Le Pélerinage et Too nice to be called La Popie!

Le 11 Juin 2009
June 11th, the start of our small piece of the pilgrimage "Santiago de Compostelo" and a beautiful journey for the memories. Our hotel breakfast was from 6 to 6:30 and we had to be at the Le Puy en Velay Cathedral by 7:00 for mass. I ate breakfast quickly and started the 20 minute hike to the Cathedral. Arriving early I realized that I desperately needed to go to the bathroom before commencing the pilgrimage. I couldn’t find a bathroom anywhere (no surprise, there are never bathrooms in France) but I was desperate so I found the friendly looking Priest dressed in the fancy red robe and asked him as politely and French as possible if there was a bathroom that I could use. He showed me back into a tiny room that was marked “Privé” and I thanked him profusely. 5 minutes later he was starting mass. He led us by singing and with a beautiful unfaltering voice. He seemed so solemn the whole time. After the mass he had a separate meeting for the pilgrims. He welcomed each of us and asked us individually where we were from. I have never met someone so friendly and happy in my life! I’ve always pictured priests as serious people but he seemed so real to me. He told us after the meeting how he used to teach French in Iowa. Turns out that he speaks English as well, but he was impressed that we all spoke French and kept speaking it. Then he gave me a charm that represents the Saint Jacques path that all the pilgrims walk which I vowed that I would hold throughout the whole journey.

Me with Saint Jacques

The start of the pilgrimage is a descending stair from the middle of the cathedral! How poetic..

We started heading down hill following the “balises” or path indicators. I was separated from most of the group for a good while, but admittedly that’s how I had hoped that it would be. The time alone was really peaceful; the scenery, noises of nature were quite conducive to the endless comparisons of this pilgrimage to my life and Christ's. I remembered that the priest had prayed that we (those on the pilgrimage) would be able to find Christ, the path, and ourselves while doing the walk of Saint Jacques. What a beautiful prayer! I had earnestly chimed in with my 'amen' at the end of his blessing.

Part of the trail I hiked
epic scenery

epic scenery

epic scenery

Random longhorn that confused me for a second- "Could I possibly be back in Texas?" Haha.. no.

We hiked approximately 4 miles of rough terrain through beautiful scenery till we arrived at a little church and pilgrimage rest stop. It took us less time than expected to do such a short distance so we sat there in the little gathering place for 2 hours before the bus showed up. I took this time to wander through the small surrounding area and cathedral that was there. Unlike the endless cathedrals that we have been visiting of late, it was small and homely, which made it that much more endearing to me. It was dark and cool inside, a welcome feeling; the small worn hymnals and glowing windows were perfectly picturesque. Malheureusement, I have no documentation of the little chapel.

the tired hikers

the fountain at our stopping place

From there we rode the bus to a store called Géant Casino, which is a French Walmart but not as cheap. Everyone got lunch there. We drove to Rodez where we put up our bags and had dinner. It was a fish and trout entrée, then duck, then a white and milk chocolate moose bar sort of truc. The hotel didn’t seem too pleased with our group and the little amount of food that we ate off of our plates. They probably thought that we were too stuck up for their food, but I ate all my fish and other mystery food thus I claim my innocence. During dinner the professor and I had an intense conversation about the education program at Brigham Young University and how a teaching degree is useful to have, but the program itself doesn’t do much for the teacher. It was interesting to hear his perspective, I was glad to hear that it isn't only the students that find the requirements a bit proposterous, but I'll get through it I'm excited to teach French. At the end of a dinner a girl in my group asked if she could use my computer to book the BluVan (two girls still haven’t paid me back for paying for ours…) and of course I said yes. I waited in my room for an hour and a half and she finally came right before 11. Just as she was leaving another girl in my group walked in and sat behind her. There was a line to use my computer! And they weren’t even asking for permission anymore! Plus its not like no one had their computer. 75% of the girls brought their computers on study abroad, 70% brought it to the south of France so out of 18 other computers I’m sure they didn’t need me, but of course I'm the only one in the group without drama so it was safe to use me I guess? Le

12 Juin 2009
Friday morning we started at Sénergues and walked 10 kilometers. Part of the journey I was toute seule, a small part was spent with lovely Alyssa, and the greater part with 3 fine French ladies. They helped me with my French, talked to me about Obama, about Mormonism, our study abroad program, French idioms or expressive phrases, plus they actually seemed to somewhat enjoy my company even thought I can’t speak all that well (in their language). Every now and then Alyssa and I would sing hymns from our hymn books (in French) while walking which they said that they really enjoyed, but they didn’t ask any questions about what we sang. One of the idioms they taught me was “Je me suis cassée la figure” which the lady in pink said after she slipped down a wet narrow rocky path that was near the end of our days' walk. She said that its very informal and should be used only with friends but is great when someone has slipped up, not only when actually falling but when making a mistake as well. On the way, Alyssa picked one of each of the flowers that we saw on the path and made me a crown (une couronne) and called me “Princess Buttercup” throughout the day. I felt really ridiculous but left it on my head because it was so sweet of her. When I saw a group of pilgrims who had done the same thing except with the flowers in their hats; I was content to be like the real pèlerins.

