Paris Holds se Key to your Heart

As the title from the song in Anastasia (my favorite Disney movie) implies, a piece of my heart will always be in Paris! Needless to say, I LOVED Paris and had the most fantastic weekend there. Although most people hold the view that the French are rude and snobby, I would like to let everyone know that this stereotype is completely false! We did not meet one rude person, in fact we met several very friendly, helpful people who made our weekend even better than I could have expected. I guess the only way for me to remember to write everything is to just go day by day.

Day 1: Arrival
Not very exciting. We left Oxford around 4, took a train to London, then took a train to Paris. We got in Paris around 11 or 12 their time, and took a taxi to our hostel. My first hostel experience was overall great. We got a pretty cheap price for a private room, and the facility was actually pretty good, plus breakfast (coffee or tea, french baguette, and jam) was included!

Day 2: Versailles, crepes, the Louvre
We woke up to the sound of demon children outside our window around 6 am. Apparently the hostel was hosting a ton of french kids around age 8-12 or something and they were freakishly loud way too early in the morning. Ah well they were our roosters for the morning. We then got up and took a train to Versailles. On the train ride there, we accidently got off on the wrong stop, that looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. Just as the train doors were about to close a guy hops off and is holding the door yelling at us, "No Versailles! No Versailles! Get back on train!" So naturally we hop back on. Thanks to this guy we made it to Versailles. He is nice frenchy #1. Versailles was absolutely fantastic. The best way I can describe it is grandeur, ridiculous wealth, and ostentatious. The outside is architecturally beautiful, the gardens were huge and beautiful even in the dead of winter, and naturally the inside was absolutely dripping with wealth. Every single room was decorated with such amazing detail. Almost every room had a mural painted on the ceiling, some form of gold decoration, and gorgeous interior design. The tour was a little pricey, but included an audio tour which made it worth while. I'm including a picture from the outside, part of the gardens, and my absolute favorite part - the hall of mirrors, which was a huge long room with mirrors for walls and rows and rows of hanging chandeliers.

After Versailles we went to the area around the Louvre, got to see the Seine at sunset, and quickly grabbed a quick crepe for dinner, mmm. On one of the bridges that crossed the Seine river there were tons of love locks. Couples come to the bridge, make a promise of their love to each other, leave a lock with their names on it, and toss the key into the river. Precious. After seeing all this we went to the Louvre (for free thanks to student rates!) for two hours. The Louvre was.... overwhelming. There is so much to see! I remember hearing that if you spent 4 seconds on each painting, it would take you 3 months to see everything. What I spent the most time in was the wing with the Italian paintings from the 13th century to the 18th. They also had a wing with huge, I mean an entire wall huge, french paintings from the 19th century. I got to see of course the Mona Lisa (which was tiny!), Venus de Milo (which may not even be Aphrodite apparently), and two Michelangelo sculptures. My favorite painting for some reason though was one titled The Return of Marcus Sextus, which is incredibly sad, but captivating. You should google it. After the Louvre, Ashley, Lizzie, and I went and saw Notre Dame at night and met up with Jenny, a ACU grad who is studying in France. With her we went and ate and then headed back to the hostel.

Day 3: Bikes, Impressionism, Ice Skating, and Hostel mix up
We woke up (this time not to the sound of screaming children) and made a quick dash (literally) to the Eiffel Tower to make it on time to go on a Fat Tire Bike Tour, which is basically paying to rent a bike and take a tour of major sites in the city. It was so fun to get to ride around Paris on a bike. After the bike tour we went to the Musee D'Orsay which is a museum dedicated to Impressionist art, my favorite kind of art. Sadly only like 10 paintings of my favorite impressionist artist (Claude Monet) were there because all of his paintings were at an exhibit somewhere else in France, but I did get to see the works of Edgar Degas, Renoir, Edourd Manet, and Van Gogh. Overall, I really enjoyed Orsay more than the Louvre. After a wonderful dinner (I had a croque monsieur - which is a lot like a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with an egg on top) with creme brulee for dessert, we went to see the Eiffel Tower at night, which was spectacular. We took tons of pictures, and then headed to the top. On the way back town the lift stopped at the floor above the ground floor and the lift lady said, "get off here for free ice skating." Jenny, Ashley, Lizzie, and I all looked at each other and then ran off that lift. Yes, I have ice skated ON the Eiffel Tower! Best experience of my life. I felt giddy the whole time, kind of an in the clouds feeling, like life is too good to be true. But it was real and it was great. Although that should have been a great ending to a great day... we got back to our hostel room to find a girl sleeping in Lizzie's bed and other people's stuff in our room. Well turns out, one person checking in does not reserve the entire room, just that person's bed. Our beds had been given away because Ashley, Lizzie, and I thought that when Jenny checked in, it counted for all of us. In the end the hostel guy (who was actually a very sweet man) gave us a low price for a 2 person private room and then we payed for a random bed in 2 other rooms. Since of course none of us wanted to sleep by ourselves with strangers, we naturally fit 4 people on a tiny twin bunk bed in a rather small room. We were all so tired by this point, it didn't really matter. But now, I've learned a great lesson, CHECK INTO YOUR HOSTEL! Mkay time for pics:

