamation points being used and for the lack of depth in commenting on the places I've visited, it is a little hard to be intelligent sounding when you are running crazy behind on blog posts but I'm trying! :) And of course last but not lease we visited Chenonceau, my favorite! This was the only chateau that we actually got to see the kitchens, and for some reason that was super cool and not to mention beautiful. The audio guide that we had was also super entertaining and had all sorts of fun tidbits about mistresses and things of the like. The forests surrounding it were very calming and enjoyable to just walk around in.

Then it was train time and back home to Paris!I still can't believe that I'm calling Paris home, it just feels so crazy! So I'm still not quite sure how it happened but we ended up going clubbing again that night. I think I might be getting a reputation for being a party animal but trust me that is anything but the case! We went to this club called Duplex and it was actually a ton of fun, its nice to just dance away your worries. :)

Saturday May 18th

On account of the whole clubbing situation the night before Saturday consisted of quite a bit of sleeping and then homework.....but then all that hard work (slash last minute rushing) lead to "Nuit des Musees". I don't know how often it happens but for one night pretty much all of the museums in Paris, and I think all over France in fact, are free for one night. We had hoped to go to the Modern Art Museum, but the line was crazy long! So we went to the Palais de Tokyo which happened to be right next door, but little did we know what we were getting ourselves into! I experienced a lot of differing emotions in this museum, anything on the spectrum from fear all the way to giddiness (well maybe not that emotion, most of the stuff was pretty bizare). Also I'm not sure why I'm not smiling in this picture (I guess I thought we were doing  serious faces, but apparently I missed the memo on smiling). :)

Afterwards a bunch of us walked along the Seine and enjoyed some beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower before heading home for the night. The area that we were walking around is coincidentally right over the street where Princess Diana was killed, there was even a statue commemorating her and pictures and such. It was super sad to see that especially after the fun night we had just had, it definitely made me pause for a second and think.

Still playing catch up!

Tuesday May 14th

First class of course with the wonderful Sprengers (no seriously they are wonderful teachers not to mention pretty cool people....and they aren't even paying me to say this). Today was one of the days where they cooked for us at the BYU apartment (right next to the Ecole Militaire metro stop) so needless to say we were all pretty full by the end of it. After that we visited le Musee Carnavelet and we focused on the exhibitions on the French Revolution because that was what we had talked about in class that day. Then we hit up another vintage shop that we just happened to run across and my friend Lauren bought some really awesome shoes that I totally wish were in my size...#jealousmuch! We also went to Sacre Coeur at Montmartre. Sacre Coeur is my absolute favorite church in the world it is so peaceful and wonderful! You can't take pictures in the inside so we just went inside and there were nuns singing and a priest and everything so we just sat and listened for a while. Even though its not a Mormon church I could definitely feel the spirit there and it was nice to just soak it all in.

Wednesday May 15th

Started the day off right with a nice dose of school and then onto Les Invalides. I have seen it from the outside before but never gone in so I was really excited to see where Napoleon is buried as well as walk around and see some of the exhibits that there are. Of course I have to mention the small man large tomb situation, which is a bit odd but if you are Napoleon I guess you can have whatever kind of tomb that you want....hence a giant freakin tomb in the middle of what used to be a church and then was a hospital for soldiers and now houses a dead man. After this we went and saw The Great Gatsby (Le Magnifique Gatsby en francais) on the first day that it came out and I LOVED IT! I apparently lived under a rock before this day because I didn't know the story line at all so I was completely shocked the whole way through, learning the plot bit by bit. It was in English but with French subtitles.

Thursday May 16th

We left bright and early Thursday morning for a train to the Loire Valley for two days. Trains are quickly becoming one of my favorite modes of transportation. Pluses: you get to see the beautiful countryside, you can take photos, you can eat and sleep fairly comfortably, you can get up and walk around. Cons: super stinky bathrooms (who knows why it just is the way it is). Once we arrived it was a continuous flow of chateau after chateau, and really who doesn't love that!? Not this girl! I loved it!!!!! :) Everything was so beautiful! First was the Chateau de Villandry which is well known for its gardens, pictured below:

We even saw swans in a lake, hello picturesque! The next stop on our castle tour was the one known as Sleaping Beauty's castle called Chateau d'Usse(pictured below), which was the inspiration for many Disney castles. We just saw the outside of this one as well as the outside of Azay le Rideau, another very beautiful castle.

Then back onto our giant tour bus (which has the weird power of making everyone, myself included, really sleepy and needing naps big time) and onto Chateau Royal de Blois.  The tour guide was surprised when Madame asked him to give the tour in French instead of English and for whatever reason he kept asking us if we could understand what he was saying during the tour, and then he just finally switched to English. Of course we couldn't understand every word but for the most part we could understand, I just think he was being super condescending. Kind of like he didn't think we could handle his advanced speech so he needed to dumb it down for us in English, thanks but no thank mister tour guide. The chateau is really interesting because it has several different styles because of when each part was built and such, definitely look this one up. I would explain more about it but I'm not a history major for a reason ladies and gentlemen. :) Here is a picture of me on a throne at Blois.

Okay so then the coolest thing every happened!!! We drove to a little castle called Chemery and got to sleep in it for the night!!! Can you believe it?! I slept in a castle! It was very quaint on the outside and the lady that owns it was very sweet, there was even a dog (I tried to be his best friend but he wasn't really having it...maybe dogs don't like me?). Apparently it is haunted because a long time ago someone was buried alive there or something like that...who know what happened but I do know that I didn't hear anything besides some snoring that night. The attic was definitely a bit creepy though. We played truth or dear that night, and it was the first time I had ever played (hello deprived childhood!)....I just stuck to truth, dares are too scary! 

Wow I'm slow at blog posts!

Okay so I am officially a terrible blogger...no but really I am! So I am going to try to catch everyone up on the past few weeks. So where were we:

Monday May 13th:

We had class again (who knew that was happening everyday, not me! Haha but really!) and the amount of homework needing to get done starting to seem a little daunting to me. One of my favorite things that we visited on this day was the L'Hotel de Soubise. We went to it because it is such a great example of rococo style as seen in the lovely photo below:

Next stop was the Louvre. I've been once before and both times I just feel so overwhelmed by the amount of people and art in one building. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it but I definitely was a bit haggard by the end of it. I love the sculpture of the Winged Victory and really any of the rooms where there aren't a million and a one tourists with their cameras and odd sense of personal space. :) It really is amazing to think how much time and energy each artist put into their work that is now in the Louvre....even the small pieces or ones in rooms far in the back.To the people who created those pieces they meant a lot even if we may just pass by it on our way to see the Mona Lisa (which by the way is just okay...but definitely still go see it just for the thrill!) :) Then we did some fun vintage shopping, one of them (Omaya Vintage) was pretty hardcore rock and roll so that was neat! Savannah and Hayley both bought vintage denim Levi shorts, so jealous!

Afterwards we headed back to the church building for FHE (Family Home Evening) and we were even fed dinner, and afterwards some of us went to Amorino's #bestgelatoever, just right by Notre Dame. Yumm!!!!