Paris holds the key to protestors and too many decisions

PARIS! So the trip to Paris took about 13.5 hours...when it could have taken about 8.. Our bus driver insisted on going about 50 mph the entire way there. The only thing I have missed about America is how much faster we drive. BUT the drive was INSNANELY beautiful. And I know I keep saying the drive to each place is beautiful but it really is. It's so much prettier than I thought it would be. In Germany and France there ae just fields and fields of canola flowers that line the horizon as bright as the yellow brick road and the greenest green fields and trees that look like a fairytale Forrest and little villages that look like Bell's village or Snow White's cottage and everything is so cute and whimsical it's amazing. ANYWAYS we get to Paris pretty late with my friend Brynne and I singing "Paris Holds The Key to Your Heart" from Anastasia as loud as we can. Love that song. We started singing it when we first spot the Effie Tower. So we start our first day on Monday just doing a walk around tour of Norte-Dame and go to the Spanish quarters and get SUPER good falafels and go thrift store shopping where I got these gorgeous real leather Anastasia like ankle boots for only €15. They still smell like an old man but I put some dryer sheets inside them and hopefully that'll make them smell nicer. Anyways, Notre-Dame was gorgeous! Kept singing the "God Help The Outcasts" in my head while I was in there. Did not realize how magnificent it was in person. Sooooooooooooo pretty. I REALLY love French gothic architecture I've decided. So after we get home from the day we find out that only about 3 hours after we left Notre-Dame there was a man who shot himself at the alter inside Notre-Dame. Scary! They had to evacuate everyone in the square and it made pretty big news.

So while in Paris we've seen a bunch of museums and churches including the Louvre, D'orsay, Pompedu, Rodin, Saint Denis, Sant Chapelle, and a couple of other museums and churches I don't remember the names of. Got to sprint through the Louvre at 10 at night to see the Mona Lisa with no one around it before it closed. That was a funny sight to see. The guards were laughing and cheering
us on as we were running haha. Another day at the Louvre we watched a funny Asian lady running
through some of the galleries taking pictures of every single painting she saw.  I wish I could show you in writing the way she ran up to each painting and without even looking at the painting snapping a quick picture and then running to the next one crashing in to people and running in her bright yellow 3 inch high 90's sneakers. I heard once that if you spend 30 seconds at each painting it would take you over 2 weeks to see everything in the Louvre. We only get 3 days but maybe this lady was trying to set some sort of record haha.

Anyways. Besides the museums and churches our free time is up to us on what to do.. So far I think I have just picked the wrong groups to do things with. Still haven't been to the Eiffel Tower, still haven't seen the Arch of Triumph, still haven't seen moulin rouge or the opera house, and I lost my chance today of going to Monet's garden becaus everyone that wanted to go flaked on me last minute. I was pretty sad today actually because I was looking at some of my old journals before I left and I wrote down a LONG time ago that said on my bucket list I wanted to see them so I told everyone that I was gonna go and I was gonna do whatever it took to get there. After getting to Paris and realizing
how difficult it was to travel there I realized that it would be very dumb to go alone especially with
what happened in Notre-Dame and how bad I am at directions and stuff so I knew others were planning on going Sunday so left my trust into doing it then. Sunday comes and after church and a museum and after asking everyone like 10 times if they were for sure going everyone bailed and said they were too tired. My heart sank as I realized I wouldn't be able to go. One of the girls even talked about just going the next time she went to Paris. Sorry, but I don't know the next time I will be going to Paris and I don't mind that nobody wanted to go but I'm just mad that I was so close to going and everyone flaked last minute. If there's one thing I try never to be its a flake. When I say I'm going to something I go or I try my hardest to make it there. Some of us may never get a chance like this ever again and I am very sad that I haven't been able to do anything I want to do really yet because people have changed their minds last minute or been too tired to do things. I'm probably being overdramatic right now but I am just upset. We really only have 3 full days left in Paris and 2 of those days are day trips to Versailles and Chartres so I pretty much have one day to do all the things I want to do. I may
just end up going myself on Tuesday. I'm tired of waiting for other people. The worse thing is is that
idk if I can go out anymore on my own though because today there was the biggest protest that Paris
has ever had in history (including the revolution) revolting against the passing of gay marriage in France. This also had to do with the man who commit suicide at Notre-Dame. Apparently he commit suicide to make a statement and so over 2 million peopled gathered near the Eiffel tower with family signs and no gay marriage signs so that he didn't "die in vain" but honestly him killing himself is breaking up his family so I feel like it was a little contradictory that they think gay marriage is breaking the family but killing yourself is ok, because he's a martyr or something. Anyways. Some girls in my group got stuck in the riots and were stuck there for a good few hours before some professor from a university here who knew English helped them get out. Glad they are safe. But now we're not sure if things around Paris will get worse. Some of the trains and metros were blocked off and closed too because of it too so that's also a different problem for us.