The flower crown!

The four of us, the three lovely french ladies and I, came across a native who was living in a small home built in the side of a hill. He was excited to see pilgrims and ran to speak with us. He seemed most excited to see me, he said that there weren't enough young people doing the pilgrimage these days. The conversation continued for probably 10 minutes, it was exciting and challenging to follow what he was saying because his accent was so different from what I had become accustomed to in Paris. I didn't realized that I was in Conques and that I had reached my destination until the gasp had already escaped my mouth. The village was beautiful! All of the town is situated on this huge hill and in the bottom middle of it all is their cathedral, which as always was a sanctuary of darkness and cool dry air. The homes, shops, and buildings were uniformly a yellowish brown/khaki with brown rooves and shutters, endless greenery could be found climbing the walls of the buildings with beautiful red flowers escaping sporatically from the vines. I found a small intimate bakery and bought a mini-quiche for lunch and I split a strawberry tart for dessert with Alyssa. The young girl behind the counter at the bakery, like the priest, was interested in each customer individually. When we answered questions about our hometowns and our reasons for visiting Conques her eyes just lit up; if I were to bet, I'd bet she gets lost in all these tourists stories and writes them into something really incredible. If I lived in Conques, that's the life I'd live- I'd be an artist or a writer.

Some views of the village Conques where we ended our second day of the pilgrimage:

I then headed down through Conques exploring the beautifully quaint town on the side of a mountain. I ran into an elderly couple from Canada who said they were searching for ancestral roots in southern France. What a life! They told me all about a roman bridge just out of Conques so I high-tailed it down the road, following signs to Gomez and found this bridge that was built before the 7th century (they didn’t have a date but since its Roman it has to be really OLD). Only a few others and I were able to find it so we felt pretty special.

A pretty bridge, but not the roman bridge.

The real roman bridge

We met up with the rest of the group at the cathedral and the professor paid for us to go into the abbaye and see the relics of a girl "Saint Foye". Some people in the program thought that Saint Foye had died in Conques, but that is not the case- Sainte Foye died elsewhere in the fourth century, but her remains and belongings were stolen (by a Monk from Conques) in the 9th century to draw travelers and wealth to his small village. His plan worked did it not?

This day is the only day that I’ve been sunburned thus far and I was only sunburned in one place- the back of my calves. Oh my did it burn.From Conques we rode the bus to Figeac where we had a hotel right on the river. We got a room for four- Hannah, Jamie, Rachel and I stayed in it and our room lead right out to the water. We had the best dinner so far that night at a hotel called La Puce a l’Oreille (the flea to the ear). We were served a four course meal that started with cold vegetable soup (kind of tasted like Pico de Gallo, a chevre and tomato pastrie (its not sweet, so do you still call it a pastry when its flaky and amazing?), vegetables with chicken, and raspberry moose! Rasberry moose is like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. I wish we had things like that in the United States!

Le 13 Juin 2009:
We started out our day by visiting les Grottes du Pech Merle (of which we were not allowed to take pictures), which are underground caves where a person went down and drew bison, horse, and mammoths all on the walls and ceilings. The guide didn’t speak English and had the second craziest French accent that I’d ever heard. We then visited Saint Cirque la Popie, a town on a hill that stood almost higher than the mountains. It was extremely hot and miserable. The only solace I found was in this church and sitting in the shade when Kaylie and I were singing hymns together to practice for our musical number in Montauban on Sunday.We then drove to an Etap in Montauban and put our things up for the night. It was a really long drive plus we were all somewhat worn out from the previous days where we didn’t get much sleep. This night gets my vote for the worst dinner. We went to the supermarket called Geant Casino and found the food court and ate there as a group. It was nice to be able to choose what we were going to eat for the night but the food definitely wasn’t quite the same quality as we were used to, plus we all overate. The whole night, I felt like I was in Barcelona because it was so hot and sticky, more than in Texas, and there was no relief because our hotel rooms were even hotter. The branch that we were to attend the next day had asked us to supply an opening and closing prayer, a talk, a musical number, and the pianists for all of the meetings. Basically I felt like we were back at the Brighton branch.