Day 4: Mass, Montmartre, So french
On our last day we woke up and went to mass at Notre Dame. Even though the service was in French and I had no clue as to what was going on, it was still a neat experience. Notre Dame is beautiful inside and out. I loved all of the gorgeous stained glass. After Notre Dame we booked it to a part of Paris called Montmartre which we had heard was artsy and Bohemian, which was so true. On our hunt to find the Sacre Coeur (a beautiful white building on the top of a hill overlooking Paris) we found a precious french pastry/bakery where I had the most delicious heavenly chocolate croissant. The memory of it still makes me drool. (TMI?) Well after our hike to what felt like the top of the world we found the Sacre Coeur and saw the beautiful overlooking site, but what comes next was even better. On our way to find the Moulin Rouge we came across a perfectly French area with speciality precious little french shops and a square of real life artists painting the most beautiful paintings. It was so french! If the paintings were in my price range I would have brought one home, they were breath taking. Moral of this story, if you ever go to Paris, spent at least a half day in Montmartre. We had to run through it in less than an hours because we wanted to see too much before our train left. The Moulin Rouge took awhile to find and was not as good as the movie, so my recommendation would be watch the movie instead. After this we had to say sad goodbyes to Jenny at the train station and make our way back to Oxford. Pictures (first four Notre Dame - first is the front view and the fourth is the back view, fifth is Sacre Coeur, sixth is an artist in Montmartre)

Sorry for such a long post, but Paris was too great to leave out a single detail! Next we are off to Cologne, Germany and Brussels, Belgium. I'll let you know how it goes going to a place where none of us even remotely knows the language! Au Revoir!

Walkin' Round London Town, Tea Time, and Quakerism

London! London was great, and turned out to be pretty much what you would expect it to be. On a saturday, a group of 8 of us set out to explore London for the day. The day we went was pretty foggy and freezing! We started off by going to the British Museum which is huge! I could've spent an entire day there, but we only spent two hours. My favorite exhibit was the one on ancient Egypt. They had hieroglyphs and even Cleopatra's Mummy! I also got to see the Rosetta Stone and lots of other interesting things.

After the British Museum (picture above) we went and ate lunch near Big Ben and the London Eye, pictures below. On the way to eat we came across protesters marching in the streets, band and all. Their chant was "no iffs, no buts, no education cuts" about the new education cuts and tuition raise in the UK. Since they were headed our direction, we decided join in the protest, which was such an exhilarating moment! Picture below:

After lunch and the protest, we walked through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace where there were grey guards, not red. And the guards looked like they had just stepped out of the Wizard of Oz. Next we just made it in time to attend an evening service at St. Paul's Cathedral. Sadly I couldn't take pictures from the inside, but the cathedral was absolutely beautiful. They had frescoes going all the way to the top of the huge dome of the cathedral, and while I was gawking, yes very literally gawking, at my surroundings, heavenly voices of the boys choir serenaded me. It was a very awe-inspiring moment. This was the end of our first trip to London. (Buckingham picture below)

On our second trip to London (four days later) our entire program went and attended a candlelight service at Westminster Abbey that only happens once a year. Once you get to the service, there is a procession to the cathedral part of the church in which the crowd follows in the choir and reverends. Once inside everyone sits down and the choir sings heavenly songs and lots of ritualistic things that I can't explain happened. We had communion (with wine, not grape juice) and overall it was quite a different but amazing service. After the service I went with my professor's wife and kids to go see Lion King the Musical!!! Oh my goodness, I loved it! Hands down, best musical. The set, costumes, and songs are amazing. If you've never experienced it, go youtube it right now. Warning, you will fall in love. (Westminster pics below)

