Downpour and Sanctuary at Notre Dame

Bastille Day began with the promise of blue skies and a sunny holiday...

Notre Dame was beautiful--not at all like the dark, looming version Disney portrays. Isn't it beautiful?

Notre Dame, right along the Seine River--which of course we stopped at to take pictures. As we were there taking turns with the picture taking--seriously, only five minutes tops--the blue sky suddenly disappeared...

and left us with this!

We sprinted across the bridge to Notre Dame, crying for sanctuary the entire way--which we did find in the cathedral thank goodness. However, we were soaking wet by that point--I didn't even have time to open my umbrella until we there!

Although we sloshed and dripped through the entire place, at least we got to see it--breath taking.

The rain did let up for a minute--just enough to see the facade and outer sculptures.

GARGOYLES!!!

What are gargoyles for? Well, to carry water from the roof away from the cathedral--and check it out, it totally works! :)

After Notre Dame, we figured we'd hit Sainte-Chapelle as well--the one thing in Paris I was so excited to see. Sainte-Chapelle is another gothic cathedral, but this one is almost entirely glass--from what I've heard, it's absolutely heavenly! Of course, I wouldn't be able to say whether or not this is true myself, since we never made it inside the dang place! We tried two days in a row--the first on this wonderful Bastille Day; sadly the sudden flash flood we experienced that day knocked out the power for the week. What do they need power for? It's a glass cathedral! Oh well. Just my luck, right? No worries though, it was an adventure of a day, so I can't complain. :)

Here we are--soaked to the bone--futilely trying to dry off while waiting to see if we can get in. That's the closest I made it to Sainte-Chapelle. Next time.

After Sainte-Chapelle we just spent the day TRYING to find ourselves--aka, we got lost for the rest of the afternoon. Although we didn't get to see all the little museums we originally had on our itinerary, I did get to see the ENTIRE city of Paris by the end of the day! Sometimes getting lost has its benefits. ;)

The center of the city:

Eventually we had made it around the entire city, getting lost at pretty much every turn. French people don't give good directions I've decided.

The rain doesn't help too much either: that's our map by the way... at least what's left of it.

and just when we thought we had found the Pompidou Museum...

turns out we had come all the way back around to the backside of the Louvre! That's right; we started at the front of the Louvre, took a random tour around the entire city of Paris (in a downpour mind you), and somehow made it back to the Louvre again! Yeah, Mia's reaction here is pretty much how we all felt at this point:

But of course, it was a heck of an adventure--especially because of the rain--what a way to spend Bastille Day in Paris!

(And don't worry, we did dry off enough to enjoy the fireworks later that night.)

Crepes = Ambrosia

Crepes are the best, especially when Nutella is involved. I was quite proud of myself up until this point; I had somehow refused the enticings of Nutella back at the London Centre, but here in Paris my defenses were down and I fell to its deliciousness. Oh Nutella--Nutella on a hot crepe and a scoop of ice cream--now that is some good stuff.

We came out of the Louvre and saw a cloud in the distance; it started to rain, but not on us, just on the Louvre. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen, a full out downpour not more than 100 feet away. However, it did eventually find us, so we ran for shelter at a crepe shop (of course!), where I enjoyed a ham and cheese crepe for lunch, then a Nutella and ice cream crepe for dessert--one of the most heavenly things I have ever tasted, but not necessarily the brightest idea I've ever had. We made the biggest mess!






The crepe man was super nice and just thought we were funny, crazy Americans (not entirely untrue). He kept bringing over more napkins for us, until finally he told us (in between laughs)to go downstairs into the wash room to clean up. I was covered in ice cream and sticky from head to toe, but fortunately the rain showers took care of that--it was a complete downpour not too long following our crepe break, but that flash flood didn't hit until Notre Dame, and that's a story for the next post.

Musée du Louvre

It was a beautiful, clear blue sky morning when I got up early for Bastille Adventures: first stop, Musée du Louvre. THE LOUVRE! Yep, I'm still in awe. You could spend years here and never see it all, and I only had a few hours. It's pretty safe to say that I saw nothing--and yet, I saw so many wonderful things. Some day I will return! But for now, I was able to see the biggies--Da Vinci, Michelangelo, etc.--and we got out before the ridiculously huge holiday rush, so it was most definitely worth it to me.

Inside the pyramid--pretty cool. Seen the Da Vinci code? Yep, right here.

The Mona Lisa--PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. Everyone always says that it's so much smaller than you imagine, so I of course imagined it so much smaller than it ended up being--it's not big, but it's definitely not all THAT small.

But somehow we even made it all the way up to the velvet rope right in front of the Mona Lisa, just feet away from the bullet proof glass.

Another Da Vinci: Virgin of the Rocks.

We got lost in the African wing, and I found this adorable critter:

Last of all, my personal favorite, the classical sculptures:

MICHELANGELO!!!!! The Dying Slave.

MORE MICHELANGELO!!!! The Rebellious Slave. I have a fetish for Michelangelo, but most of his work is in Italy of course, so I was pretty pumped to find the Michelangelo room here. :)

The Winged Victory. Just breath-taking.

Diana of Versailles.

Venus de Milo. Beautiful.

And of course the magnificently romantic Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (Antonio Canova).

I love the Louvre. <3

Bastille Day!

Out of all the days of the year I could have been in Paris, what are the odds of it being Bastille Day!? Crazy--what a day. Can I say that again? WHAT A DAY! I wasn't exactly ecstatic about coming to Paris, but Bastille Day--yeah, that made it all worth my while for sure. The Louvre, Notre Dame, the parade and jets, downpour like you'd never believe, spending the entire day lost and soaking wet, DELICIOUS crepes, Sacre Couer, Sephora, Arc de Triomphe, fireworks, and getting to know new friends. What a day I must say.

