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.

Long showers me miss.

Monday le 4 mai 2009
The legendary Saint Denis without his head, which he then carries five miles before really dying.

Monday the whole class went to the Pantheon after learning all about Saint Denis. It was pretty incredible and the professor paid for it which was pretty cool! The crypte was very very quiet. Jamie and I found parts in this circle walk way where our voice would bounce back to each other or to the other person. We also got to see the tombs of lots of famous people like Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, Madame Curie, and Voltaire! Wowzers...
The inside of the Pantheon

The halls in the crypte underground (below the Pantheon)

Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas.. They share a tomb room. I wonder what they talk about, or write together??

After that we found a "Champion" and grabbed a quick something to eat, which we took to the Lutece Arena. There we watched some kids play soccer, ate our lunch, and read some of our reading for the next day. Our readings are SO hard-REALLY! We spend probably an hour each night reading everything that he has given us to learn and we don't get much out of it. Its pretty impossible to decipher.

We do la soiree familiale (FHE) on Mondays at 4:40 for those who have dinner with their families that night. We hurried to the professors flat to meet everyone else, got there early for once and got to get our cell phone! We're excited to be able to contact the other students when we can't find each other. Oh and Jamie and I volunteered to teach next weeks FHE (in french!)so if you have any ideas or suggestions for a good study abroad topic.. let me know.

Tuesday Le 5 mai 2009

Tuesday was the first day that class interested me. We talked a lot about architecture and the professor told lots of interesting stories! When class was over Natalie, Rachel H., Emily S., Jamie, and I wandered over to L'eglise de la Madelaine (Gorgeous). We were doing our first complete Paris walk that day. I love the Paris walk book (and whoever wrote this walk did it very well) because of all the descriptions it gives, the symbolism, and the maps are especially helpful. This walk was titled in french "putting your nose to the wind" which is kind of an idiom the french use to go wherever the wind takes you.. which the writer also used to indicate a smelling walk. We started at the flower markets next to the church, then we went inside and read everything. The whole walk we did was located in a ritzier part of town so we took pictures by Chanel and such. The walk book had us go into a patisserie and told us to get some macaroons because they are the best there. Of course since they were tiny tiny tiny tiny and tres cher we didn't actually by them, but they were definitely drool worthy. Then we turned the corner and went to a tiny little church. It had seats for the congregation that made a semi circle around the pulpit and behind us there was a tiny set of organ pipes. The way they were laid out reminded me of the Mormon Tabernacle choir.. just itty bitty.

The last stop on this walk was to the Perfume museum (mom would have Died I think). There were so many different fragrances and all of them were very strong. The teacher told us to take sprayed strips of them, write down their names and smell them again later. We'd been smelling them so often that our judgment in smells was kind of off. It was pretty interesting to see how they were made though. Oh and as we finished our walk- the closest metro stop was at the Academie Nationale de Musique! I wish we could've gone in.
The perfume museum: Fragonard
In front of the Academie Nationale de Musique

When all our senses were used up, we all had back to chez moi and I let the girls use my internet for hours upon hours. Our Madame was really excited to meet our friends, she is pretty cute.

Mercredi le 6 mai 2009
I'm kind of tired of writing.. but I don't want to forget so I'll post the pictures. Kay?

These pictures are kind of out of order.
THE coolest metro station "bouche"
The underside of the Louvre
A "Flaming" Gothic Church where we sat in for a mass today
The ceilings of the Notre Dame (we went inside today right after class so this should be first))
More Notre Dame photos
In the garden of the Palais Royale
A boy climbing a tree in the garden
Me, Jamie, Natalie, and Becky in the gardens again.
We went to study and rest our feet in a small park.. I ended up playing
A much cuter kids playing in the park. :)

Le weekend j'ai vécu sur le metro

Pour Samedi et Dimanche, je n'ai pas pris beaucoup de photos et la majorité de mes photos sont du metro. :(