Le 14 Juin 2009:
Church was at nine and was about an 8 minute walk from the hotel. I left for church at 8:20 because I needed to practice with some of the girls on a real piano. The people were so sweet and kept saying that we were angels who walked into their building. I couldn't believe the genuinity of these people. The meeting went really smoothly and our song went even better. The whole group sang Lead Kindly Light in French but inbetween the 2nd and 3rd verses Kaylie Clark, Maren Gardiner, Susan Garver, and I sang the first verse of Leady Kindly Light in English with four part harmony. I sang the tenor an octave higher. I was scared to look up from my book (even though I had memorized my part) because I wasn’t sure if we were blending but I looked up and there were literally jaws dropped. The people in that branch made my day. We drove to Rocamadour where we got in our hotel and walked down into the canyon or valley where there is a magnificent castle on a hill. This one was less exciting to me than Saint Cirque en Popie because other than the castle all of the town consisted of stores and restaurants so it didn’t seem realistic… just a resource for revenue. After wandering down the canyon we walked back up and we pretended to be on the edges of rocks for a bunch of pictures. We headed to the hotel and were going to take a short nap before dinner but decided to walk a bit anyways and see what the sign “Foret des singes” means. Little did we know- it really does mean Forest of monkeys. Dinner was ridiculous- it took 3 and a half hours. Yes French dinners are slow, but not that slow. The whole class took a (previously paid for) train down the canyon around the city where it was lit up late at night. They played Josh Groban on the speakers and we sat there in peace watching the lit up castle and town go past us.

Le 15 Juin 2009:
The professor let us stay at the hotel in Sarlat a little later than normal so that we could explore the town a little more, possibly do some shopping because it was no longer Sunday. Rachel L and I vowed to go see the monkeys. We realized shortly that the monkey forest closed for an hour (lunch/sieste break?) at 12 so walking there at 11:20 would be fruitless and a waste of 7 euros. We spent the morning around the little city. I found a store where I got a big pack of vanilla wafers- not really vanilla wafers but that’s all I can think to call them in English- tons of fruit and a drink for only 2.50. That is a miracle in France, and frankly in any tourist city. I also put my feet in the pool and hung out with the other students who were swimming. We left Rocamadour at 1:30 or so and went straight to Sarlat where we would stay for 2 nights! We arrived at the hotel at around 2:45 but it was closed for check-ins till 4:30? How obnoxious. So we went to a town just minutes further and toured their castle and their troglodytes! I went up into the troglodytes and crawled through some really dark inlets, I'd even venture to calling them caves. I got to the back of one and found out that I wasn’t alone. Ryan was there too! He turned on his cell phone light and I just started laughing. I had been absolutely clueless to his presence, it was impossible to see in there! We went back to Sarlat and checked into an incredibly cute hotel that I forgot to take pictures of... and we had goose for dinner! We're in the land of Foie gras, but unfortunately we haven't eaten any of that yet.

Was it just a dream?

Le 5 Juin 2009:
I woke up in the middle of the night to a guys standing in an eerie bed lamp light in just a Speedo. He was whiter than me and freakishly skinny... Not the way I wanted to wake up.
Friday was our only full day in Barcelona so we started off by heading to the beach. Ryan, Rachel, and I wanted to do some surfing so we took one of the trains to a beach a little further away that was supposed to get waves. The train station we need was some distance from the hostel so we wandered the streets of Barcelona till we found it.

While we were wandering we happened upon the Barcelona Arc Triomf (they spell it funny). Why do they have one? I still do not know.


It turns out that all of the beaches have barriers that kill the waves, so even if there were any waves they wouldn’t reach us. Most of the beaches were empty. There were probably only 15 other people in sight from where we were on the beach. We found a swing set and a volleyball court, borrowed a ball from a lady at a nearby stand and played. The sand felt good on our feet at first, but it was actually unusually course so by the time we were going to play soccer my feet were raw. I’ve always known that my feet were sensitive but I didn’t realize that they were sensitive on the soles too! Ryan and Rachel played just fine while I was in pain. I should have just practiced my goalkeeping. We stayed on the beach till probably 2 or 3 o’clock at which point we took the train back. As we walked back to our hostel we found the chocolate museum, a couple of markets, the Picasso museum, and a shortcut to the hostel. We also passed about 30 people who were riding scooter bikes?!? I have definitely never seen those before.. We stopped by our hostel to clean up and then headed out to find the Hard Rock Café (not to eat there- Kristin has this thing where she visits every one!) and then we walked down La Ramba to the beach. Do you remember Bed knobs and Broomsticks with the Portabello Road scene? Colton always imitated the guys dancing? Well La Ramba was kind of like that, in a more modern sense- or like that one road in Santa Monica that the Jacksons, Katy, and I went down on Presidents day weekend 2008! There were pet shops, flower shops, guys doing tricks, dancing, and people dressed up in all sorts of costumes. There was one guy who was supposed to be headless? He had a dummy with no head on a chair, and then his head was on the table. The head would hiss and make cat calls, plus he had his donation bowl that would randomly start shaking and make loud noises. He REALLY scared me the first time I passed him. He kicked the bowl and made that noise and I screamed- and I’m not easily scared! I wanted a picture with him so I got out pocket change and went to give it to him after taking a picture. I went to put it in and he hit the bowl again.. at this point I was really freaked out and I just yelled (in English)”Do you want it or not?” and then I laughed at myself, put the money in and walked away.