Colored smoke from the jets flying over the parade.

Red, white, and blue!

After an amazingly crazy day of getting lost but having a blast on an adventure, a group of us headed up the Champs-Elysees to watch the fireworks from the Arc de Triomphe. Because they didn't start until 11pm we toured the shops up that streets--though to call them shops doesn't quite do it justice. These are the world design houses--not just stores, the actual real deal. These are the designers, THE DESIGNERS, the design capital of the world--where fashion begins. Do you understand how cool this is??? Anyway, we had a few hours to kill, so we did makeovers in Sephora. Lizzie did my eyes up to be festive for Bastille day--I was the only guinea pig brave enough to let her do blue. ;) I like dressing up--pretty, crazy, whatever, I'll go for it.

And finally (I was so exhausted, I thought they would never begin)--the fireworks!!!

Watching the fireworks from the Arc itself--not the closest view, but definitely good enough for me--it's the ARC DE TRIOMPHE after all! And the best part was that we beat the crowds and made it home first. Yep, that's where I get excited. ;)

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet! Bonne fete! Yay for crazy French Revolutionaries storming the Bastille!

Puppy likes Brick Oven

Vera wanted to share in our Brick Oven night. :)

Celebration

Guess what??? I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, at least until school starts again in two weeks. :P But I'm done with my classes here in London--I can barely believe it. I have loved these classes more than any I have ever taken, but it's always nice to be done and have a little break. I will miss you my dearest London.

oh wait

Yesterday: spent all day just COMPILING the blasted study guide. Started studying about 9pm.

Today: two finals, beasts but done.

I'm DONE!!!!

(a few minutes later)... oh wait, I still have two papers. Not done.

Bugger.

Something has changed within me

I can't blog too often these day because 1-I'm so flippin' busy! Finals coming up--yikes... and 2-we aren't allowed to upload things to internet anymore because it takes up so much broadwith or something. If we can pirate some internet outside of BYU sometimes it's possible (like right now), but even that gets pretty dodgey... so I may have to finish chronicling my adventures in a few weeks. For now, I'll do what I can.

So, guess what I did Tuesday night??

Yup, I finally jumped the bandwagon, what can I say, but I'm in London--I might as well! I finally gave in and saw WICKED. Not that I think there is anything wrong with the show, of course not, I just hate the overboard hype that comes with things when girls think they're great. FOR GOOD was sung at every last stinkin' graduation, girls night, celebration, and party I can remember. I was so sick of that song, I didn't think I could ever make it through the entire show! But I did, and (don't tell any of the girls), I even might have loved it. The music and spectacle had the perfect balance--that is a rare find indeed. And the costumes! Oh, well, I always look for the costumes, and these ones did not disappoint; I want one of each in my own size. And yes, I would wear them every day. :P

Besides all the showmanship of the actual show, I have to say that I did love (gasp) DEFYING GRAVITY, because it touched something deep inside me. I'm not sure I can really explain it in words, but I loved that Elphaba decides that she isn't going to let anything bring her down--no more listening to what everyone else thinks of you and what you can do--it hit me because, as I'm sure many people experience, I have had countless people in my life telling me what I can, and more annoyingly, what I can't do, especially regarding my surgery.

-"You can't ever go on a mission now."

-"You'll never be the same."

-"You're always going to struggle--you'll never be able to do those things again."

-"School isn't every going to be that easy again--you may never be able to read and learn like you used to."

-"You're shy, you'll never be able to break out of that--it's just part of who you are."

-"Sometimes you just can't change--you're born this way and you have to learn to deal with it."

-"You can't travel abroad, it would be too hard on you." "You could never handle living with girls for that long, you would crack." (and there are so many times I thought I would completely crack, but I'm still here)

Now, I don't necessarily disagree completely--there are some things you can't change, and you just have to learn to deal with them; life wasn't meant to be easy of course. However, like Elphaba says, "Some things I cannot change--but till I try I'll never know!" How will you know if those are the things you have to live with if you never try to make them better? What's the worse that can happen--you can't, and then you're just where you would have been anyway. Everyone deserves a chance to TRY at least. You'll never fly if you don't take the leap. For example, yesterday we went to Portsmouth to see the HMS Victory, captained by Lord Nelson of the Royal Navy--he won the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, not a small thing--he was a great naval hero, and you want to know what? The guy had severe seasickness--a SEA captain, who had such terrible SEAsickness! See, he didn't let that stop him. He did what he wanted to do, and he did it well. Ha. I don't know, it just really got to me, because if this little green girl could do all of those amazing things, then why can't I? I had brain surgery only a year ago--and look at me now! I am more than I ever would have dreamed before I found out about all this brain drama, wahaha--in fact, it's BECAUSE of it that I am who I am, and I wouldn't trade that for the world--that's what you get for telling me what to do, or what I can't do, because you know what--I CAN. You'll never actually know that you can't until you at least try.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game

I'm through accepting limits
'cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know!

Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!

Arc de Triomphe

We sprinted down the entire length of the Champs-Elysees, (which is not a short distance and is full of people everywhere) so we could get to the top of the Arc before it closed—we made it with only 10 minutes to spare. Coming down from the top of the Eiffel Tower a pushy, rather large woman knocked me down the stairs (just a few) and I think I popped a rib, so this run was not my favorite, but it was well worth it--the Arc was surprisingly impressive for sure.

After the Arc we stopped for some French pastries which were to die for, and then headed home. Do you like my Chlortab in the background there? Thank you Clark for saving me--I am totally allergic to Paris I decided, but fortunately the one boy on the trip has a Mary Poppins bag with allergy medicine to share. ;)

Delicious... now I'm hungry again. I want a crepe. and nutella. and yummy tarts. and gelato. How are French people so dang skinny?