Just a bunch of photographic evidence...

Me wishing this bike worked and that it belonged to me.

View of the city from Sacre-Coeur.

Sierra and I just doing our homework in one of my favorite free WiFi parks, Square Jean XXIII

Me in front of a part of the largest mosaic in the world, in La Defense, a very futuristic part of Paris.
My only love on Valentine's Day...

Serena and me at Odeon Theatre before the Moliere play, "Ecole des Femmes", started.

Diane, Mike, Emma, and Rochelle in front of the Obelisk in Place de la Concorde.

View from the Tuileries garden.

My first kebab. This is in the Latin Quarter, probably my favorite area of Paris.

Diane and me infront of the Seine.
View from the top of Notre Dame cathedral.

En Libre-Pensant...

UGH so I should be writing a paper for my art class, but I'd so much rather talk about myself! *cough* anyway...

So this past Sunday was great! My friend Monique from church invited me over to her apartment (she nannies for a little boy and he and his mom are on vacation right now......yay-uh!) for dinner with some other people from the ward. Mamacita was her place nice! She's only a metro stop away from me. We need to play more. Anyway, we had quite the international representation there: Marco from Guatemala, William from Scotland, Liliana from Columbia, and Steph and Justin from the states. I had a fabulous conversation with Liliana (we discovered we basically have parallel lives) and while I was talking with her, I was thinking, "Hmm...I don't speak Spanish, and she doesn't speak much English. So if we didn't both speak French I would never be able to talk to this girl." So true! I realized that speaking French doesn't only allow you to talk to French people, but to anyone in the world who speaks French. Anyway, these people were great.

Oh. My. Gosh. Yesterday I bought the most heavently pastry. Fit for Aphrodite, I'm telling you. In it: crushed rose petals. CRUSHED ROSE PETALS!! It was lovely and pink and had raspberries in it, too. And afterward every time I burped (what? I'm a gaseous person!) it tasted like roses! Up until now I'd never ate a rose, but they taste exactly how they smell. I got it at a famous patisserie called Pierre Herme. Today the only thing I bought was a baguette to make up for my splurge yesterday. It was worth it.

So I recently found out that my group is also going to Geneva! It was kind of a last minute plan my director made. So when we leave for the south of France in April, we're just going to leave like 4 days earlier and go to Switzerland first.

This past weekend, I went over to Montmartre to see Sacre-Coeur, the Moulin Rouge, and the artsy bohemian neighborhood that was home to Renoir, Toulouse Latrec, and Voltaire. This place was awesome. I am SO glad I'm here this time of year and not in the summer because I can only imagine how hot and crowded it would be during tourist season. Instead, it was perfect. We sat on the steps leading up to Sacre-Coeur and listened to a harpist, then wandered around the cute cobblestone streets. Pretty much as soon as you hit Moulin Rouge, Montmartre turns into the red light district. Don't go there at night.

Livin' and Learnin'