We continued to walk through La Ramba, an open market, and we passed a lot of vendors till we got to the beach. We bought pizzas and drinks to share and sat on the beach talking. This one guy walked up to us and asked “English or French?” (we were speaking both) and we answered both, this is when I realized a tall guy creeping up behind us, where our purses were. I yelled to the girls to grab their stuff and the guys ran away realizing that their plan was killed. Pickpockets can’t get past me!

Le 6 juin 2009:
We tried to wake up early, but it ended up only being me. All of our hostel mates were out cold after being out really late and surprisingly- my friends were too. We ate breakfast and packed our bags.
From Left to Right: Ryan, Kristin, and Mandy (Mandy and Kristin went on the roller coaster with me a long time ago?)

We found the metro station we needed and went to Sangrada Familia- a beautiful modern church in Barcelona. We were debating going in or not because the sign said “9 euros” but we figured we came so far to Barcelona… as we passed the gates some people gave us these passes, that said the sixth of June open doors, that indicated that we had come to the church on the one day out of the year that it was free. What luck!
 We also visited the Picasso museum, talked with a sweet French vendor from Paris, and went to the beach for the last hour and a half of our stay in Barcelona. Rachel and I were having a competition with Jamie and Hannah to see who could get the coolest pictures on their weekend trips (the other girls went to London). We did a lot of crazy things, but I think I won:

We landed in Paris to a cold wet dreary day and kept thinking about the days we had spent on the beach. We were back in Paris and had been on the beach only 3 hours before… weird.
Le 7 Juin 2009:
My last Sunday at Versailles… This is not a happy thing. I love All of the people in this ward and once again, I made another little friend at church.
Little children are unbiased when it comes to language (even though I spoke French with them), they seemed to be loving as long as you smiled and treated them just right… a bridge of friendship I’m grateful that I have.
It was weird saying bye to my friend Erwan cause I literally will probably never see him again, or anyone else in that ward for that matter.
Sunday was not so restful. Our Navigo or Carte Orange cards ran out today so we had to take our large suitcases (that we weren’t taken to the south of France) to the professors which means I had to pack everything! We were late getting packed after dinner so instead of taking us to the metro, monsieur just kept driving… I was really confused when he turned on the highway and I kind of put up a fight when he said that he was taking us to the Professor’s apartment at Ecole Militaire. He had tricked us! But I was so grateful he did, because instead of taking two hours to get there and back, it took 45 minutes! Boy oh Boy did that save time.
Le 8 juin 2009:
Madame N.D.F. went all out for dinner tonight. We started with diced seasoned beets, which Jamie and I were absolutely terrified of, that actually weren’t half bad. I remember having beets at a Thanksgiving meal at my Grandmothers house and actually throwing up after eating them. I guess we all have to grow up sometime! We had mixed vegetables which were buttery and sweet with bread and three kinds of cheese of course. The main dish was some delectable duck which was more than half fat. Poor Jamie had to try and cover up choking; she hadn’t realized it was fat until it wouldn’t go down . Then for dessert we had a cake that comes from the South of France. It was fluffy on top and bottom with crunchy white sugar pieces on top and a yellow moose cream-like filling that was kind of citrus but sweet. At the end of the meal she brought Jamie and I little wrapped gifts- it’s of the sights of France from an airplane! I’m pretty excited about it, but I’m doubtful that it will work in American DVD players or even my laptop. At this point Jamie and I ran upstairs to get our cameras for family pictures and the quilt that we were going to give Madame. She was absolutely delighted and said that it would perfectly match her bed.
Le 9 juin 2009
My last breakfast in Croissy sur Seine, Madame bought me a pain au chocolat! We were running a little late so Madame heated it up for me and said “Depechez-vous” (even though Jamie wasn’t ready yet), but it was so hot I couldn’t eat it! Monsieur drove us to the RER stop where they both gave us slightly wet Bisoux. I was so sad to leave that it took me 10 minutes of debating whether or not I wanted to wipe off my cheeks to actually do it.
We spent 2 hours on a train to Lyon and then 20 minutes on a Harry Potter look-alike train to get to Vienne, home of the Gaulo Romane artifacts from the 1st century. All of Vienne is gorgeous! First thing when we arrived we put our baggage in our rooms and then found lunch, which we ate in this quaint little park. Then we went to the Gaullo Romane museum, ate popsicles in another park, the church of Saint Maurice, and laid on a dock by le Rhone for 2 hours.
(they all fell asleep)
It’s such a beautiful city, comparable to our programs favorite- Ghent.
We had dinner right by the church that we had previously visited and afterwards: Emily, Fred, Hannah, Jamie, the Rachel’s, and I walked across the river and watched the stars until about 11:30. It was such a beautiful night and we had so much fun just talking with each other.
I did some homework before going to bed and then crashed. I guess I didn’t realize how tired I was because I fell asleep almost immediately. So like my mom I’m a very light sleeper, but for once in my life I didn’t wake up when an alarm went off. The scary part is, this time it was a fire alarm. The fire alarm in our hotel was going off for probably 10 minutes when Jamie started shaking me to wake up, there were other girls in the hall asking her if I was okay because I wasn’t waking up. I guess I should catch up on those uh.. 40 hours of sleep I’m lacking from this trip.
Le 10 Juin 2009
The first and only day that I will ever sleep in while in Europe; we didn’t have to get on the bus till 11 AM! I still woke up pretty early though, got ready, ate breakfast, packed, did homework and visited with the other girls. I really valued that sleep although it was still less than 8 hours. Maybe one day… DC?
We all followed the professor down the street, but he was leading us to this smaller bus… no it couldn’t be… yep. The only small bus we’ve had for this whole study abroad and it’s the one that we will have for the full South of France trip. There are only two empty seats meaning that there are 29 plus the drivers, the seats are really close together, and there’s no bathroom on board! Today I was helping everyone put their bags under the bus (luggage space is tight as well- Paces are known for knowing how to pack cars ) and so I got on and got one of the worst seats- like when the professor leaned back his chair he was in my lap bad. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t really sleep on buses, which today I was extremely reconnaisant for. I stayed up doing my homework and got to see the amazing sights which 90% of my group missed. We arrived in le Puy en Velay mid afternoon, took pictures from up a mountain, settled into the hotel and separated every which way to find lunch and visit the sites. My group got croque monsieurs for lunch (another first) and then we went to Saint Michel Aiguilhe.
(Saint Michel Aiguilhe) We met up for dinner at 6:45 on the stairs of the Cathedral where we’re attending mass (la messe) tomorrow before we start our pilgrimage. We were discussing dinner afterwards and we think that Puy en Velay might just beat Ghent. The food has definitely won over all of our hearts.

