It's a Wonderful Life

Friday, October 15, 2010

Day 37

This is a day late, but I am still going to do an entry. I made it to London! We landed at the airport, took a taxi to our hostel, and went to bed. The hostel is a good one again. We have been lucking out. I think it is so fun to meet people and feel like you are all just hanging out traveling the world.

We got up and were out of the hostel by 8h30. We had our free breakfast here, which consisted of toast with Nutella. We made our way to our underground station by the hostel which is Baron's Court on the Piccadilly and District lines. We first went to Big Ben, House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. We came out right under Big Ben, which was awesome! I didn't even know you could get that close. We also caught the end of the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace.

We then went to Tower Hill with the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.It was cool to see and I really like the Tower Bridge. We then went to the British museum. I saw the Rosetta Stone which was cool. There was a lot to see so I kind of did a breeze through while the girls meandered. We just met at the entrance. That made it a lot better for me. I have kind of gotten tired of being the tour guide. It is exhausting and sometimes a little frustrating.

They wanted to see the Global Theater and I had no desire to see it so I told them I would meet them at a place for dinner. They went off and I grabbed a paper and read on a coach at the restaurant. We had the classic fish and chips dinner. So good! Oh and it turns out they couldn't ever find the Global Theater and just got lost for the hour I wasn't with them.

Next came the best part of the day. We went to Les Miserables! It was so incredible!!! I saw it like four years ago in New York, but I was surprised how much I had forgotten. It was just so amazing! One of those "I can't believe my life is this good" moments. I knew almost every song! By the ending I was just sobbing! It was so good!

We came home on the Piccaddily line from Leicester Square. My bed felt so good! I was exhausted!

The city has felt so familiar to me. I am surprised how much I remember, but I am also surprised how different things look. A lot of the stuff is not how I remember. The thing I loved the most when I came here ten years ago with my family was the underground. I got a board game called The London Underground Game. It basically was a board game that was the Underground map and you had to try to get around. It is like I am really playing the game now! I am so familiar with the map and the stops because I played that game ALL the time when I was younger.

Pictures to come. My computer is struggling lately. I think it will have to go to the Apple doctor whe I get back to Paris.

Still missing quite a few pictures. They are trapped on my computer. We will see if I ever get them back. I hope so!

Saint James Park

Tower of London

I love these little guide dudes!

At the Tower Bridge

Saint Paul's Cathedral

British Museum

Rosetta Stone

Pantheon sculptures

Game of Ur

Mummy

Samurai Armor

Japenesse Painting

Coins

Chessmen

Finished my fish and chips

Could I be any happier?

Best ever!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Day 36

I am writing from the Charles de Gaulle airport. I just had my passport stamped for the second time. I am leaving France! I am heading to London England! I am traveling with Ally, Martha and Emily. Getting this far on the trip has been an ordeal. I’ll just start from the beginning.

We booked this trip last Sunday when we were in Marseile, because our study abroad group travel was changed last minute and took up one of our free weekedns in November that we were going to travel, so we acted quickly. We booked a flight on Wednesday night and one returning on Monday morning early.

We have some pretty strict rules on hoe we have to travel. We have to travel in groups of three or more, we can’t travel on Sundays, and we can’t miss classes. So we booked everything and gave our itinerary to our director. Then the Kennedy Center at BYU got involved. Not a good thing. There were rumors that we were not treating our studies seriously enough and that we should be sent home. That was fun.

They told us that we had to attend church. We told them we were planning on attending church in London. That wasn’t good enough for them. We had to attend church in Paris-still not quite sure why since I was pretty church that our church was the same everywhere in the world, but maybe BYU knows something I don’t? NOT.

Anyways so it was 22h30 last night when our director called us telling us that we had to change our flight. We were only able to find a flight for early Saturday morning and we had to pay a relatively large fee to change it. Needless to say none of us were please. PS at this point our friend Sutton who was suppose to go with us, decided that she couldn’t miss class so she backed out. Still sad about that.

So when Ally and I told our host mom of our change of plans she said we made a terrible mistake. She said that there is suppose to be a huge strike on Saturday and that we will not be able to come home on Saturday. She said that there will be flights that are just cancelled. Not to mention trying to get to the airport on the metro. Still not sure what Saturday will look like but we are going anyways!!! Seize the day!