Other exciting news: this last weekend I went to a girls tea with the college ministry I have been attending while in Oxford. It was so fun! I got to meet lots of sweet British girls (and two americans from California?), have a "cuppa" tea, or quite a few cups actually, scones, raspberry tarts, finger sandwiches - everything you would want a tea to be. On Sunday, my roommates and I went to a Quaker meeting which was a whole new experience. Once you get there you sit in a room and are silent for a majority of the time. There are no sermons, people just stand and speak if they feel that the holy spirit has moved them to say something. It was nice to have a whole hour and a half to just be silent, speak to God, read the bible, and reflect. I don't think I could totally convert to Quakerism, but it was a nice time to be still. The verse kept popping into my head, "Be still and know that I am the God" (Psalm 46:10) and the story about God not being in the fire, or earthquake, but being in the gentle whisper. It was definitely a nice reminder about God's presence.

Well thats the end of this post, tonight is our night to cook family dinner and we are having breakfast for dinner! I've got to help them cook! Tomorrow we head to Paris so I'll blog about that later!

Lessons in Cooking, Market Day, Kilts in Pubs, and Harry Potter college

Whew! Yes I realize that's a long title, but that's only because I have waited too long to blog and much has happened! This week was full of new and exciting things, which is typical because pretty much everyday is one big adventure. I'll go in order of my exhausting title.

Let's be clear, I am not a cook. My Dad is the pro chef and I somehow did not inherent those genes. I don't hate cooking per se, but I'm not exactly gifted in it either. All this to say, Ashley, Lizzie, and I cooked dinner for the other 6 girls on our floor in our house (we have family dinner most week nights where a different room cooks each night) this past week.  Family dinner is one of my favorite parts of the day, and it's a really great way to get to know the girls on our floor. We are all in the learning process of cooking, yet somehow it turned out pretty good. It probably helps that Ashley actually knows what she is doing and talking about, where as Lizzie and I just pretend to know. We made a pasta dish with sausage and peppers, here are some pictures.

Moving on, every wednesday there is a fresh open market in downtown Oxford. We went this Wednesday and it was such a fun experience! I don't think I had ever been to an open market like this before. We bought fresh fruit (pears and plums), tasted yummy cheese (we bought cheddar and another one with cranberries in it), and had vendors yelling their prices at us, it was great! There was even Turkish Delight like in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe! However, the turkish delight man would not let me sample any even though he let Ashley, so we didn't get any. I plan to get some next time, maybe Turkish delight man will be nicer then. (He's the guy in the second picture)

Thursday night we went out to a pub and low and behold a bloke (as they say here) in a kilt whipped out his bagpipe and started playing it. Everyone in the pub was clapping and cheering. After his first song this lady said she'd buy him a drink if he played Amazing Grace, so he did. (Apparently Irish men like their alcohol). Also as this pub we met a couple our age who are students at a school in London. The guy was from Luxembourg and the girl from Paris. As we were leaving and saying buy to them they wanted to take our picture, I am now friends with them on facebook and tagged in a picture that is titled "American Mates."

Lastly, this week we went on a tour of New College, one of the 38 Oxford Colleges. While I'm in England I like to pretend I'm in Harry Potter world, because I feel like I am a majority of the time. Well aside from this college being absolutely gorgeous and having fantastic architecture, they did actually film a part in Harry Potter 4 at this college! It's the part where Malfoy is turned into a ferret, don't worry I'm including the youtube link if anyone wants to watch, it you do, notice the background because I was there! (Well not there in the filming obviously). Time for pics! (The first two are in HP4!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF332nbXvN8 

Well this blog turned out long with lots of pictures, oops. Although I did go to London this past weekend I will wait to blog about that because I am going again tomorrow with our entire group, so I'll write about both of those later! I will leave with a picture of me and my girls eating at the Eagle and Child, a pub well known because C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein used to go there often and have what I'm sure were highly intelligent discussions. Well cheers for now, hopefully I'll write again soon!