My mother told me to always play it on the safe side, which didn't exactly save me from running into metal poles.

There is so much to do in Paris! Its not really possible to keep up with it on the blog, but I'm not giving up yet!

Le 7 mai 2009
Thursday was one of our less eventful days in Paris, mainly because we got out of class early, had no idea what we wanted to do for the day, and the majority of our group left this weekend for the Pays-Bas (Holland) and L'Iraland (Ireland). The rest of us left to get tickets to something {next day!} and go to the Louvre (last time we didn't actually go in).
These are the girls who stayed this weekend and went to the Louvre with me.

When people say that the Louvre is huge, they are not lying. Its ginormous! We went to the Mona Lisa (Of course), Venus de Milo, and through most of the Egyptian art which took about 4 hours. At this point we realized that one of us girls Really needed a bathroom and that we were all artsy-worn out for the day. We followed the exit signs which lead us around the Louvre for 45 minutes before actually getting to an exit. Jamie took a video of all the girls freaking out when we couldn't find our way out. THAT is how big the Louvre is.
The ceiling of the statue portion of the Louvre
Jessica (she was on my flight with me)with the Venus de Milo.
On the stairs in the Louvre

After the Louvre, we all split up to get some dinner. Jamie and I went to the Latin Quarter desperately searching for the Subway (I know its not French but we wanted a good deal for dinner). It turns out that it is much more expensive than any of the boulangeries or patisseries so we turned around in search of those. We were distracted by hunger and talking quickly in French deciding rapidly which way to turn. I looked towards Jamie for maybe 2 seconds. I turned back and shrieked. Luckily I have good reaction time still I barely had enough time to get my hands in between my head and the oncoming pole. After the shock of almost getting knocked out had passed (I had not been moving slowly) I grabbed the pole multiple times. I'm sure the French thought that I was crazy, but I just could not believe that the pole was real or that it had really been there. No worries, no harm done!

We moved on and found a cheaper boulangerie {which are everywhere in the Latin Quarter}, "Le Salon de Thé", where we bought sandwiches. My sandwich has this ranch like sauce, feta, ham, tomatoes, and lettuce. I love Paris.

My Sandwich

When we had regained our sanity by eating and ran off to the school building where they hold institute on Thursday nights. I got up the courage to speak in French and share one of my favorite scriptures and describe why it was so great. I was absolutely terrified and was shaking afterwards, but I'm proud to say that I didn't say anything grammatically wrong or with a bad accent (in my opinion), but I wish I knew how to describe it more thoroughly. After one of the other study abroad students spoke the teacher asked everyone if they had understood everything that she said, which they all answered yes to. He didn't say anything after mine and I'm not sure what that should mean to me...? I also got to know 4 of the 61!! Paris institute attendees pretty well. I played Foosball with them, which is known as "baby-foot" here.


It was pretty late when I started heading home after institute. I'd never really seen Paris in the dark, but I wasn't disappointed! It was still really really pretty.

Le 8 mai 2009
Another Holiday in Paris!
We don't have classes on Fridays so Jamie and I took our holiday and slept in. Sleeping in means waking up at 8:11 here (Fun Fact: 8 and 11 are my lucky/favorite numbers fyi- just like Kates does, except with a different number, I always set my alarm with a number ending on a 1)
We woke up and took showers but didn't actually do anything till 11 when we went to the grocery store once again. It is only one street over in the same place as our house, it's pretty convenient.

We bought food for our potluck with the professor that night and food to refill our fridge and shelves (we didn't buy much the first time). Then we went home and got dressed up to go out on the city. We all wore Sunday clothes or casual business. Then we met up with other Banlieue girls and headed to the Professors place. There we had amazing pizza that had ham and 5 different kinds of french cheeses on it, a vinaigrette salad with all the fresh works that they have at the market, orangina, bread and cheese, sweet crackers, a sugary cake, chocolate bread, and little meat samplers (which personally reminded me of dog food, I searched all over the package for any reference to pets or a dog but did not find one). After chatting with the professor and the other girls for an hour plus after we headed to:

(I'll let Emily introduce it)



Did you get it? We saw Dom Quichotte (which is the French version of Don Quixote) at the Comedie Francaise Friday night!
Most of the girls who went, I think we're missing 3?

On the stairs up to the theater.



It was awesome and honestly pretty confusing. I'd been so proud of my french until I got here. I probably understood about one third of each sentence, it was pretty rough. Turns out that I understood more than most because most of the girls in my group gave up trying and went to sleep. Sad!! Even if I didn't understand I would have watched. The music was amazing and so were the sets! There was one girl (not at all a main character) who played one of the mystical beings in Dom Quichotte's dream.. her voice was absolutely incroyable. She just had this agility and lightness to it, seriously its indescribable. And she did all of it without a microphone!