The strike started yesterday and it also caused us lots of problems getting here today. Our flight is at 21h50 and Ally and I left at 15h to make sure we could get here. First we had to go on three metros to get the Chatlet where the RER B(a train) leaves from that goes to the airport. We had been told that only one in every five was running today.

We made it to the platform at Chatlet and they informed us that the RER B was not running for that station today because of the strike. So we had to get on another metro to go up to a bigger train station where the RER B was running. We got there, had to buy 8 euro tickets and then waited forever. The trains were running every half hour and it was crowded. We ended up being some of the first on the train so we got to sit the 30 minutes to the airport.

Being at the Charles de Gaulle airport is actually really fun. I haven’t been here since I flew in that first day and I can’t believe how much has changed since then, how much I have changed since then. I’m hardly even the same person and that was just a month ago. I was so nervous and now here I am coming by metro, with my backpack, in the middle of a Paris strike with a smile on my face. What a great month it has been!

We still have to get to London-we fly into Luton which is way the heck and gone, but cheaper than everywhere else and find our hostel in the city. So the next few hours will be an adventure. I will add to this post then. I don’t have wifi so this is just in word and I will paste it when I get to the hostel.

Internet went of at 1h00 last night so I couldn’t post, but we made it to the hostel and it is a really nice one once again. I love traveling the world!

Art History Class

German architecture? Maybe?

St. Paul

This is how Allyson and I feel about Art History most of the time!

The Strike

Made it to the airport!

And we are off!

England taxi! Gotta love it!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Day 35

No pictures again today so if I were you I would just stop reading. We had devotional at 13h as usual. Boring..as usual. We tried to plan some more trips. Hit some bumps in the road. I spent most the afternoon writing my art history essay. That was a blast, since I know so much about art. As you can tell it's not the best day. I leave tomorrow night for London, so it will be better then. Thats all today.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Day 34

Well I don’t have much to report today. It’s Monday so we just have classes and they are boring. This morning started out a little rough. Ally broke up with her boyfriend last night so there were quite a few tears shed. I won’t share too much about it, but I see that there are so many reasons that we are roommates. I can relate so much to all that she is going through. I hope that I will be able to help her see clearly as she moves on so that she can avoid some of the struggles I have had. The Lord prepared me in so many ways in the last few days (well and in the last few years ) to help her through this and once again I am grateful.

We went into the city for our religion class at 13h, but of course before we had to stop for a nutella crepe! That always makes everything a little bit better. Religion was boring as usual so I just tried to make the blog work and upload as many pictures as I could. I feel like all I have done all day is whip my computer out everywhere I went and upload picture after picture. I’m almost done and I will be happy when I am. This blog is a lot of work after a big trip!!!!

I had Civilization class after religion, which was also boring and then I went over to FHE at the institute building. I got there in time for the game, “Do you love your neighbor?” It was so fun and everyone had a really good time. I think the elders enjoyed it more than everyone else! Those guys seemed to be constantly running into each other and others. There were several times in the game that I pushed a few out of the way. We had a good time.

I took absolutely no pictures today. Weird. I think I have taken pictures every other day I have been here. Tomorrow there is another strike so the metros are only running half as much as normal. It will be an interesting day to say the least.

Also today I spoke a ton of French. Normally I don’t because I get all nervous/discouraged/embarrassed because I am not very good, but last night at dinner and today I have spoken a lot and I am not that bad. I find that almost anything I want to say I can communicate, even if it is in a round about way. I am really surprised how easily it is coming to me. I am not good by any means, but I am getting by. I think that Southern France trip did wonders for my self-confidence! I feel like a new woman!

Day 33

Sunday is a really good day! We got back on the train at 9h30. We found out that the first two hours of church was just a re-run of the Sunday afternoon session of conference, so I went home first to change and drop my stuff. I made it back and quickly changed and headed back out. We didn't sleep the night before because we were up until 3h30 planning our London trip for this weekend, so Ally's immune system crashed again. She slept it all of through the day. SO I headed back to church solo.

I think that if Michael weren't here, I wouldn't feel this big of a desire to go when I have had no sleep and just got home from an exhausting trip, but off I went. It was a tender mercy for me because I was able to catch a bus that makes my trip a little but shorter. I knew I was doing the right thing and that the Lord was aware of me.

