Paris, here we come!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

4:30 AM – woke up, stripped my bed, and left the Centre. Sadness…I’m really going to miss this place. It is so amazing here. I think I’ll miss the people most of all. It’ll be fun to run into them on campus and play with them in Provo. We’ve been talking about having tea parties (BYOC – bring your own cup) and London shirt days and such. I love all these people.

6:00 AM – arrived at the Eurostar station to take a train to PARIS!!!!! Woohoo! The train ride wasn’t long, only a couple of hours. I am spending three days in Paris with Whitney and Tiffany from our group. We only got about an hour of sleep last night…yikes…and a couple of hours napping on the train isn’t quite enough – I’m absolutely exhausted. We found our way to our hotel pretty easily. It was weird walking through the Metro and seeing signs in a foreign language, and not hearing English as the main language. And, while looking for the Metro train we needed to take, we ran into a gypsy – a real, live gypsy! We didn’t realize she was a gypsy at the time, but we later learned that she was one. She asked us for money. It was a rather unique exciting experience. We weren’t at our hotel very long, we took off immediately to find Notre Dame. And we did! I saw it! We stopped for lunch at a nice little Panini shop where the guy gave us free crepes and taught us how to count in French. He was so nice! He showed us how to get to Notre Dame and even took the time to walk us to the street corner and point us in the right direction.

Notre Dame is absolutely gorgeous. It’s so much lighter in color than I expected for some reason. Not so dark and gothic as I thought. And the inside it wonderful! I loved it. I couldn’t help but sing “God Help the Outcasts” as I walked through the cathedral.

We went up to the top of it and imitated some gargoyles and got our first real view of the Eiffel Tower! Woo! We kept adding the phrase “in Paris” to everything we said, like – “I just ate a panini…in Paris!” or “I just went to the bathroom…in Paris!” It never got boring either. After Notre Dame we went to find the Louvre, but not before buying another adapter for my laptop chord. So now I have two on the end, because you can’t convert American chords directly to European without spending 30 euros, so I had to convert it to British and then to European. It was rather entertaining.

We found the Louvre after a bit of searching – I really had no idea where it was. But we found it! And it is GINORMOUS! You could spend years in that place. We went through and saw much of the key exhibits, including the Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, Hammurabi’s Code, and, of course, the Mona Lisa. I could hardly believe it – I was able to see all these statues and art pieces that I have only read about. It was so cool! We were so tired though that we ended up collapsing on some chairs and staring at the backside of a naked angel statue. Not on purpose. It was just there and we had no energy to move ha ha.

After exploring the Louvre we headed to the Eiffel Tower to rendezvous (a real French rendezvous!) with two of the guys from our study abroad group but we couldn’t find them. We had gotten there a bit late…a little too carried away in the Louvre I guess. But we found a little Chinese place, ate dinner, and then next door had the best ice cream I think I have ever had. Then we went back to the Eiffel Tower, which was lit up by this point. Every hour, on the hour, the tower twinkles! It’s so pretty and fun! I loved it and took many a picture. We then headed back to our hotel to collapse on our beds and get the first full night’s sleep I have had in over a week. I am exhausted…in Paris!

A Very British Birthday

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Firstly…I AM 21 YEARS OLD!!!! Woo! Another year gone. Another amazing birthday! I received so many messages from people wishing me a happy birthday. I felt very loved – thank you to those who wished me well in some form or another today.

Today was bitter sweet. Last day in London. We woke up early to take pictures down at Big Ben. They turned out really well, I think. They were rather embarrassing to take – lots of honking from passing cars happened. Brits like to play “spot the annoying tourist and embarrass them a lot” ha ha but we got some sweet pictures out of it so it’s totally worth it. We hustled back for our last breakfast in the Centre. We then headed for one last Primark visit, and then a trip to Harrod’s. Now, if you don’t know what Harrod’s is, let me sum up what I know. It’s basically a place where only super rich people can shop. Everything is expensive and fancy and name brand. The designer chocolate looked amazing – they had high heels made out of chocolate! I couldn’t believe it. And all their chocolates were so pretty.

We went to the toy section where they had every amazing toy ever – there was a huge Buzz Lightyear made out of legos and remote control helicopters were flying everywhere. It was awesome. And a nice man there made me a birthday card whilst demonstrating this paint set thing. It was so fun! Then we went to the pet section where they had the most expensive cats and dogs I have ever seen – the kittens were so adorable! They were like $2000 each! Wow…They have this really cool Egyptian escalator at Harrod’s too. It’s kinda hard to describe, so you just need to see pictures. It was way fun. We went to Nando’s for dinner – a Brazilian chicken place. It was really good.

Then we hurried off to ride the London Eye! About half of our group went to ride it. It was so much fun. We rode it at sunset, and we got to see everything in London. It was beautiful and wonderful – an awesome way to spend a birthday.