Saturday and Sunday were... interesting. Friday night while at the fair (la foire) I was invited by the YSA's and some others, to play soccer. Of course after hearing this, I went crazy with excitement and anxiety. I didn't think that I'd get to play soccer while here. The boys were surprised that I would want to and they said that I'd be the only one, nonetheless I got directions and promised to meet them at the metro stop called Noisiel sur RER A at 11:00 am. Anxious to go, I woke up at 8:20 the next morning and got ready. Jamie (she wanted to come along for kicks) and I left the house at like 9:45. After looking at the metro map the night before, we decided that an hour would be more than sufficient for getting across Paris to Noisiel because we were going on the fast train. Turns out that even the fast train isn't fast enough for our expectations. We didn't arrive at the Noisiel station till 11:30. I searched high and low for the boys but found none of them. I thought for sure that at least one of them would be late. At 11:40 we decided that we had missed them and tried to leave the station to find the field. As I tried to leave I heard that "enh" noise again and was restrained. I was so so so confused. It took me a minute to remember that my carte orange doesn't have unlimited access. I looked at a map and Yes, I was ONE stop out of district four. I looked out all the windows and decided that I wouldn't be able to find them anyways. I descended the other stairs and took the next metro back to my house. C'est la vie.

Apres que j'ai retourné I studied and changed out of my soccer clothes (which were kind of embarrassing to wear on the metro in the first place), but I didn't have much turn around time because I was supposed to meet two other girls from Croissy sur Seine and go to the market with them. I got to the metro stop where I was supposed to meet them at 2 minutes till. I waited on a park bench outside the sortie and they never came. Eventually I used my card and searched all inside for them. I waited until 3:35 to leave and finally gave up. The metro really let me down on Saturday. I went to the market anyways. Jamie and I bought a hair dryer (sechoire) and some things for lunch. I got a baguette with tomato paste/ragu stuff just like Kate always said. I also got some weird chips cause I just had to try them. They're called Poulet Braisé meaning Braised chicken. They kind of remind me of Willa Wonka's 3 meal gum because I really felt like I was eating crunchy chicken when I ate them. :) Oh and guess what? The 3 foot long baguette that I bought was only .45 E! Aren't baguettes like 5 bucks in the US?

We returned to the house, ate our food, did more homework, watched Amelie and got to bed early. It was the first Saturday that I've done that in... a long time.

Sunday we had our first day of church at the Versaille ward (paroisse). Our professor had no idea when it started and guessed that it started at 9. I didn't like being so unsure so I checked online. The LDS website said "our worship service starts at 11:20) so I told Jamie and we planned on leaving our place at 9:30 so we'd have plenty of time, even if we got lost. WELL we didn't get lost. We took all the directions of our instructor and arrived at approximately 12:20. Turns out that the "worship service" only referred to sacrament meeting which was the last meeting for them. We got to hear the last 2 testimonies and we sang the hymn with them tout en sitting in the foyer. It was so so so disappointing. Once again the metro had failed us and it had taken over two hours to get to church! That's what happens when you have to take 3 different metros and a bus! We won't let it happen again. The sister missionaries gave us some tips for the faster metros.

AND they had a ward break the fast in the gym so we still got to meet everyone and talk to them. We probably stayed for 2 hours after church just socializing- it was good to see other humans. :) It was especially great to play with the little french children. Seeing as there aren't very many little kids here, it was great to see them and speak french with them. I got to know two girls pretty well; a girl named Gladys and her little sister. Her little sister was probably 3 years old and I had no idea what she was saying all the time so I never figured out her name but she was sweet to me. We were drawing on a chalk board and I wrote some words on it. She pointed to one and said "What does that say?" (in french of course) and I said- it says I love you! and she said- Awww.. Je t'aime aussi! -and went back to drawing like it was nothing.


One of the girls- Becky -told us that a bunch of people were meeting at the institute to do something later. We showed up at the Institute 20 minutes late but luckily they were still there. (gah! those metros!)

Saint Eustaches
Looking the other way
Fred, Maggie, Becky, Jamie, Ryan, me, Landon (Fred and Ryan's Host Brother), Kylie, the Professor went to the church of Saint Eustache for an Organ Concert tonight! It was absolutely beautiful! I thought I would be bored out of my mind, but I really found it quite fascinating and I couldn't get enough of the building and its construction. It was funny though, I looked over during the concert and saw that 5 out of the 9 people who came were asleep on their laps. Only Fred, Moi, Becky, and the Professor stayed awake and it was only a half hour long!

