Part 2: Quicksand and Castles

And the adventure continues!

Friday: Mont St Michel

I was really looking forward to seeing this, I wrote my "before" post on it as an assignment, check it out here if you don't remember it! Or read more on wikipedia.

After spending the night in Avranches, Normandy, we drove across the bay to Mont Saint Michel. We kept getting glimpses of it as we would round corners, and it seriously looked like a literal castle floating in the clouds at some points. So cool. I was hoping we would catch it at high tide because it looks amazing, but it was low tide all day. Which ended up being even cooler!

Doesn't it look like a fairy tale castle?

Basically Mont St Michel is an island fortress/monastery, surrounded by quicksand during low tide, and the sea during high tide. Awesome right!? It has a population of 70, complete with a post office, and monks still live there.

At the entrance!

The streets are all like this, little alleys winding up to the abby

Well I was super excited to see the abby, it has gothic and romanesque architecture, a beautiful cloister, and supposed to be really cool. But when we finally climbed all the stairs guess what we found?

Translation: "Because of a social movement, the monument
 will not open it's doors today."

You guessed it: it was closed. Why? Because the guards decided to go on strike. Sometimes France drives me crazy. But that was ok. Because instead....we played in quicksand! Unfortunately my camera died right before we went down there, so I'll have to get pictures from people before I can post some. But I'll describe it. Basically quicksand looks and feels like grey, wet, sticky mud more than sand. It is really weird to watch how your feet sink in. It's not as dangerous as the movies make it out to be, and nothing like in the Princess Bride haha. But some of us did get stuck up to our knees and had to be pulled out. I unfortunately didn't plan on playing in quicksand, so I was wearing those pants that I have on in the first picture. They are like skinny jeans, not the easiest to roll up. So I ended up getting wet up to my thighs. But it was totally worth it! So fun. We just frolicked in the quicksand for about an hour, taking crazy pictures and having a blast. 

 This is a video of the clouds moving over the sand, it was so cool to watch and I didn't think I could capture it really in a picture. Feel free to watch it fast-forwarded, it's cooler that way. And ignore the random conversations going on :)

After a delicious ham/cheese/egg galette, a blueberry crepe and hot chocolate for lunch, we headed out to Le Mans, a Renaissance city near the Loire Valley. A couple hour's bus ride and nap later, we were all starving so we went down to the nearest Carrefour, sat down in the hallway of our hotel floor (we had the whole floor to ourselves) and ate to our heart's content! We played card games and watched a movie that night, super fun.

Saturday: Blois and Chambord chateau's in the Loire Valley.

Blois was a cool chateau, it is where Catherine de Medici lived for a while (I saw her secret poison cabinet) and where the Duc de Guise (War of the Three Henries) was assassinated. The architecture is really cool, each side of the courtyard is a different style, medieval/gothic, early renaissance, late renaissance and Neoclassical.

François Ier

The Hall where the Estates-General (French parliament) met

Town of Blois

The flags are from a bunch of different countries
I think in honor of the G8 summit. Obama, Sarkozy and
the British PM were only couple cities from us!

Chocolate Religiuese...good but waaay too rich

My favorite chateau EVER though, was the next one: Chambord. It was the hunting lodge for the royals who lived permanently at Blois, so it was only a short drive away. So cool! It's described as defensive on the bottom and a "chess game gone wild" on the top. I think there are like 800 chimneys!

The main staircase in the keep is thought to be designed by Da Vinci as it is very similar to one of his sketchs, and Francois I was his patron and brought him to France." It's in the shape of a double helix, with two separate stairways (it's also called the "mistress design"). You can catch glimpses of the other person through the windows, but you will never meet. Hence the "mistress" part of it, the king could send his mistress down one while his wife went up the other. It's so cool! I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how it works, because it really does look like you will meet the person across from you in just a few steps. 

The double helix!

Looking up in the center

Sarah across from me

Looking down from the top

One of the balconies

A passageway

The whole thing is mostly just vast empty halls, huge fireplaces and small passageways running through the whole thing. I seriously felt like I was at Hogwarts, it was awesome. That's the first chateau I've been too where I thought "castle" even Versailles is just too busy. This one though was amazing. And you can still smell the hickory smoke in the fireplaces after hundreds of years!

I would totally go back and spend hours there, I don't think I even saw half of it. There were carriages displayed somewhere...but I couldn't figure out how to get there haha. But it was still super cool. The finished off with some ice cream and laying out in the sun. I loved it!

After another long bus ride, we finally got back to Paris. It was strange, it felt like home but at the same time I would have loved to stay in the countryside for the rest of my life, it's that pretty. Since we didn't have any dinner and were starving, me Erin and Sarah decided to make some taco salad. It was funny I wasn't too excited about it until the meat started cooking and it smelled SO AMERICAN. Haha. We all started freaking out. It wasn't even really Mexican because the French have some really weird ideas about what chips and salsa are supposed to taste like, and we were missing garlic and onion powder because they don't have that either. But regardless, it was amazing and made me miss my Mom's enchiladas!