And we got magnums after, which made it even better! We then went home and proceeded to shove all of our belongings into suitcases. I have way too much stuff to take home…I’m kinda worried it won’t all fit…we’ll see J At about 10:30 pm we had a special musical number thing by Chelsea Wilson, one of the girls in our group who is studying musical theater at University of Michigan. She did a medley of a few of the songs from musicals we saw whilst in London, including a version of popular where she sang to Professor Macfarlane – it was the best. So funny! And then she and Staley, another girl in our group, sang “For Good.” It was beautiful. And so sad. I can’t believe it’s all over. I said goodbye to Professors Macfarlane and Cooper. Both gave me hugs. It’s in interesting thing, to get to know your professors so well. I will miss them, for sure. You can really tell they love us.

Finals? She DONE!

Monday, June 14, 2010

FINALS ARE DONE!!!!! Woohoo!!!! I am all done with school – best feeling in the world, let me tell you J And I think I did pretty well. I’ve learned a lot this semester. My favorite class was British History and Politics by far. I learned so much. Maybe it’s because it’s all new history to me, but I was fascinated by every single minute of it. And Professor Cooper was really awesome. And I was in London while I learned it – that might have a little to do with it.

After we finished finals we had a pizza party. It was sooooooo good. They were these massive New York style pieces – you know, super thin and huge. I loved it. They bought us Ben’s Cookies too. They’re the best cookies you’ll ever have. I’ll miss them. We then went on a final walk through Kensington Gardens to see Peter Pan. My friend Stephanie has a specific smile she uses when taking pictures, so we all tried to imitate it, which was fun. A couple of the girls re-enacted a scene from the Mary Kate and Ashley movie Winning London. We mostly just goofed off, fancy-free and free for anything fancy. Many much clamourosity happened.

We then went and got our last waffles…sadness…I got one with milk chocolate and white chocolate chips – holy cow, so good! I highly recommend it. I then went home to finish my final history assignment, which I stayed up far too late doing and now I’m off to bed so I can wake up in four hours to go take pictures at Big Ben with my friend Aubrie. We want to go early to get some nice, not busy pictures. Goodnight, faithful readers J

The Last Sunday

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Today was our last day in our ward. I spoke in sacrament meeting on temples. It went well I think, though they did not get some of the jokes or movie quotes I dropped, but that’s okay. The bishop kept saying how grateful he was for us – how wonderful we are and how much we help. I don’t really feel like I’ve helped all that much. I did what I could and what was asked of me, so hopefully that was good enough. Our bishop gave us thank you cards and pens. It was rather cute. We took our final bus ride through the city to get home. I’m really going to miss this place.

After church we headed out to St. Paul’s Cathedral for Evensong. I’ve never been to any meeting of any sort for any other religion, so it was really interesting to me. St. Paul’s is a choir’s dream singing location – the acoustics are insane! I loved it. The sermon was interesting. I did not agree with everything he said. He was claiming that the gospel is unknowable and that you have to dig it out. I believe that the Gospel is plain and precious – it’s simple enough for a child to understand all the precepts. It was a really neat experience to go. How many times can you say you attended a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral? Maybe once in a lifetime J

I spent the rest of the afternoon napping, preparing for the long night of finals studying ahead of me. After dinner we had a testimony fireside – it was so powerful. I never really feel like sharing my testimony at these kinds of things, but I did tonight. It was a amazing meeting. Every person in the group is an incredible individual. I can hardly believe my luck in getting to be in this amazing place with them.

Pomp, Circumstance, and Science Fiction

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Today we began the day early in order to get over to Buckingham Palace and the Mall to get a good spot for the Trooping of the Colors ceremony in celebration of the Queen’s birthday! We all wore matching preppy sweaters that we got a Primark. I’m not sure why…but we did. Jess and I found a pretty good spot and we had some fun neighbors. The couple on our left asked about our sweaters and if they were from our school – I said no, Jess said yes. So then we had to explain the discrepancy in our answers, which was a funny and most embarrassing situation. Most people tend to think it’s weird when a big group matches clothing for really no reason. I began reviewing for our history final, and the couple on our right asked what we were studying for and we told them about our class and where we’re from and such. Both couples were really nice. When the actual marching and ceremony stuff started, we whipped out our cameras and took a whole lot of pictures. There was a long procession of guards, all of which were slightly different but I had no idea what each one was called or what they did. Some fancy cars with people with big hats on inside drove by.

Then the royal guard marched by, followed by some carriages. I zoomed in with my camera, not knowing that I would soon be seeing PRINCE WILLIAM in real life and taking a real picture of him!!! Woo! It was so cool! He was riding with his step-mother Camilla. Apparently Prince Charles was on a horse somewhere near them, but I didn’t see him. The carriage behind theirs was Prince Charles’ brother and family. Then the Queen’s personal guard started marching by – these guys were decked out in awesome gold armor and they had swords and everything.