Proposal ---> Barcie

Le 3 Juin 2009
Angelina’s is the restaurant known for the best cup of hot chocolate in Paris. It wasn’t exactly a cold day, but the professor was paying for Becky Poulsen and me because we had completed 14 walks out of the 20 (only 12 were required and most people didn’t even have that yet). Angelina’s is found between the stops of concord and the tuileries. It’s in the strip of stores by the Palais Royale. The chocolate was amazing! Its African chocolate so it’s a little rich and darker than I’d regularly preferred but I appreciated and loved it regardless. The tiny pitcher of chocolate comes with a tasse of unsweetened cream that most people use to calm their thick chocolate, not what you’d pour into your mouth like my family does at home.

I met up with Rachel H, Rachel L, and Hannah on the Champs Elysees because Rachel L wanted to look for a certain perfume at Marionaud. There on the Champs Elysees as I waited for them I ran into an old man with a beer belly who wore a “Papy Dance” shirt and danced. He didn’t do much but I was impressed cause he really put himself out there. Ever since I visited Fragonard I have appreciated all different kinds of perfumes and normally sample a scent when I pass the stores during the day. I like smelling good (my sleeve has come in handing when passing cigarette smoke or urine infested metros) while in Paris and I must admit that its harder to sport perfumes around the family. Perfume is a big deal with my family, n’est pas? Even the guys would comment on a scent that someone wears.
The Musee D'Orsay
I had yet to visit Musee D’Orsay I ran over there with Rachel H (the others were cooking dinner for their host family) and saw the things I really had been wanting to see (Picasoo, Monet, Matisse, and the porch with the view to the rest of the city).
Through the clock in the D'Orsay
We quickly got “Louvre legs” and found a nice rounded stone bench to sit on. One of the guards from the expedition that was just closing came over to talk to us. I figured that someone who worked at the museum would be a safe native to make small chitchat with? He asked us about what we were studying (cause I was taking pictures and notes) and we explained. We also explained that we were from the United States and he looked absolutely shocked! He asked us why we would ever go back to the silly United States when there is France and we can obviously get by just fine. I told him that I loved the United States and France but that my family and heritage was in the United States. I told him that I would love some excuse to live in France for at least a couple of years and that my French was definitely not satisfactory in my mind. I know that I have a lot of French to work on. Anyways- this is the point at which he proposed to me and shortly after we left.
While riding RER C on the way home we encountered 9 skimpy dressed, loud American girls. They were teasing each other about how they looked gross and how they would have to take showers before meeting up with the boys in their group later. Then they bantered about how long each of them took to take showers and who would go first. All of this was Very loud. Then when their stop came they freaked out because the doors didn’t open. If only they had seen “appuyez, push” written right above the button before I went to help them open the door.
Picture from the Musee D'orsay Terrace
Le 4 Juin 2009
Almost directly after class Ryan Bakow, Kristen DePalma, Mandy Robinson, Rachel Laulusa, and I took the RER to Charles de Gaulle to catch my fight to Barcelona! The flight was stalled for an hour and the section of Charles de Gaulle that we were in was not air conditioned so in the miserable heat, everyone but me fell asleep.
We arrived in Barcelona at 8:00 or so and headed to our hostel in Gothic Point Barcelona which is approximately a 12 minute walk from the beach. The hostel already was crazy fun! The colors were insanely fun, we had nothing but sheets and a pillow and I felt so free. There were 8 bunks (4 bunk beds) in our room so we got to meet a bunch of new people, within the safety of our group of 5, during the 2 nights that we were there. One of the guys who stayed with us is named Jeremy and he goes to Baylor. There were actually a bunch of people in the hostel from Texas, everyone spoke English, and there was a buffet each morning which totally made everything else worth it. We spent our first night wandering the streets of Barcelona together. We found the beach and played in the water a bit and started to walk home. At the end of our walk to the hostel we saw tons of people, way more than when we started walking earlier that night, and that’s when I remembered all that my madame had said about Barcelona. It’s a young peoples’ city so no one really comes out till 12:30 and then the party starts! No worries we didn’t ever really join the party but it was fascinating to see how different things worked. More on Barcie later!