A really weird painting that didn't match anything else in the cathedral

Everyone sleeping- note Jamie sleeps sitting up (she is closest to the camera) and Kylie just sat up from her "sieste" :)

OH I forgot! There was this lady sitting in front of me wearing the most hideous shirt/chemise EVER. seriously.. i had to turn off my flash and take a picture for this one, but she was right in front of me so it was hard to get a good picture without her or her husband seeing me.
The base of this shirt could be pretty, but then there are multi-colored crocheted (sp?) sleeves and there was a fur collar and base of the shirt. It was rockin'.

We ate dinner with the Madame tonight and she made us pommes de terre again with some sort of meat patty thing on top of it. We also had a salade and a huge strawberry tarte: lots of strawberries in some form of jam on a crispy flaky crust (the crust was more like a croissant than pie crust). Mmmhhmm

Que Faire? Ou Meilleur... Que Ne Faire Pas.

Le 30 avril, 2009 (my camera wouldn't take a good picture. It wasn't this dark outside but it freaked out when i tried to take a picture of the sun so I guess this is the best I could get)

The other night I kept waking up. In fact I woke up and was worried about being late because the light was already coming in my window. I checked my clock and found that it was just after 3:30 AM. Why does the sunrise at 3:30 here?

Yesterday I had my first true French breakfast at my temporary home. It consisted of a little bread, and a little cereal with some weird shelf safe milk. The milk isn't as bad as I thought it would be! After breakfast, Jamie and I were getting ready to leave when the "Madame" told us that we would drive to the train station that day. I didn't want to argue with my Madame, but I felt that I would have to because our professor had specifically told us that we could not operate any sort of vehicle without his permission-even a bike. We got to the car and she had us both get in the back seat *phew*. Turns out she wanted us to verbally drive to the train station (basically she just wanted to make sure we knew how to get there so we could walk from then on).

After our first real day of class, we were let free. Jamie and I wanted to try a new pastry/baguette shop so we started looking for one. I thought there were patisseries on just about every other corner, but its not true! Jamie and I walked for probably an hour before we found somewhere to buy some food-but it was worth it! They made fresh crepes Kates! I ordered one with ham and cheese, I think it was swiss cheese?


We ate and were pestered by a beggar who pulled the "do you speak English?" trick. Katy had warned me about this so I quickly said no, but I hadn't forewarned Jamie so she said Yes-of course. The girl then showed her a paper that explained in English how her brother was in Iraq and had no food to eat. Thus Jamie was confronted and guilted into the money giving, while the girl completely ignored me.

We then decided to walk to the gardens of Luxembourg. It was so pretty! My favorite part was going to the park and watching all the little French children play and speak French. Its so fun to understand everything! Visiting the jardin was comforting because we saw lots of joggers! I had seen very few throughout Paris before this and I was concerned about how American I would look. Turns out that it is kind of becoming a new fad in Paris to jog. Supposedly 'Sarkozy does it'?



On the way home we tried many many many times to put the money for May on our Carte Oranges-our metro passes. The machines were acting really funny and there was no one au guichet (ticket window). Eventually we just had to get cash to make it work. Luckily the program pays for these cards so it wasn't too bad. I must admit, not having those 90 euros in my backpack all the time is a huge lifted weight. Our metro ride home was absolutely horrible, the worst so far. We got on RER-A and quickly claimed some seats. After we started moving, the absolute cutest little boy walked up to me and started begging me for money- it was heart breaking. I couldn't help but look at him, but then I remembered that if you don't plan on giving them money that you're not supposed to look at them so I quickly looked away. I felt so cruel! His mother followed right behind him and give it another shot, but this time I was prepared. I found a focal point and never looked up, although she tried to persuade me for probably a good ten minutes. I got a huge headache from the guilt I felt, but somewhere under all my guilt I felt a bit proud of myself for learning how to act like a true Parisien.