However, the French still have us beat in the dessert department, so we finished off with hot chocolate and crepes. So good! I have a new favorite crepe (Mom you will love this).....drum roll please......nutella and lemon juice. Sounds a little weird I know. But just think of it as a lemon truffle filling wrapped in a crepe. mmmmm.

Today (Sunday) we decided to try going to the Versailles ward for church instead of Paris, because the Paris ward always has a ton of students and tourists and we end up being banished into the English translation overflow which is harder to understand than the French. Plus it feels like we are a nuisance or something, not really the feeling you want to have at church when you are trying to be uplifted. So, I was sooo glad I went to the Versailles one! We managed to find the chapel after an hour long (total) train ride, and a half hour walk. It was in a real church building and everyone was so nice! Plus it was the Fête de Mères, or French mother's day, so we got to see all of the kids go up and sing, it was so cute! They also had extra roses so us girls got some too, which was so nice of them. That worked out perfect because we needed to get some for our host mom anyway. And the sunday school lesson was super good. AND I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING!! It made me feel so much better, I thought I was just inept at understanding church stuff in French. And my roommate Erin was able to meet a family that her mom had known on her mission. So overall it was an awesome day! And I'm finally caught up on my blog wahooo!!!!

P.S. This week is also going to be epic:

• Tomorrow I'm going shopping on the Champs Elysées
• My roommate from last semester Lorraine is coming to visit from London
• I have class. Which is so much fun.
• I'm having lunch with one of my former French exchange students
• I'm having lunch with my best friend from elementary school who I haven't seen since we were 9
• Thursday we go to Ecouen on another excursion 
• This weekend: a trip to Nice!

Part 1: Romans and WWII

This weekend may have been my favorite thing I've done so far in France. It was amazing! (It'll have to be in 2 parts though, there is too much to tell!)

Wednesday (so this isn't technically the weekend, but it was still cool)

We went to the archaeological ruins under the plaza in front of the Notre Dame. I hadn't ever heard of them before, but it was really cool! Only 2 euros and you get to see all of the ruins they've discovered there--from a Roman hypocaust system to the foundations of the first Hotêl Dieu and 16th century houses, all mixed together. So cool.

This is the last remnant of an ancient quai (port) from the 1st century

Part of a roman hypocaust system, they were right next to cellars from the Middle Ages

 Seeing the roman ruins made me really excited to go to Italy! I think it's so amazing that had such innovative technology way back then. Here is one of the aqueducts we passed on the bus ride, still perfectly intact!

Next was another amazing class on Renaissance architecture (and a really cool church--one of the workers let us go into the back where vistors aren't usually allowed and showed us the cloister and where Blaise Pascal is buried!) That night we saw Peter Pan in the Theatre de Paris. It was pretty funny because the songs were in English, with French dialogue. I'm pretty sure we were the only ones laughing when they sang row-row-row-your-boat and twinkle-twinkle-little-star in the serious scenes--none of the French people got it. The only drawback were the random f-words (in English) in a sentence about eating green cake. Bizarre.

The theatre! I love the gold and red velvet

Peter and Wendy

Thursday: Off to Normandy!

A couple hours of driving in a pink and purple charter bus, we arrived in Bayeux, Normandy, home of the Bayeux Tapestry. It's actually an 220 ft long embroidery from 1066 and it depicts the Battle of Hastings. It's pretty incredible how preserved it is, it's almost 1000 years old! They would hang it in the main part of the cathedral on special days as a type of "movie" for the commoners. Pretty cool.

Next stop: the D-Day beaches. We went first to the American cemetery. It was freezing and rainy, which was actually perfect because it was the same weather on D-Day. It was really moving. The pictures don't do it justice, but I'm not sure I can express it in words. Seeing all those graves....I couldn't believe it, they went on forever. And that was just the Americans. So many men died for freedom. And many of them were my age and the ages of my friends--drafted to fight for their country and never came back.







And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air
gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Hopefully these give you some idea of what it's like to stand among thousand of graves:

Seeing all of those crosses reminded me how grateful I am to be a Christian. That I know for certain that death is not the end. That Christ can lighten any load, and give hope to the hopeless. It also made me really proud to be an American. These men died for freedom--from tyranny, and from religious persecution. After studying all about the French Wars of Religion, not to mention the innumerable other European religious wars, it seems a miracle to be able to say that America has had religious freedom from the beginning. That is something I am so grateful for.

Right after the American cemetery, we visited la Point du Hoc, one of the sites the rangers scaled to destroy German guns, in between the Utah and Omaha Beaches. Out of the 220 rangers that started out, only 90 returned alive. There are the remains of German bunkers, barbed wire, and craters from the bombs left intact. It was amazing to see the cliffs they scaled.