And then…..we saw QUEEN ELIZABETH II!!!! We saw her in person! It was so fun! She’s such a cute lady. And then it was over. So we waited for like 2 hours to see people for 2 minutes. But it was so cool! I’m so glad we went. We were freaking out.

I left to spend the rest of the afternoon on my own. I would have liked company, but I was going to places that other people had already been or thought was weird, so I ventured on by myself. I went to the National Gallery – finally! I saw so many amazing paintings – Raphael, Michaelangelo, Picasso, Seurat, Degas, Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir – in real life! Like, I stood feet away from them. It was really neat. After the Gallery I exited the building and saw a street performer doing the most amazing tricks with a glass ball, just like David Bowie in Labyrinth but way cooler (if that’s possible) J It was so cool.

I then took rather complicated trip to a store called Forbidden Planet – it’s a science fiction store where they have all sorts of collectibles and comics and action figures and stuff. It was actually quite ghetto. The reason I went was that they had Doctor Who toys! Yay! I couldn’t leave Britain without buying myself some Doctor merchandise. They only have it online back home. So I bought some little collectibles – a TARDIS and a Dalek. I also bought some pins to put on my bags and stuff and I browsed the book section for quite a while. I’ve never felt so nerdy in my entire life, but I absolutely loved it. And the Dalek has actual wheels – it rolls and everything! I have yet to witness my mini TARDIS travel in time, though. On the way home I bought the rest of the souvenirs that I’ve wanted – silly things like a mini Big Ben (my favorite London site) and t-shirts and such. I still need one more thing – a gift for someone. But I don’t know what to get! I’ll think more in depth…

We ate Pizza Hut and then spent the rest of our evening studying for our finals. There’s so much material to cover for our history one, I think my brain might explode. Luckily the class is curved, so perhaps I’ll be fine. I still have a lot of memorizing to do for English though…blargh…School has been killing everyone here. Everyone’s getting sick and not sleeping, a bad combination. I’m not sick, but I’m afraid I’ll have the usual after finals melt down and get sick and have to spend all my time in Paris sniveling and in my hotel room instead of at the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. Pray for our entire program – we need it big time!

Classes? She DONE!

Friday, June 11, 2010

LAST DAY OF CLASSES!!!!

She done! I love not having class. I still have finals….boo…but that’s better than more class.

Today after classes finished we rode the train out to Kew Gardens, which was absolutely gorgeous. We walked around for a while and saw some wonderful things – there was a treetop walkway and a greenhouse with plants I’ve never heard of and a really beautiful pond with lots of ducks, but we were all exhausted from all the homework and school stuff that we didn’t last very long. And we didn’t have any food, which is always bad…so we stayed for a few hours and then left. We picked up snacks at Tesco and then hopped on the train back. I tried catching up on history reading and didn’t succeed. But I watched some Doctor Who, so that was nice. In the afternoon I got food and then walked around some shops for a while. Didn’t buy anything. I’m all worn out with shopping. I’ve never shopped more in my life than I have while I’ve been here. My mom would be proud. I feel very frivolous and careless with my money, even though I’m not. At least I don’t think I am frivolous and careless…uh oh…maybe I am! Naw…

Dress in drag and do the hula?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

School here is an interesting experience. It’s so much more work than I thought it would be. Apparently, during winter semester, all the students did really horribly in their classes. They put a huge work load on us, more than what I’ve heard from other programs. Even one of our professors admitted that they are pushing us even harder than winter semester. It’s been hard, but I’ve actually not been terribly stressed about it. I figure that I’ll do what I can and that’ll be good enough. We just found out today, though, that the classes in summer semester aren’t going to require any outside of class homework – the directors of their program want them to enjoy London. It’s not fair. Not at all. We’ve had to sacrifice sleep and London activities in order to do all the work. It’s pretty frustrating. I mean, this really has been the best 7 weeks of my life. It just would’ve been much more enjoyable had the classes been a little bit more flexible – no out-of-class homework would have been heaven. I am so excited to not have homework, I can’t even tell you. I wouldn’t have traded my experience here for anything, though. Not a thing.

And tonight I saw………LION KING! It was really fun. It really made me want to watch the movie. Let’s face it – everything here makes me want to watch a movie. I have an extensive list of things to watch when I get home. Anyways, Lion King. It was really good. Little Simba and Nala were adorable and the music is super fun, as I expected. I thought the new songs they gave the hyenas were so stupid though. Chow down? I mean, come on. They’re the comic relief – they don’t need a song like that. The song I loved though was He Lives In You. It was so wonderful – I love the sound and feel of it, and I love the reprise of it in the second half. However, I was not terribly impressed with the first half of the play. It seemed all spectacle and no real dramatic tension, even though a lot of dramatic things happened. The more I think about it though, the more I like the first half. The second half of the play was absolutely wonderful – I loved it. I’m so glad I got to see it finally. It was a good one to end on.

And one of the best parts about today? I didn’t do any homework J Now I just get to stay up all night reading Mrs. Dalloway….blargh…