Un peu tard ...

Wow, I can't believe my life! I'm living a dream. I have so much to fill everyone in on, I'm sorry!! I even procrastinate at my optional blog!

Ok, so these are some of the highlights (which could be basically everything) of last week:

First off (worth noting), our first Saturday, we got fallafel for lunch in the Jewish quarter. I didn't know what to expect because I've never had it, but it was really good! Very interesting. We ate it at a random museum courtyard we stumbled upon. What a life. :)

Monday, we wandered around the streets and went in and out of stores that piqued our interest. I went into a Fragonard, which apparently is a well-known French perfume store. I had never heard of it, but everything smelled so good! We found some awesome places.

 

We even found one with my name on it! A guy looking in the other window of the store thought I was really weird for posing for that picture..

Tuesday was the first day of class. I'm taking a French culture and a French photography class--not bad (I love them). And the first one doesn't start until 2 pm! My host family thinks that is pretty cool. I really enjoy both classes and neither will be very stressful, which I am needless to say very excited about. We have class in the Institute building, which luckily is next to a huge landmark (the Pompidou Center) that sticks out from its surroundings and is super easy to see so thus the Institute building is easy to find! After class ended on Tuesday, we went down the Champs-Elysees and saw the Arc de Triomphe. I had the sixties Champs-Elysees song stuck in my head the whole time I was walking along the road. It's so big! The sidewalk is super wide with trees bordering the road on one side and lots of stores on the other. Very cool!

Seeing the Arc was super awesome, I was really excited to see the relief sculpture on the right side (Francois Rude's La Marseillaise) because I just studied it in Humanities this past semester.

It's soooo cool in real life! Everything is so cool in real life! We actually went back to the Arc yesterday and they have a copy (or something) of the head of the top middle figure in a mini museum thing there. It's humongous!! I love seeing the detail.

Wednesday, in our awful tedious culture class, we spend the time chocolate tasting. I know, school is such a drag, right?

Our alternative to wine tasting. :) We each got to try EVERY flavor of this gourmet deliciousness. Each piece was made from cacao beans from a different plantation and you can actually taste the flavors of the different soil in each different piece. So in one piece you can taste banana, mango, caramel, etc. but it's just because of the flavors the soil gives to the cacao beans. No flavor added! It's amazing! And delicious. Best class period ever (the macaroon tasting we had in class this week rivals it, though). After this awesomeness, a group went to the Luxembourg Gardens (still in Paris) for a class assignment. They are beautiful! They're right at the end of this awesome street (Rue Vavin) with lots of shops and cool apartments. I didn't get to spend as much time there as I would have liked, but I made up for it by going back last Saturday. :) Walking there, we passed by a few pubs (brasseries) / cafés that Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the rest of that cirlce (I guess) used to hang out at. One of them is the following:

So cool!! I realize I say that a lot, but that's because everything is! Then, some of us went out to dinner for someone's birthday in a really cool part of town, on the Rue Cler. We went to a café! And we sat outside at the little tables! I couldn't wait to do that the whole time I've been here and walked past people sitting outside at cafés (well actually since my whole life).

It didn't disappoint. The food was really good, the evening air was nice, the fact that we were on a cobblestone Paris street eating dinner was even nicer.. ! After dinner, we ended the day by spending the evening at the grounds of the Eiffel Tower. At night! It is beautiful. Enchanting. Amazing. So many things! We saw it all lit up, and then with sparkly lights that come on for a few minutes every so often. Again--so cool!!! Really. I can't really believe I am here!

There's lots of grass on either side of the tower to hang out on. I was transported to la Belle Epoque. It's magical! I am so lucky to get to come here. I'm having the time of my life! And I will update soon:)

Le Dimanche

Already another Sunday!! This is our second Sunday here, and thus our second time going to church in Paris. It's so cool! The building we meet in (the Institute building), also where we have class, is a 17th century building with a central courtyard in the Marais district (also the gay district and blocks from the Jewish quarter). It's right across from the Pompidou Centre.

