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?