Never enough time in the day...

Le 1 Juin 2009
After class there was an optional concert at the Musee Kluny. The professor advertised it as medieval music including Gregorian chant. In high school we sang a lot of songs that came from Gregorian chant and these songs always fascinated me because of the way that their voices resound and hold out these perfect pitches for extended periods of time. Many of the students opted not to go, but of course I had to see what they were all about and plus the professor was paying for our entree so I decided to go. What could possibly persuade me to do otherwise? Lets just say, I did not regret attending this concert. My friend Fred and I opted to sit on the front row and thought that they were amazing. Multiple times I had to remind myself to close my mouth or stop smiling because I’m sure I looked like a big goon/dooger (take your pick). It honestly was probably the best concert that I’ve ever been to and probably my 1.5 hours best spent in Paris. I caved and bought a CD which doesn’t quite measure up to what I heard in the concert. We had three encores because I just couldn’t stop clapping and the last 5 songs or so were all made up on the spot. Ah! All of the guys (there were 5) were perfect for their parts and the leader had this agility to his voice that I’ve never heard before, but even more than that there was an homme who sang the baritone part who kept me in a stupor throughout the performance. His voice was incredibly resonant and sometimes I felt, despite his knee bending and swaying, that he was singing right into my ears with this fuzzy fervor to his voice. Fred was kind of teasing me afterwards because I was still so impressed. He kept telling me to go talk to him, to tell him “Vous avez la voix d’un ange” but I was scared that he’d start making serious talk to me afterwards and I would look clueless and scared so we didn’t talk about it at all.
When I’d bought the CD I headed up to the second floor to look at all the things that we were learning about in our class. I especially focused on an arrangement of tapestries surrounded around the theme of a unicorn. Does anyone remember these?
Rachel wanted to buy one of the bracelets that all the tourists fall for in front of Sacre Coeur.
Sacre Coeur. No pictures inside?!
After running around Paris for awhile we headed to Sacre Coeur and mounted the steps (here we met the two Rachel’s, Hannah, and Emily). Sadly Sacre Coeur was somewhat rushed and I probably was only there for about 45 minutes, but I loved it for every minute of it!
Home for dinner with the host-fam then Right back out to the Eiffel Tower where our whole study abroad group met for FHE and a ride on the bateau mouche!

Eiffel Tower before Bateau Mouche
Notre Dame from the boat
Eiffel Tower after Bateau Mouche

Le 2 Juin 2009
After class Jamie, Fred, and I went to a Greek restaurant and got some Kebab sandwiches with fries to go. We watched the Roland Garros (French Open) on a tv screen that was probably 10 feet tall and 16 feet wide while eating our food.
We met up with our other friends at 1 by the Conciergerie and outside the fence of Saint Chapelle. Turns out that the church was closed until 2:30, so everyone decided to go to Notre Dame and see the inside until Saint Chapelle opened. I had recently been inside and outside so I decided to sit on a bench across from the Conciergerie, study, do some homework and just think. The time went by faster than I thought it would as it always does in Paris, but still I was able to avoid almost all Parisian smoke, watch the tourists and natives for more than an hour, study my scriptures and do some French homework. Beautiful Paris!
We got in line for Saint Chapelle went through the security check, paid to get in at the guichet at which I left my student ID card. An American couple ran after me to return while screaming: “mademoiselle, mademoiselle!” In very broken French, but it was cute. You’ve gotta love those Americans.


