An Inside Look

The Need-To-Knows of the BYU Winter 2016 London Center:

As of this Friday, tomorrow, I will have been here a month! Can you believe it? Me either. And after that we only have two more months. Craziness.
With one month behind us we have become pretty close, which will happen to you after living with 50 other people within a few floors and two townhouses.

Something you learn pretty quickly about one another is their food preferences:

Food staples of the London Center kitchen

• peanut butter
• Nutella
• butter
• rolls

First thing gone at breakfast: the bread and Nutella and peanut butter, not necessarily in that order (I don't even want to think about how many jars of that stuff we go through a day).

First thing to go at dinner: the rolls and the butter.
Girls will start bargaining with other tables for left over rolls, that is if there is any.

With one month down it's nice to finally be in a routine; running, classes, meal times, city exploring, etc. we have finally found our own jive. That said every day is an adventure, which is what is so exciting about being here! We are a part of a thriving and energetic international city for the next two months. That might sound long, but I know that I'll be home before I know it. And with something new happening every day it's impossible to do it all! But even with all the exploring, I've found a few of my own personal haunts:

My personal favorite spots in London

1. Regents Park
2. Ben's cookies
3. South Kensington tube stop
4. the park benches
5. and street markets! 

So. Good. They're huge and gooey and have large chunks of chocolate in them.

They're perfect.

Each bench had an inscription on it. Each more charming than the last.

My ultimate happy place. Next to the parks, I feel like the market places are where you get to feel the spirit and the energy of the city and the people the most.

Bonus: I just had to add this because, just look at it! Best Chinese food I've ever had.

Period.

The food is brilliant here, but I'm not sure if that's because it really is (it is) or because I'm in London (it is).

So there's your little introduction to the BYU London Center. It's a home away from home that I wish I could share with you all personally. But this will have to do for now until you all decide to come visit me!

xoxo

El Fin to Paris

Paris is amazing, superb, wonderful, favorite, incredible, stunning, fascinating, awesome, brilliant, fabulous, excellent, fine, magnificent, phenomenal, sensational, etc. 

Obviously I could go on and on (don't get me started on London) about Paris, but one afternoon we were able to go out into the French countryside! One word: beautiful. Chartres, France is everything you think a little French village should be like; if you've ever seen The Hundred-Foot Journey picture that town, it's perfect.

I present to you:

Chartres Cathedral

The tree may be in the way, but the towers of the cathedral are from 2 different eras, Gothic and Renaissance, but the actual building itself is Medieval. Even more amazing, it's the most intact Medieval Cathedral in the world, stone, stained glass, everything is original.

This rose window is positively gorgeous, but see how the sun shines through so brilliantly? That's because they've just recently been cleaned! The cathedral is going through an extensive cleaning process right now. If you look in the picture above you will see the stark difference between the white and gray stone on the left. The gray is from years, hundreds of years, of pollution buildup. During Medieval times when the great cathedrals were being built, Chartres, Notre Dame, etc, they were made entirely of white stone. 

This fact literally blew my mind. But doesn't it make sense, these were religious people, who built magnificent buildings of worship to their God who they loved with all their heart and being, they wouldn't have built Him a deep dark gray stone but a magnificent pure white building that they could ascend into heaven in.

The above picture shows a portion of the cathedral that has been entirely cleaned, look how it sparkles and shines, notice the color! When entering the chapel from the foot of the nave they would paint the ceiling blue with gold stars to symbolize your entering into heaven. Along with their cleaning of the interior and the stained glass, they are also repainting portions of the inside so that it will look just like it did when it was first built.

It's just such a wonder and I feel so blessed that I was able to see it in person!!

(Fun fact about the stained glass windows: during both world wars each pane of glass was taken down individually and stored to preserve them from the threats of war. So all of the stained glass is original, thanks to those who took the time to preserve them.)

Okay enough of the history stuff, back to pictures of me in present day Paris ;)

Eiffel Tower, speaks for itself.