Hey hey so this past weekend was the most traumatic ever, but now that I'm feeling better I can write about it. SO.....Valentine's Day night, myself and 3 friends met at midnight at Bourse metro stop, just off of the Champs-Elysees. My friend Emma had found this new club that was free for V-Day so we hopped on that train as soon as we found out! It was a new club and pretty cool looking. Unlike those in the states, the people there are mostly going to listen to the music instead of to dance. They more like sway back and forth. Anyway, club, blah blah blah, I get home at about 7:00 in the a.m. when I realize I don't have the key to my apartment. Shoot! I'm locked out! That was my only worry. So I found the concierge and got the emergency key, but i misunderstood and thought she was giving me the key permanently. So I didn't bring it back when I should have. The wonders of learning a foreign language.
So the next morning....well, more like an hour later....i didn't think to tell my host mom because 1.) i was totally out of it and 2.) i didn't think it was a big deal. WELL...when I got home that afternoon, she was standing at the concierge's door and BLEW UP when she found out I'd lost her key. I was stunned speechless. My friend Eurah was with me, so we immediately went to key (hah, punny) places where I knew I was so we could search for it. I had no idea just how important French keys are. Let me explain a little: they're not at all like the flimsy keys we have at home, that you can have copied for like 5 bucks. They're super intricate and apparently very hard to reproduce. Had I known this key was like a first child to Madame Michel, I would have reacted much differently when I found I had lost it. So Eurah and I looked everywhere, but to no avail. I talked to the Metro people with no luck. I began to break down in the metro station. Dear, sweet, kind Eurah grabbed a chocolate bar and some strawberries out of her purse and gave them to me. We had to part at this time. So there I was, by myself, sobbing on the metro, holding strawberries and chocolate. I'm sure it looked like I had just broken up with my boyfriend. You should know the French NEVER show emotion, especially on the metro. So later that night when Mme Michel came home and we sat down to dinner, I explained to her that I looked everywhere and did everything I could possibly do. Holy cow she hit the roof. The next 2 hours I sat there, tears a-flowing, as she told me what a horrible person I am. Though I can speak French, I'm not at all to the point of being able to completely express all my feelings. She insisted that keys are the same all over the world. But they're not. I had no idea how much more valuable they are here. There was much more than a language barrier here. There was a major cultural barrier. That was the most horrible 2 hours of my life. The next morning I went over to my director's house and called my mom. The guy in charge of housing talked to Mme Michel and basically told her she cannot treat me like I'm her child and she must know that I come from a completely different culture. I understand where she's coming from too, though. She's a widow, so the possibility that someone has my key and then followed me home is really worrying her. Anyway, after a long, hard weekend things are finally starting to look up. I've gotta say I have learned more about French culture than anyone could ever learn just off the street. This is just one of those experiences that really sucks, but helps me grow so much more. I don't want to add too many sorrowful details and I'd rather not dwell on it......
Anyway! I climbed the 400 steps to the top of Notre Dame today. It was gorgeous.

De l’Amitié…

So I studied in the Louvre today. Ahh. This is the place. My time was spent in the Mesopotamian Antiquities section (aka the Boring Age) because I have to give a presentation on the art of the Persian Empire this week. It was more interesting than I expected, but I would've much rather seen Delacroix or Gericault. No worries. I shall return. In fact, I have a class that meets there once a week.
So after my research sesh, I took a gander outside of the Palace, through the Tuileries Garden, while I waited for my friends. Some garcon wanted to paint me so I pretended not to speak English. Then he started speaking French so I just didn't respond. He assumed I was from Poland. I don't know. Worked for me.
Then, while sitting underneath a statue of Napolean, I met another garcon. Named Adel. He was great! Yay a Parisien friend! Don't worry Mom, I approached with caution. After saying hello and asking how I was and what I was doing in Paris, he asked me out. Haha the French aren't afraid to jump right in here, obviously. Luckily I distracted him with some question or other and we ended up talking for a half-hour or so 'neath Napolean. What I loved was that he couldn't tell I was American (probably the biggest compliment to an aspiring fluent French speaker and non-tourist). He thought I was Scandinavian instead. Whatev. I can take that. Not a word of English passed and the whole conversation was smoooooth as butta. He did end up getting my number only because he saw me holding my cell phone and what was a supposed to do, deny having it? Well, I guess I could've done that. Hind sight's 20/20. Don't worry Mom, I promise not to go out with him.

Mardi Gras in Belgium

I went to Belgium for a few days this week and it was fabulous. Ironically, MARDI GRAS (the Frenchiest French-inspired holiday there is) is not all that big throughout France. Down south in Nice it's celebrated, but since that is far far away, we roadtripped over to Belgium, where they take Mardi Gras very seriously. We stopped in Amiens, France along the way to see its gargantuan cathedral (even taller than Notre Dame!). As soon as we arrived in Brugges, Belgium we went directly to the chocolate factory/museum. Duh. DID YOU KNOW that there are 46 different chocolate shops in Brugges and that each year they have to apply for permission from the city to sell their chocolate. Some guy goes around tasting the goods to see if they're up to par. I'm changing my major pronto.