Downstairs Saint Chapelle

Upstairs Saint Chapelle

So there aren't many attractive guys in Paris so, trying to prove to someone that they exist- I had Rachel stand in front of this guy reading the paper. Yay!

Normandie et plus

Le 27 mai 2009
Today I did the walk "La Route des Manifs: Canal Saint Martin, Republique, Bastille, Viaduc des Arts" with Jamie, Rachel H, Rachel L, and Hannah. The roads here are labeled on the walls of the buildings so often when one is at a large intersection and don't know the roads well, they have to actually cross all the big roads to know where they are! This walk was that case, it didn't help that half the roads weren't labeled at all! I ended up speaking to a painter on the side of the road for directions. This man was clueless but a friendly old man woke up and told me how to get where I wanted to go. He was so helpful and he seemed clueless as to the fact that I was not French- yay! We then headed down boulevard Jules Ferry and walked along a canal of the Seine for a bit. We stopped on a beautiful bridge and tried to soak in what we could of Paris. We returned to the confusing intersection, found our next street and followed Boulevard du Temple until we arrived at the Place de la Republique where there is a statue that represents the restoration of the republic in France. This was not one of my favorite walks, it didn't have much to do or even look at. There were supposed to be rioters or picket lines on a couple of the roads that we walked on and I saw none! which was slightly disappointing.
We didn't know what to do before we met up with the others for another walk so we decided to go to line 14 because none of us had ridden on it before and its the newest existing metro line (tout neuf). This line is also different from all of the others because there is no metro conducteur. Generally there is someone sitting at the front and driving every metro but in this one there are big windows on both sides. Why do you ask? Because the path (la voie) is blocked off with a hallway of glass with automatic doors so line 14 never has to worry about suicidal citizens or things getting thrown on the path. It is the one metro that is Always on time. (Note: there really are people who try and commit suicide on the metro. I was an hour late getting home one night because none of the trains were going my path because of "an accident" sad huh?)We took this line all the way to Olympiades where we wandered for an hour before finding a place to get crepes. They were amazing! It was my first sweet crepe in France! We then hurried back to the station to meet up with Fred and Emily to do "Of Art, War, and World's Fairs: Invalides, Musee Rodin, Tour Eiffel". Sadly as soon as Fred and Emily arrived at our meet up spot, the rest of my friends decided to go shopping instead of doing the walk- aka third wheel time again! (I must confess that this is the Least painful third wheelship that I've ever been in because we are all such good friends) Here I got to visit the two palais (grand et petit), the musee rodin, the musee's garden, the outside of the invalides, and we walked up to the eiffel tower before heading home. La Porte de L'enfer from the Musee Rodin
I spent most of my time in the garden of Musee Rodin which was really refreshing. Almost no one was there so I got to sit in peace in a little park in Paris, by myself for quite sometime.

I hurried home after the walk so that I could watch the Barcelona v Manchester United game. Amazing! I miss soccer so much...

Le 28 mai 2009
Once again, another early meeting at the Professors for a trip-this time we went to Normandy! Our first stop on the trip was Giverny, France where we visited Monet's gardens and house (not allowed to take pictures in his quaint house). No wonder the man was so inspired! Everything was so beautiful!
One of the gardens
Does this scene remind anyone of anything?
So I heard that dad asked if I was really having THAT much fun? Well I am. :)
Many more of these to come I think :P

Our next stop on our Normandy voyage was in Rouen. There I visited another LDS church, a huge gothic church, and the church and death place of Joan of Arc. We've been studying Joan of Arc in class. Did you know that Joan of Arc and St. Genevieve had almost exactly parallel roles in their government, but Joan of Arc was burned while St Genevieve was practically worshiped. The difference in the two? The English were behind her trial, they made sure that she was burned at the stake 3 TIMES!
The place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.
At Rouen we also ran into 6 missionaries who were headed to a district meeting. They are in every city we visit! Yay missionaries!

We left Rouen and headed to our hotel in Bayeux, France. The professor had arranged a dinner for the whole group and decided what we were eating-the entree was smoked salmon and minced salmon with some bread. AchK! disgusting... But I told myself when I came to France that I would do more than try everything, I'd eat it. So I ate the whole thing. Are you proud mom?
After that they brought some more edible food. The dessert was this amazing thick brownie with cinnamon and carmel ice cream on the side, I have never had ice cream quite like that...

Our hotel room was huge! It had a queen bed, a twin bed, and then a bunk bed so four girls slept in there: Jamie (as you can see in the picture), Emily, Rachel H, and me.