The craters from the bombs make it look like the moon, it's surreal

The cliffs

Original barbed wire

 Walking among the ruins of the battlefield really brought home to me the reality of war. Can you imagine sitting crouched in a bunker for days on end, knowing you could die at any moment? Or running while bombs fall around you making craters 10 feet across? The courage that must have taken--it's hard for me to imagine.

The view from one of the intact bunkers

A destroyed bunker

Well that sums up the first day at least....stay tuned for Part 2 it gets better!

P.S. The whole time I was looking at the WWII stuff I kept picturing Foyle's War. It's this BBC mystery show set in WWII and it's super historically accurate, so cool. If you haven't seen it, you should try it. It's on Masterpiece Theatre or on DVD at the Library :)

I've missed this!

I am not one that does well with a lot of free time on my hands. I enjoy it at first, being lazy. Or even not being lazy, and doing all of the things I've wanted to do. Sometimes it's nice to break from routine and not have to be anywhere or do anything. But after a couple days like that it gets tiresome. I need a schedule (preferably one that can't be altered by me) to feel like I'm not wasting time. This last (5 day) weekend therefore, having no homework, nowhere to be and nothing scheduled, was a little hard for me. The days when we planned really fun things to do, like the catacombs, were awesome. But then I ran out of ideas--I mean there are only so many touristy things to do, and I've done most of them--pretty all that's left are the museums (and let's face it, one can only go to so many museums/cathedrals/exhibits). So I was getting a little tired of Paris (I feel so guilty admitting that). Not tired of it as in I don't appreciate how lucky I am to be here. I was just looking forward to the excursions and things coming up and seeing other parts of France and Europe.

And I'm happy to report that today did not disappoint! Our other professor (they switched off) is here now, and class was so interesting today!! Unfortunately I didn't realize I could have taken the Renaissance history class so I'm kind of mad at myself about that. But it's ok because I don't need the credit (I'm already technically a senior and I still have 2 years left!) and Prof Hudson is going to let those of us who aren't in it audit. So I stayed for it, and it was so cool!! We spent the first hour going over different elements of Renaissance architecture, the different terms and such, and then the rest of class was a field trip (down the street) to see the actual things in person. How crazy is that?? It is so much more interesting knowing the history of the buildings and of Paris--it makes you look at everything with a new perspective. This is one of the buildings we looked at, it's now a library:

It's also really cool to see places that are depicted in really old paintings like this one:

This renaissance painting is of the Elm tree behind Hotel de Ville, it's where people used to meet. There is a phrase in French that translates roughly to: If we run into each other, or if it's meant to be. It's "attendez-moi sur l'orme" or wait for me under the elm tree. And this is the tree! They've replanted one after the original was torn down in the Revolution (like everything else) so this is what it looks like today:

We also went to the Musée Carnavalet for a little while. My favorite exhibit is the room with all of the signs from the buildings in the Middle Ages. They didn't have street numbers, so to tell someone where you lived you would describe the sign, and then which street. That's why some streets are still named "the cat who fishes" or "the goose who laughs".

We also got millefeuilles in class today! It's a pastry with a million layers and a type of custard in between, really good but super rich. Our theme in class this week is "Paris in layers" talking about how much history is built on top of other eras in Paris, so it was a perfect analogy.

To go along with the "layers" theme, I am meeting some friends to go see the archaeological crypt under the square in front of Notre Dame tomorrow morning. It is supposed to be really cool, you can see the foundations of Roman houses all the way up to the Renaissance, just stacked on top of each other. I'm really excited.

P.S. We are going to Normandy, the D-Day beaches, Le Man, Mont St Michel, and a couple of chateaux in the Loire Valley this weekend! I'm sooo excited :)

Phantom of the Opera

It's kind of hard to read the plaque, but it says "Loge du Fantôme de l'Opéra". Yep that is the phantom of the opera's box! Yesterday we got to go inside the opera house, and it is gorgeous! Unfortunately the main room was closed, so we'll have to go back. But just walking around in the foyers made me want to be in a ballgown, with gloves, fans and the works-I felt so underdressed in shorts and a t-shirt! I wanted to be dancing around singing Masquerade!

 Hopefully these give you an idea of how gorgeous it is:
(Sorry about the sideways ones, blogger isn't letting me fix it)

Doesn't this just make you want to be all dressed up??

I love the staircases

Phantom's box

One of the ceilings

This are just the foyers for people to wander around in between acts

A peek into one of the boxes

Masquerade anyone?

I can't even think of a single place in the U.S. that has so much gold, yet in France it seems like every other building you go into is covered in it. Despite all the elegance though, I am beginning to miss America. I love France, and definitely am appreciating the wonderful opportunity that I have to be here. But it has also made me realize all of the things that I love about America. So it will be bittersweet to go home I think.