Brugges is the cutest thing since My Little Pony but unfortunately the little town shuts down way too early in the evening. Some friends and I went searching for the perfect waffle but it was hard to come by. Luckily we found some and they were all I ever hoped for in a legit Belgian waffle. We also had some real french fries, which have nothing to do with the french because they were invented in Belgium!

The next day we headed to Ghent to see the Ghent altarpiece by Jan van Eych and it was absolutely stunning. I am SO glad I took Art History before I came here because all the masterpieces I'm seeing mean so much more to me. We arrived in Binche----home of the crazy Mardi Gras party---oh, i don't know, some time late morning, and hung out there with all the drunk locals, party-seekers, and backpackers alike. We danced and got confettied on and such. I was like, "sweet, this place is way fun!" Then came time for the famed parade. So we waited on the side of street for it to come by. And we waited. And waited. Almost 2 hours later it FINALLY showed up and it was the most boring and long thing I had ever witnessed. Now I know why people spend all day getting drunk. Basically so they can sit through this parade. These men and boys (ranging in age), dressed up in goofy outfits, march up and down the streets, wearing big wooden shoes. They don't go anywhere without their personal drummer. (Hence the expression....?). And they throw out oranges! Ouch? Yes! It's not like your average parade where candy is thrown out. Oranges are a little more violent. Apparently we were supposed to catch them and keep them but I kept chucking them back. It was fun at the time, but looking back, I could really be living off those oranges right about now.....

Anyway, it was a fun/bizarre day, which ended in a hotel in Mons. We left the next morning to go back home and along the way stopped in Chantilly to see the most incredible chateau I have ever seen. Seriously gorgeous and ten times better than Versailles.

Grayish-Pink Is A Hideous Color On Me

Voila. This is the woman with whom I am at wit's end. Living with Madame Michel is like living with the freaking Queen of England because that's exactly who she thinks she is. Today when I got home from church, I saw that she had dyed all my white clothes pink. Wow. Fabulous. She didn't even tell me. AND get this: Diane and I brought her small gifts, as is customary on this exchange, and we wrote notes to go with them. We left the gifts and the notes in the kitchen and the next morning, she handed back our notes with corrections she had made on them. There seriously is no line of courtesy this woman is unwilling to cross. Whatever. I keep telling myself it'll get better. Haha, one night while she was out soiree-ing, I snuck into the salon (which seems off-limits, though nothing has been said about it) and took a picture of a portrait of her. She had herself painted! HAHAHA! How I got assigned to this hostess I will never know.
Everything else has been super. I have this flimsy little ID card that says I am an Art History student. It looks like a made it in my basement, but it sure does work! I have gotten into the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Musee Cluny, and Versailles Palace for free! Most people who know me know I am the ultimate cheapskate, but I promise this card is real:) At Versailles, I passed French Test #2: Pawn off a ticket to a lady who doesn't speak English. I bought my Versailles ticket at the train station ahead of time, because apparently it was a deal. However, when I got there, I realized that my handy dandy fraudulant-looking ID card got me in free. SO...my friend Steve suggested I sell it to someone waiting in line. So I did. She looked me over suspiciously and I had to sound convincing, but my charm and incredible in-depth knowledge of the French language won her over. The picture to the right is the group of us who went to Versailles. It was pretty darn amazing. We just stayed in the palace since it was cold and raining, but we'll go back in the spring and rent bikes and ride around the gardens.

The photos above are: At Notre Dame, being really inconspicous tourists; One of my first legit legit French pastries, called a Mille Feuilles; The rose window in Saint-Chapelle; Sierra and I about to enjoy our pastries; My bedroom window.