As I walked into the church there was a cute girl with her luggage who asked me in French if this was a church. I told her it was and she asked if I was with the BYU group. I told her I was and I got to talking to her. Apparently there was a large BYU-I group here in Paris for the weekend and she was had a few friends on the trip and was trying to meet them. She hadn't been able to meet up with them and so she had been visiting France. Her name is Hilary and she is living in Nantes for the semester and doing a program through a French university. She is from Canada and goes to BYU-I but she is off track. She is living with an old mission companion, but that girl is not really active anymore. She told me that everyone out there is always drinking and smoking and she has been feeling so alone at there.

We were both so glad that she decided to come out for the weekend and that we were able to meet each other. By the time she left, we both felt like we had known each other for a long time. She was going to take a 25 euro taxi to her train station, but I just told her I would take her there on the metro. (Michael and Elder Johnson ended up headed to the metro at the same time and of course Michael carried her suitcase down the stairs. He is such a good guy. Hilary thought he was such a good missionary. She served in England and she said that some elders lose their personality on the mission because they try too hard, but she thought Michael seems so genuine and that we was working hard. Of course I had to agree!)We got to Montparnasse and had a good time getting to know each other.

I headed home and tried to get my computer to move and upload all my pics, but it decided it hated me. By the end of the night the computer wouldn't even turn on. I thought that I might lose all my pics for the entire month and I prayed hard! I told the Lord that I would really like my pictures to be saved and for my computer to work, but if this was a trial I need to face I would do it and not complain. My life is so good that if this was something I needed to experience I was okay with that. (I was happy when my computer worked this morning)

But it made me turn to do something other than be on my computer. I haven't written in my journal since I got to the airport here in paris because I consider my blog to cover my journalling but there are some things that I don't write on my bog that I want written down. It gave me time to reflect on how I am feeling. I went back and read my journal entries for the last year and it was so amazing to look back at the year. I continue to be so grateful!

Me on the train

Missionary handout that Michael was giving out.

Me and Hilary

On the way home from church. Just me in my skirt!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Day 32-Cannes/Marseille

So today we got a much later start. Not too bad but we weren't moving too quick. We had breakfast and then it took a little bit longer to pack than we thought it would. We had wanted to see one more thing in Nice before we left the city. There was a traditional Russian orthodox church in Nice and it looks like that famous church in Russia, so I figured if I can't get to Russia...this would have to do.

We found it and it was pretty cool. It cost three euros to go in and I was the only one who went it. It was really small inside and the art was really different than anything else we had seen. There were lots of gold and silver platted art work and the paintings on the wall and dome were dull. I looked, but I'm glad I got to see it.

Some of the girls wanted to go to Cannes so they had found a bus that would get there. However they didn't realize that it was a two hour bus ride AND that there was nothing to do in Cannes. As soon as we got there we headed for the train station to buy our ticket to Marseille. We had about 45 minutes until the train left so we saw the very few things to see and got lunch.

The train ride was good. We got to Marseille at about 16h30. One thing that I really wanted to see in Marseille was the largest cathedral in France. I had read online that it closes at 17h30. So we ran. I got us on the right metro and when we got off, I ran. I was carrying a 50+ pound backpack with all of mine and Ally's stuff in it. Sutton ran with me and the rest of the girls were speed walking behind us. We made it and then realized it didn't close till 18h. I'm sure people were loving that I rushed us there. After that we headed to find the hostel and I found it with no problem. It is a cute hostel and I am glad we picked here.

Emily and I told everyone we were going to see everything we could so we left and started our tour of the city. We first went to Cinq Avenue where Palais Longchamp is. It is a beautiful building and even though it was a little out of the way, I am so glad we went. It is one of the prettiest buildings I have seen while in France.

We then got dinner for super cheap. I had pizza for 1.20 euros. Cheapest meal yet, well that actually filled me. We got on a bus and went to Le Pharo then walked to St Nicholas's Abby. We found a bus then a metro and made it back to the hostel.

Last thing: I have gained so much confidence and respect for myself on this trip! For the first time in a long time I have found that I am really good at something! I planned a ton of stuff on this trip and then I made it happen. I also have a talent for getting around. I have maps in my head. I can picture the map that I looked at on google before I left and remember the general areas of things and I can get myself there. (I use a map that I carry too lol but it is mostly just based on general directions) I get us on buses, trains, trams, and metros to go where ever we need to go. I was so organized and I feel good about myself today. It's a nice feeling. Once again I am grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who gave me talents and who gave me opportunities to discover them. Every day the largest emotions I feel here are joy and gratitude. I love life!