J'adore Paris!

Last Wednesday evening I was talking to my friend Dani. She mentioned that some of the girls in our programme had found a good deal to go to Paris on a night bus that weekend. (Yes, my first response to night bus was to think of the Knight Bus in Harry Potter). So I turned to her and said "We should go." So we did. We bought tickets and made hotel reservations Thursday and left on Friday. We left Cambridge at about 6:30 p.m. and took a bus to London.

We saw this double rainbow before leaving Cambridge. It was fantastic.

Once in London, we got on our next bus to Paris. Dani and I watched Breach on her iPhone and then tried to sleep. But our sleep was interrupted by having to get off the bus once we got on the ferry. So we wandered around the ferry, bought a big bag of m&m's and read random facts on her iPhone. And took a lot of pictures. There really isn't much else to do when you're stuck on a ferry at 3 a.m. Once we returned to the bus, we finally got some sleep. Once in Paris, we needed money so we went in search of a bank. I took French in middle school and high school and one semester in college, but conversation has always been the hardest part for me. So I was pretty proud of myself when I asked somewhere where a bank was and she answered and I understood. The next step was to find our hotel. So we bought metro passes and made our way to the hotel to check in.

Dani and I in the metro station.

Spending the night on a bus leaves you feeling pretty gross. So once we got to the hotel and could change, we all felt a lot better. We left the hotel to meet up with more people at the Louvre. On the metro, I bumped into a lady and said "Sorry." She thought it was the funniest thing in the world. She corrected me and said "Pardon" and then laughed for 5 minutes. I didn't think it was that funny that I spoke my native language, but apparently it was. We didn't go inside the Louvre, but we took our picture in front of it. Someday I will go back and actually go inside of it. Someday...

Dani and I in front of the Louvre.

Once we finally had everyone together, we went to find lunch. Dani and I had already eaten on our way to the hotel so while everyone else was getting lunch we went down the street to get crepes.

Nutella crepes. It doesn't get better than that.

After lunch, we split up and Dani, Megan, and I went to Montmartre and Sacre-Coeur. We went to the square there where artists gather and paint and sell their artwork.


And then walked around Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. It's beautiful and at the top of a hill overlooking the city.


Then we went to Champs-Elysees, the famous avenue in Paris. It's also where Le Tour de France ends every year. Le Tour de France ended on Sunday so it was all set up for the finish.


Then we walked up Champs-Elysees and saw L'Arc de Triomphe


And then went to the Eiffel Tour.



And decided we were hungry so we went to a grocery store and bought dinner and ate on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tour.

Ice cream and cookies.



We were all pretty exhausted at this point so we headed back to our hotel to sleep. And decided to sleep in until church the next morning.

Dani and I had baguettes for breakfast on Sunday.

After church, Dani and I decided to go explore the Tour de France craziness. We had heard mixed reports about when they would be riding through Paris so we figured we'd go early so we wouldn't miss them. Even though we were about 3 hours before the cyclists came through the metro and street were already pretty packed. We found a spot to stand on the side of the road and waited.... and took some pictures.

Dani and I bought Tour de France shirts.

So excited!

About an hour after Dani and I found our spot, Megan and Laura joined us.
Tour de France crew.

After more waiting, a parade of floats and cars advertising for the various sponsors, and more waiting, finally, the cyclists came. They loop through Paris eight times before finishing so we got to watch them ride by several times. It was pretty much incredible. We were standing right along the railing lining the street and the cyclists rode on our side of the road so they were about 4 or 5 feet away from us.


Here's a video of one of the times they came by.



So basically Le Tour de France was the highlight of the trip. It was so great to be there! After it was all over, Dani and I went to go see Notre Dame. We ate at a cafe near Notre Dame which was delicious. (Maybe partly because we were starving and had been standing in the heat for 4 hours). Then we walked around outside of Notre Dame; it was beautiful.



It always amazes me how beautiful the buildings are and how much time they must have put into building them and how smart they were to engineer them so they are still standing today.

After one last crepe, we headed to the bus station for a long ride back to home to Cambridge. I love saying that.

everything's better with bagpipes

Last weekend our programme took us on a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. Besides the 12 hour drive each way, the trip was fabulous! Scotland is beautiful. Edinburgh isn't so beautiful, in fact it's kind of dark, but I still loved it.

On the way there, we stopped at Hadrian's Wall and Birdoswald Fort. It was pouring rain and so the stop was pretty short. The wall and fort were neat but mostly I was just in awe because I was in Scotland and everything is so green and beautiful there.



Brandi and I sitting on Hadrian's Wall.