Le 29 mai 2009
Early the next morning Emily and I went running through Bayeux. The night before I had sat at the front desk talking with the hotel owner for 30 minutes, scheming where we could run to. I really wanted to run to the beach but the closest one was 10km away (probably 6 miles?) and although I think we could've done it and it would've been completely worth it.. we didn't have that kind of time. We have to sleep sometime! Anyways we ended up running up to the Cimetiere Militaire Britannique et the Memorial Britannique or at least that's what we tried to do. The second we stepped outside the hotel, our jaws dropped. I have never (even after living in Texas) seen so much humidity in the air. I couldn't see more than ten feet in front of me, but we ran anyways because the city was dead at 6 in the morning. It was like running through a cloud! Our clothes and hair were soaked completely through. We ran to the memorial, admired all the tanks and searched high and low for the cemetery. It was supposed to be right across the street from it, but we ran through all the different sides and it wasn't there. We didn't have much time so we just ran back to the hotel.

We got ready as fast as we could with one shower and four girls, with our hair still slightly damp we walked to the museum of the Bayeux Tapestries. My class was assigned to identify all the transitions between scenes in the abnormally long tapestry, we did this after studying the comics and comic theories of Scott McCloud. I actually really enjoyed myself! The whole tapestry was about Duc Harold and William the Conqueror.

Before the day was over we visited Juno Beach, Gold Beach (The German Bunkers there), Arromanches Les Bains, the American Cemetery, Point du Hoc, and ended the night by eating (at a Creperie- ham and cheese dinner, nutella dessert? I don't know if I can leave...) and sleeping in a hotel in Saint Malo.


On Juno Beach- the Canadian territory in France. I put up the fists for Dustinn :)

I must confess that Juno Beach was probably the prettiest one.

This is Ryan after he waded into the "interdit" sectoin of Arromanches les Bains where we got a tour of the museum and were taught the history of the beach.

This is me sitting on a German Bunker gun? It is also right before this happpened.....
----------> (although the 2 are unrelated)
Yes, I twisted my ankle. And this is not right after.. its actually two days later. Depressing huh? Its okay- I can walk!

One of the craters at Point Du Hoc where the Germans fired their bombs.

Le 30 mai 2009
We never get to sleep in! I will need a LONG time to catch up on the sleep I've lost from this trip. We woke up early and headed to the ramparts of Saint Malo. I wish we could have spent more time there because the beach and ramparts were like nothing I've seen before. I wish I could Really capture it.

Note that these first two pictures were taken from on top of the huge walls around parts of Saint Malo-the ramparts.

From top left to right: me, then Hannah Butcher (I think we're related somehow), Jamie, Rachel L, then on bottom Left is Amy Dawson, lastly Rachel H.

After Saint Malo we headed out to the famous Mont St Michel! We had a tour guide for an hour I think? She spoke to us in French and English.. as soon as our tour guide was over I saw her with a Japanese group, speaking Japanese. Why is it so easy for Europeans to learn so many languages? :(

I still can't believe how many sheep there were! There were probably 4 of these pictures worth of sheep on the side of the road.

Not sure why there is a force field around it? thank you camera.

Inside the chapel that is built at the very top of Mont Saint Michel

Sinking Sand! You're not supposed to walk on it because it is that dangerous.

So I've always kind of struggled to sleep in cars, buses, planes.. you get the jist. Obviously no one else in my group does! The bus ride gets pretty boring sometimes. This was taken on the 4 hour drive back to Paris.

When we arrived in Paris most of the girls headed out to St. Germain-En-Laye which is a castle at the end of our RER line (2 stops past mine). It actually has the largest castle garden in France?

Le 31 mai 2009Sunday! I should have worn an ankle length skirt because I got several comments about my funky left ankle. :( Church was great though! We were doing an exercise where there are devils and angels calling to those who are blindfolded? anyways I was a demon out in the hall.. and one of the people who was blindfolded had a little boy who ended up wandering out there when his dad wasn't watching so I took him under my wing-and ended up keeping him till 15 minutes after church. We played games, he spoke to me in French naming colors, numbers, and animals (he was probably 2 years old) and then he fell asleep in my arms. I don't think I'd really realized how much i miss having little children in my ward! His dad kept asking if I wanted to give him back and I said no (of course). His dad did take him for the sacrament but the little boy clung to me and almost started yelling.. yes I am still a baby charmer. :) Watch out sibs, Bubs will shortly be under the spell. haha

After church Jamie, Kaylie (she was in my Freshman ward with me), and I walked around La Defense before going to a play of Monnaie's. Inside the theater, once the doors were closed it was probably 100+ degrees. I've never felt so out of control. Fred was sitting in front of me, and I was honestly horrified that I might throw up all over him. I limped and moaned all the way home as soon as they opened the doors to the theatre. I'm still not sure why I felt so sick cause I'm fine now?