Parlez Vous Francais

We enter Part 2 of the continent week. I don't mean to make it sound like it was dreaded or terrible, it was positively a dream! And Paris was everything and more.

People write songs about Paris and they make it sound like it's their everything:

I love Paris in the springtime

I love Pairs in the fall

I love Paris in the winter, when it drizzles

I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles

I love Paris every moment

Every moment of the year

I love Paris

Why or why do I love Paris

Because my love is near.

Thank you Cole Porter.
And yes this song was running a constant loop in my head while I walked those cobblestone streets. It was perfect.

Let's begin with the best part, the food:

 

While we were looking for the Musee d'Orsay - the best museum in Paris in my opinion, right behind the Rodin Museum, because it used to be an old train station! Anyways, my friend Abby says that she just wants to go to a fancy chocolate shop. So we found one and let me just say, Europeans know how to do chocolate. Sorry Hershey, but you got nothing on the Western Europeans. These fabulous macaroons are a sublime example, they not only look amazing but taste even better. They give up nothing and only gain everything.

I bow to their talents.

Okay I admit to fully copying my friend Rachel for this picture. But how could I not show off my french fry skinny french mustache in France?!

This beautiful sandwich came from Chartres, France (post to follow) and it was amazing. Why doesn't America make sandwiches in baguettes? It's so much better that way, simply because it is a baguette.

And if I didn't have a croissant in France then what kind of person would I be?

I also apologize for all these pictures of food in front of my face, but it would be so boring if I only took a picture of the croissant and this way my mom is pleased because it means more pictures of me physically documenting my trip!

Okay more on Paris to follow, just to give you a taste you can expect:

• Versailles
• Chartres
• Group pictures
• Monuments
• and much more!

xoxo

Big Summer Blow Out!

Remember in high school sports when you'd be training in the summer and there was always the dreaded week of "hell" week? 

Ya, here we call it the continent week.

• 2 cities
• 6 days
• 41 girls

I don't think we were ever running slower than a sprint as we dashed across those glorious cities, Amsterdam and Paris! Also I'm not using hyperbole here, with our professors we were always walking at a hastened clip through those cobbled streets, nothing short of a jog, and we covered roughly eleven miles on foot everyday!

But when its negative three degrees Celsius, you're grateful to be walking so quickly. Keeps the blood moving and the body warm; its when you stop that you realize how cold it is outside.

But even in the crisp air you can't deny how beautiful it is.

The Netherlands: canals, bikes, itty-bitty streets, and the tallest, smallest, quaintest houses.

I repeat, the tallest, smallest, quaintest houses.

The inside of a church in the Begijnhof, beautiful!

Looks like a palace right? It used to be the post office, now it's a mall. What?!

Come on, even at night with those twinkle lights you can't help but just fall in love with Amsterdam! And don't get me started on their bikes!

(Definitely more likely to get hit by a bike than a car; though I almost got hit by a train twice -- there is no telling the difference between the sidewalk and the street so keep your wits about you!)

Now we all remember in When in Rome when Will Arnett's fake Italian character brings his car over and says that it is a very big car in Italy? Okay, I found it's working counter-part:

Fingertip to fingertip! This car is only 5'6", and that's on a good day! Thank you Fisher Price for your contribution.

Even though we may have looked like we were doing a revival of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World by our running through the streets of European cities we did indeed have class. And I found myself, again, in front of some very impressive and beautiful masterpieces

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp by Rembrandt

(an absolute favorite of mine)

Self-Portrait by Rembrandt

Not to mention these two wondrous contemporary beauties on the ceiling of the Mauritshuis (museum)

Though it is not a masterpiece of fine art this was probably a huge highlight of my trip to The Netherlands. The Dutch do breakfast right, chocolate shavings atop your toast. Delicious.

As we wrap up these glorious two days I share my two favorite parts:

The iconic tourist sign I couldn't not take a picture in front of!

I amsterdam

And the most delicious thing I've ever consumed. I may or may not have eaten my weight in these delicious stroopwafles, as shown by the ecstatic brightness of my gigantic eyes!

The street ones are far better than the grocery store ones by the by.

Days 1 and 2, check. 

Days 4 to 6 in Paris to follow!

xoxo

Things Half Way in Shadow and Half Way in Light

Mornings start early over here:

6:30 - run in Hyde Park

8:00 - breakfast

9:30 - class

This week consisted of what can only be described as a highlighted tour of what to expect this semester. From roughly ten to noon we follow our professors around museums while rapidly taking notes as they explain Classicism and the Renaissance through art and architecture. Once we start our legitimate classes our group of forty-one girls (zero boys) will be divvied up into our prospective classes, so it won't be a massive group taking up the entirety of the exhibition rooms. 

After class we are set lose on the city till dinner at 5:30.

Our evenings after dinner are also ours as well to do as we wish.

So what does one do with such copious amounts of free time in the city that is the cross roads of the world?

Portobello Road.

Street markets,

Where there are so many flower stands.

Fresh flowers are my favorite!

Eat good food.

Note this delicious Tapas Bar 

Geek out over British movies you love.

The travel store bookshop in Notting Hill with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts

See plays on the West End 

And enjoy what the city has to offer.

The Lumiere Lights

For this week only, from the 13th to the 16th, London hosted the Lumiere Lights; they asked several local artists to create works of art around the city that toyed with light. From Covent Gardens to Piccadilly Square to Trafalgar Square you would be greeted by something extraordinary.

The above was from Piccadilly Square and below was Kings Cross and Covent Gardens.

All in all there is just so much to do, it just comes down to when you're going to do it! Every day I find something new that is wonderful and something new to explore.

I am so full of gratitude for the opportunity I have to be living and studying here in London with BYU and I do not intend to waste a moment!

xoxo

The New Classroom

Okay BYU started winter semester on January 4, 2016. I made it to London on January 12, 2016. And I still haven't started class.

Technically I have, but let's be honest I haven't. Here's what my classes have looked like:

Tower of London 

National Gallery. 

Check out Trafalgar Square and Lord Wellington behind us. 

Wedding cake style Wren churches. 

And famous works of art.

Thank you Van Gogh and the National Gallery.

Yes, my new favorite place is the National Gallery. It's full of Monets and Turners and Renoirs and Van Goghs; all originals and all my favorite impressionists.

And then next week we'll be in Amsterdam and Paris. So school will more traditionally begin come January 25, 2016. 

I'm really liking the English school system here;)

xoxo

27 Palace Court

Hello from the United Kingdom!

My new home: BYU London

(A bit of an upgrade from BYUI, Provo, and Hawaii if you ask me.)

Pretty glorious view to wake up to and go to bed to, not going to lie about that one. Except that the sun isn't up till nearly 8am and sets at about 4:30pm and we have to be up and ready for the day by 8am. So there isn't a lot of time to really enjoy the sunrise, but more than enough time to enjoy the sunset every night.

But let me start at the beginning, a very good place to start.

Ignoring my face which looks like its own florescent lightbulb, notice the girls in the back. We four flew from LAX to Heathrow together and this was our car to the BYU London Center: a Toyota Prius. A Prius that fit 5 people (driver included) and 6 pieces of luggage. It was tight, which is an understatement, but our sweet Romanian driver managed it. Little did we know that the hard part was yet to come.

We arrived at the center:

Beautiful.

We received our rooming assignments and you guessed it, I got top floor! Six floors later, huffing and puffing from lugging my suitcase behind me, I reached my new room and snatched the top bunk! (Yes, I prefer top bunk) With a new room, a new house, and a new city to call my own I can finally begin my adventures!

xoxo