Paris metros are very very quiet. If people speak on the metro they whisper (even the beggars were whispering). At one of the stops two Arabic men entered our car of the metro and were immediately too loud for the social norm. They were yelling, laughing, hitting each other, and loudly discussing their pornographic magazine. When our stop finally came, my head was spinning. The man across from me had smelled strongly of alcohol and the one across from Jamie had sneezed a thousand times all over her. She thinks she's getting sick now... poor thing. To top everything off my ticket to exit the metro didn't work. It kept getting rejected but it was the one that I had used to get on the RER so it should have worked! And... it was my last one because I would start using my carte orange the next day. Like a true Parisien I hopped the machine. There was no metro controller on the exit side of the metro from whom I could buy a new ticket. What was I supposed to do? Stay in there for life?

Although we were exhausted from all our walking, Jamie and I headed straight to the Champion, which is a sister store to Carrefour I believe. There our credit cards worked, so no worries it was just the metro machines.

When we got home we started our homework: 50 pages of reading on philosophy and 12 pages from a history book, in french. Lets just say, finishing all the reading was impossible! But I was able to read enough to answer all the homework questions so I felt that it would be okay. Our heads were aching so we decided to watch a movie: we found Harry Potter et la chambre des secrets in Madame's bookcase and wanted to watch a half hour of it, too bad they don't play on American laptops. Silly Frenchmen form their DVD's differently. They're unreadable in my laptop! So we just went to bed instead

Le 1 Mai, 2009
C'est Vendredi. Jamie and I got to class early despite the disaster that we came across in the metro stop "Chatelets". Never again will we get off there instead of at L'hotel de Ville. The metro stop is HUGE and the signs in there lead you around like a chicken with no head. Speaking of heads my carte orange did something funny today. Jamie and I had taken a weird exit in the metro and wanted to get back in to find the correct one. I waved my card over the strip and I heard the "bing" saying that I could go. The doors that open when your card is clear move fast so I didn't waste anytime. I was just moving through the doors when I heard a "enh!" (think dad's noise for the dog when she does something bad. not ep-the other one). The machine had changed its mind and wanted to reject my card, too bad I was partially through the door so when those quick doors slammed shut they caught my head and my left hand in them. OUCH- it didn't hurt as much as it sounds... the doors are framed in rubber but nonetheless I was very humbled.

When I finally got to class we talked about Louvre passes and all the philosophies we studied... I was sufficiently prepared. We got out of class late Again, but because it is the premier may we had to better figure out what to do with our day. No one works on the first of may in France, its sort of like their labor day. Thus finding a place to eat was a little difficult again, but because it was- most of the class stayed together for the day. We ate at the institute and played ping pong. I got a sandwich called The Texan! Appropriate, eh?

Then we went to the Eiffel tower again. Most of the museums were closed, plus a lot of the group hadn't been yet And I wanted to get better pictures and get to know the group better.
Jamie, Me, Rachel (in the red), and Kaylie (who was in my freshman ward)
Everyone again but Jamie

After the Eiffel Tower we decided to walk down by Les Invalides and the Ecole Militaire and apres find the closest metro stop. We took the metro for probably 45 minutes to the stop right next to the fair! Its the first of may and no one was at work so the Fair was PACKED. Okay saying the word "packed" is an understatement. I held my backpack tight in front of me the whole time because I figured that there were pickpockets flooding that place. We met up with the Paris YSAs and went on some rides with them it was really really fun!


From Left to Right--> Mandy, Kristen, and Me after riding the King. It was pretty rough :) which I loved. (see the messed up hair?)


A bunch of people from YSA and the Study Abroad group. On the back row, the first five from the left are Parisien YSA goers and the next 3 are in my study abroad group: Kylie, Fred, and Rachel again.

The sun was starting to go down so Jamie and I hurried home to go jogging before it got dark. We ran all along a little river in Croissy sur Seine and it was absolutely beautiful. During the run Jamie turned to me and said with a big smile "Has it really hit you that we're running in the suburbs of Paris?"