The beautiful chandelier. I sat on the highest level of this huge theater. The seats run straight up and down here, and we had the cutest friendly french usher. All the boys in France are howtie towtie but he was just swell.. I don't have a flash on my camera so I couldn't get a picture of the sweet homme. :(

The stage at the final curtain call
Trying to make the metro and get home before it stops! The play got out so late! But we made it.. :)


Le 9 mai 2009
Early this morning Jamie and I went for a run.. we ran probably 2 miles through this park and had to quickly run back when realized how little time we had left to get ready to meet Emily and Rachel to do a promenade. Today's walk was titled: Lifestyles of the rich and the famous. In this walk we visited Le Musée Jacquemart-André, Le Parc Monceau, and Le Muséee Nissim de Camondo.

Sadly none of the museums we attended allowed us to take pictures, but they were amazing! They were in (what is called in France) hôtel particuliers which means that they are homes of wealthy people who have been made into museums or galleries.
On the steps of Jacquemart
Jacquemart was filled to the Brim with artwork. It had portions of the walls that could be taken apart to make the whole bottom floor of the house into one room, and some of the paintings by Fragonard had Fragonard perfume sprayed all around them. Crazy huh? Us 4 girls probably spent 3-4 hours in this one museum. It cost a fee so we thought that we'd get the most out of them. Once you had entered into the museum you were given an audio tour guide (gratuit!) mine was in French but some of the girls were in English. It was so cool to hear the stories of all the rooms and paintings. There were around 10 rooms on the top floor of this grand house (my roommate said that she thought of derbyshire from Pride and Prejudice the whole time that she was in it) that were dedicated just to artwork done on wood boards. It looked amazing and I couldn't believe how well they were preserved.. and then I noticed the humidifiers in the room and the moisture tight cases that all the artwork was in. WOAH.

Walking to Parc Monceau we saw this sign. In the US we want French Manicures- here they want american nails? go figure... I wish I knew what "American Nails" entailed though.

Le Parc Monceau was just up the road from this museum. We walked in and all took turns listening to Jamie's song "Au Parc Monceau" which perfectly fit the occasion. The guy in the song sings about having his first kiss in this beautiful park. Ahhh.. the life of those who live in the city of love.

Some Parc Scenary


Us girls on a bridge: Rachel, Emily, Me, Jamie


And some more parc scenary

We figured that we would be too tired to do the last museum since we'd already spent five hours doing the first two things on the walk.. but we got there and the ladies were all so friendly! They took our bags, let us in free, and the museum was basically empty! This one was very different... There was practically no artwork in the house. Instead all the original furniture and houseware had been preserved, from the floor boards, to the kitchen, to the toilet, ceiling, and bedspreads. They even had genealogy photos in frames around the house. We were able to learn a lot about this one family and how things were back then. It was really fun to imagine living in these big fancy shmancy houses in the middle of beautiful Paris. Even looking out the bathroom windows to a small alley reminded me of the wonder that France is. :)

Oh I forgot! At the front door, the ladies took my backpack and gave me a number, but I insisted on keeping my Paris walks book with me so that I could read what the professor had to say about the museum. A lady kept walking around me, starring at me funny and I just kept thinking about how odd some French people are. Turns out that her daughter had done BYU study abroad two years earlier and she was using her study abroad book. She had seen me at the other museum and was curious about me, until she saw my book, at which point she no longer held back. She said out loud: "You're American! And you go to BYU!" I was so disappointed in myself for letting someone see through my facade until I realized how she recognized me. She said that she saw me coming up the stairs and had been following me getting up the courage to ask how the program was going. She was really jealous of my book. She said that BYU makes it better every year and that she would trade me straight across for mine. They don't sell them at the book store or in the International Studies office. You can ONLY get them if you're going on Study Abroad as a student, this lady knew.. she'd tried. It was good to see a happy Mormon mom- they are one of a kind.

The walk was over before we wanted it to be, we returned to the suburbs, did some homework and met up again. The girls (Emily and Rachel again), brought some pizza while Jamie and I brought Flan. We tried once again to watch Harry Potter which didn't work... our families DVD player has some how lost its cord that connects it to the tv? I'm not sure how that happens.. en tout cas: we got to know Emily and Rachel even better. They are absolutely wonderful and so fun to be around. I'm so grateful for such a great study abroad group.