The Pont des Arts, aka the bridge of love (which you would have noticed because of the several thousands of locks and the heart shape of my hands).

The bridge has actually started sinking because of all the extra weight of the locks. Thank you lovers!

The Louvre.

Try not to get lost in there.

Versailles.

There are no words. The gardens, my favorite - no matter the season!

Victor Hugo in La Sorbonne.

We may or may not have bribed a guard with our smiles to let us into this courtyard - thank you Greg for being fluent in French!

Notre Dame.

I couldn't not start and end with two of the most famous cathedrals in France.

Okay I promise I'm done with continent trip! I should be, I've been home from it for two weeks now...

Which means I've been across the Pond for a month now! So I believe it must be time for me to better acquaint you all with London!

xoxo

Monuments Men

On my flight to London I watched two movies (showing some serious restraint as I could've watched 5 given the length of my flight!) and they were The Theory of Everything with Eddie Redmayne - my new favorite film! - and Monuments Men with George Clooney and the rest of his all-star cast.

I quickly realized that these were the two most perfect films I could have chosen to watch (from the flights selections) as I began my study abroad adventures. The Theory of Everything simply because it is about a British man and his family and his studies, which were primarily in England, and then Monuments Men because it deals with famous works of art in Western Europe during WWII. I'm in England and I'm studying art history! Thus they were the most perfect films to watch in preparation for my England adventures.

So I'm here to study art history primarily and I love great works of art -- whether they are so proclaimed or I proclaim them so -- but as I've been learning more and more about art history my appreciation of these great works has only grown and grown. With that here are some of the Louvre's finest masterpieces:

Whether it was Hercules who knocked off her arms or not, she's still stunning!

Winged Victory, isn't she beautiful?! There's nothing quite like her. 

Just look at how she moves while still be stationary, it's breathtaking, awe-inspiring.

This comes to us from the North, the Northern Renaissance painters precisely, look at the detail! So beautiful!

Here she is, in person! She's not very big, but the technique is flawless, thank you DaVinci.

And there was only something like twenty people in front of her as opposed to the usual masses of society! My favorite part is that just opposite her is a painting that takes up the entire wall, she's only slightly larger than a 20X24 painting! But hey, she's the Mona Lisa.

You can't see the painting very well in this light, but it's an original Caravaggio! Even though you can't see it extraordinarily well - my apologizes - you can see its drama and depth of color. Caravaggio was commissioned to paint the Death of the Virgin by the Church, but once it was complete they didn't accept it. Why?! Because he made everyone in the painting look so ordinary! He also had based Mary's looks off of a drowned prostitute and the church was not happy about that. The people were used to everyone being idealized in paintings so they were not used to people being made to look realistic. The Renaissance was the beginning of the change from idealistic to realistic.

Fascinating stuff.

This is a favorite of mine, a true Classic, and that's with a capital 'C'! This is Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss and isn't it beautiful? Although I love paintings I have a special place in my heart for sculptures. It is my dream to one day see Michelangelo's David in Florence! One of these days...

Now we move to Rodin, another master of sculpture:

Gates of Hell by Rodin

The Thinker by Rodin

Like I mentioned above I love sculpture. Michelangelo was a master of stone, he felt that there was a spirit within that way trying to get out and it was his responsibility to bring it out of the stone. His unfinished sculptures for Pope Julius II are truly remarkable, they show spirits trying to escape from the human body, and they are just awe-inspiring. 

But Rodin is a whole other beast! He doesn't understand the human body like Michelangelo and he leaves his sculptures with a rough finish, they're not polished, but his themes run deep. What is it about The Thinker or The Fates of Hell that speak to us? They're by no means happy works of art, but they remind us of something deeper within ourselves. I especially love the rough quality he leaves on them because it makes them more human.

As you can see I'm really loving and eating up all this art history stuff! And I'm not even a huge museum person, but once you start explaining the significance and meaning behind a work of art it takes on a whole new life to me. And that's what this whole experience has been for me, bringing life back to art.

xoxo