After we arrived in Edinburgh the only thing we could think about was food. We ended up walking to the Royal Mile (which was much further than most of us wanted to go being so hungry) and eating at the Clam Shell. We had the UK classic, fish and chips, for dinner (I know, it's amazing, I ate fish) and a fried Mars bar for dessert. Delicious.

Actually this picture is from the next night. Yes, I got fried Mars bars two nights in a row. And yes, we went to the same little fried food place three days in a row. We were regulars.

In the Clam Shell with Brandi and Alex.

Once we were all full and in much better moods, we started to explore the Royal Mile. We finally decided on finding a pub to go to and listen to some Scottish music. We stumbled across the Scotsman's Lounge, ordered some blackcurrant lemonades, and enjoyed some music by the rising duo, Rantum Scantum. With so many LDS kids ordering the only non-alcoholic drink we knew, they quickly ran out of blackcurrant. I think the bartender thought we were crazy but he enjoyed asking us all for ID even though we weren't buying anything alcoholic.

Enjoying our drinks... a brilliant mixture of Sprite ("lemonade") and blackcurrant flavoring.

Rantum Scantum. I have their CDs. I know you are jealous.

The lovely bartender. Brandi was very brave... I don't think this guy has ever showered in his life.

The next morning we hiked the Trossachs (the Scottish Highlands "in miniature" according to our packet). It was an incredible hike and we had perfect weather. The trail was muddy but luckily it didn't rain on us. The entire hike was fantastic and the view from the top was beautiful. It was definitely worth the two hour drive to get to it.

Brandi and I hiking up.



At the top.

We returned from the hike exhausted and muddy. Once we cleaned up we headed to the "Empire Day" celebration the programme put on. "Empire Day" is the English name for the Fourth of July (Interesting name choice... their empire shrunk that day, true, but I didn't realize that was something to celebrate). We celebrated by eating dinner (cold rice, cold noodles, cold chicken, and mushrooms... not your classic 4th of July meal) and learning some Scottish dancing. It was pretty fun especially considering more than half of the people dancing were drinking which made it even more difficult for them but more entertaining for the rest of us.

At the dance drinking, once again, blackcurrant lemonade.

After a bit of dancing we left and returned (after eating a fried Mars bar) to the Scotsman's Lounge and listened to some more Rantum Scantum. Even though we didn't see any fireworks it was an excellent 4th of July.

Dani, Brandi, and I in front of our favorite pub.

Sunday morning we went to the Elephant House, the cafe where JK Rowling wrote the first chapter of Harry Potter on napkins.

I'm a pretty big Harry Potter fan. This was basically a dream come true.

I levitated Brandi as she took a picture of me. The place is pretty magical.

This is what JK Rowling saw while she was writing. The more I'm in Europe the more I realize that she just described what's already here and added wands and spells... the landscape and school and everything is just the way things are here... even for the muggles.

Getting napkins just like JK Rowling.

Writing the next Harry Potter.

Later that day, we went to church and wandered Edinburgh. That evening, some of us went on a tour of Mary King's Close, what used to be the second busiest street in Edinburgh but has since been buried by a new building. So now it's an underground street, completely hidden from sunlight and the rest of the city. It was really cool to walk around and hear all of the stories about life there: the plague, a lack of a sewage system (though we did see a sewage pipe from the 1700s--the highlight of the tour), the poverty people suffered, the medical system, etc. Plus our tour guide was hysterical. We liked him so much we got a picture with him after.


Wearing the masks that doctors used to wear when they went to treat people who had the plague.

Since we were in Scotland of course we listened to some bagpipes. We saw this guy twice; he was pretty impressive.


That night we hiked Arthur's Seat. (Interesting fact: Orson Pratt dedicated Scotland for missionary work on Arthur's Seat). The view was wonderful--you can see the entire city of Edinburgh from there.

Daniel, Brandi, and I


The next morning we left Edinburgh. It was sad to leave Scotland but I was excited to come back home to Cambridge. But on our way home we made one more stop at Fountains Abbey. It was one of the coolest places I've ever been. We had a great time exploring and taking pictures for two hours and we only saw about a fifth of what is there.


Fountains Abbey: One of my favorite places in the world.

Dani and I at the Abbey.

Statues.


Evan didn't fit as well.

Pillars.




We were all pretty tired on the bus ride home.

Now we're back at Cambridge. I finally have everything figured out with research and classes. I'm going to take a fluid dynamics course with a supervisor that is taught to math students here and do research for a group who works on atmospheric chemistry and applied mathematics. I'm really excited about both of these opportunities--somehow it all just came together for me. And then in about 3 weeks I'll start a course called The British and Their Sports: Class, Gender, and Identity. It's going to be pretty fantastic.