The inside has twisting marble staircases with iron handrails. It's really a beautiful building! We have Relief Society first, where they have headsets for people who want direct English translations. Lots of visitors come through the ward I think, so it's kind of cool! They might also have Mandarin translations, and I think they have a Mandarin Sunday school. The ward is so diverse, I absolutely love it!!! Lots of people come to Sacrament meeting, so many so that this week they made all of us BYU students sit in the overflow where there is a live video feed and an English translation. Kind of a bummer. Especially since the translation was pretty inaudible.. haha But still a cool experience:) I haven't gone to many meetings outside of Utah, it's so cool to see! It's the same church everywhere. But like I said, I Loooove the diversity. You can feel the spirit and sincerity of people's testimonies even if you can't understand everything they're saying. And I love singing the French hymns. A lot of them are the same as the English ones, just translated. It's just fun! I'm glad we have a ward so close that we can join while we're here, they're so welcoming to us! I spoke with someone last week who is friends with one of the other French professors at BYU. It's cool because since the Church is a bit smaller in France, I think lots of people know each other.

So last Sunday, we decided to go to the Louvre since museums are supposed to be free the first Sunday of every month. Unfortunately, due to Fete du Travail (labor day), it was closed! But it was still soo cool to walk around the outside of the building and the grounds. It's enormous and amazing. 

We also walked around the Tuileries gardens which are just past the Louvre, and into La Place de La Concorde with the Obelisk. I love everything here. Really, it's just so cool walking around and seeing everything! But I think if I did that every single day, my body would collapse. So that's one good thing about class starting:)

Falling in Love with the City of Love

It's true. I'm falling in love! With this amazing city. And I barely even know it! I know, I know.. but it's hard to be rational in such a magical place!
I've been here for a WEEK already and there's so much to tell!
So I got here last Friday morning, and the first thing we did together as a study abroad group was take the métro that evening down to central Paris and take a tourist boat ride down the Seine. We got off at the Hotel de Ville stop and right when you walk out, this is the building you see:

You actually see it first from another angle, but this is the picture I have of the Hotel de Ville :) It's beautiful!! There's a big courtyard in front of it, as you can see! Honestly, almost every building here is beautiful, and I love going out of métro stops in the city because so many of them open right into views of the amazing buildings! We passed by Notre Dame (which is breathtaking) walking to our tour

and we saw lots of the other monuments on our little boat ride. That night I had my first French crêpe in the Latin Quarter! All in all, it was a pretty amazing first day. 

(on a bridge overlooking the Seine)

On Saturday, we went as roommate groups to our host families' houses, but before, we got to explore the little area around our hotel and also a bit of the Jewish quarter more downtown.

These pictures are both of the area around our hotel, and yes, the above picture is in fact of a patisserie, or pastry shop, window. I loved walking around and looking at all the little shops like this one! 

I get a little picture-hungry here and want to take pictures of practically everything, so I'm trying to contain myself concerning what I post. But I am just so captivated by this place! Something that has struck me strongly is the mix of old and new. You'll see centuries old buildings literally next to a brand-new modern shop. Things from the middle ages and even ancient Roman times are in the city and used right next to newer things. I love it!! I love the amazing oldness and charm. The city looks like the Pissarro painting, everything sticks out to the street at the same level and so many buildings have shuttered windows and balconies. It's so pretty!!! The feeling here is wonderful.

I will update on the rest of my week shortly!

Mes Impressions

Bienvenue à mon blog !

I am currently living as a student in PARIS (and will be for the next two months) and this blog will be my record. We'll see how good of a record it will be seeing as I'm not writing the intro post until I've already been here for five days, but it's better than nothing right! 

A petit explanation: the huge picture under the title was painted by Pissarro and depicts Montmartre, an artistic area of Paris. Like a lot of Impressionists, Pissarro painted the same scene multiple times under different conditions, and this Montmartre is undergoing "Spring Rain" (fitting). This is Pissarro's impression of Montmartre and on this blog, I will attempt to convey my impressions of the incredible city that is Paris by sharing my experiences! (a little cheesy, I know) J'espère que ça vous plaira !