The one thing I did get to do though was of course the magical DISNEYLAND PARIS! After a day at the Louvre our professors told us that since we had some extra money we saved from the hotel because we squished 3 in a room instead of 2 we each got an extra €100 to spend on whatever! I really wanted to do Disney but I wasn't sure if I wanted to save for fun stuff like broadway in London or the Harry potter museum or other things but with the extra hundred me and some great girls got to go on Friday. It was amazing the day of the 20th anniversary so we got a discount on our tickets and because it was pouring rain we walked on every ride. It was amazing. Best day I've had in Paris. Hope I can do the real things I'm suppose to do in Paris before I leave. I of course have more to say about Disneyland Paris but I am tired and need to go to bed. So that's all for tonight. Only less that 2 weeks left! Don't wanna come home but at the same time I am exhausted. Bittersweet.

Austria and Germany and Childhood movies

So our first stop was Vienna. We were there for a couple days got some amazing bratwursts and hot dogs. So yummy! Got to have real legit Vienna beef! I didn't realize how many famous musicians came from Vienna including Mozart. Maddie told Caroline and me about these candies we had to find that we're these chocolate balls that had like nuts and marzipan inside of them. We finally found these "Mozart balls" and they were amazing! So I guess you could say that in Vienna we enjoyed some great wieners and some really good balls. ;) We saw some amazing museums that all have become a blur to me. Love the art but I don't remember which art I saw in which museum only because there was too much and we are seeing 2 or 3 museums every day. Also one of the best parts of Vienna was the hotel! I got to room with Caroline and our hotel felt like we were from Xenon! Everything was motion censored and we could control all the lights by the remote on our bed and the shower was in the middle of the room and clear all the way around but blurred in the right spots haha. Kinda awkward to shower but the best part of the shower was the shower head changed colors! So we had fun showering with the light off. It was awesome haha. Tried watching tv but everything was in German and English subtitles wouldn't work. Wieners, balls, and light up showers: I promise this is a BYU study abroad haha

Then we made our day trip to Salzburg which of course where sound of music is filmed!!! We got off the bus and walked right to where they sing the Do-Re-Me songs! We walked around what truly felt like the sound of music. We all couldn't help but sing the songs, I'm sure we all did not like the loud and annoying Americans that he Europeans know us as. Sorry not sorry.. Haha but we also got to walk up and hike our way to the top of the mighty Hohensalzburg Fortress! Too much money to go inside but it was pretty and fun to walk up! Got an amazing pretzel and walked into many lederhosen shops that they took very seriously. Felt like Rapunzel walking around the fun Shops and dancers right next to the castle. All i needed was a Flynn Rider to get a cupcake with..next time. We then got on the bus to go to our group dinner somewhere in Austria on the way to Munich. It was like a thanksgiving feast. They just brought out plates and plates of food kind of buffet style. So much meat and vegetables I was happy to eat them all. Sometimes on the road you feel so awful because your just eating carbs and sugar all the time haha. Little did I know that the best meat I ate was actually veal! Sometimes ignorance is bliss. If I had known I would not have ate it. But then they brought out dessert and I felt much better. There was like 6 different cake like desserts and we all just grabbed our fork and ate off all of them. Felt like I was a seven dwarf in Snow White. "What's wash???" Because maybe the last time we had washed was "recently" haha.  Thanks for anyone who understands these quotes from the movie. Everywhere I turned in Austria and Germany I was either seeing Snow White, Sound of Music, or Tangled haha




So after dinner we get back in the bus on our way to Munich. All I can really say about Munich is that the metro is the hardest thing in the world to figure out. First of all I'm not very good at direction anyways but if things are properly labeled and color coded then I can figure it out. This was not the case. After a very successful day of wandering around the main shopping area of Munich me, Maddie and Caroline start to make our way back which shoul take about 20 minutes ended up taking us about 3 hours. But the best way to figure out your way around town is to get lost. What I love and hate about study abroad is that our professors will give us a map and tell us where our hotel is and then say, "good luck! See you at this place tomorrow!" And then let us loose. In Venice when they did it it was kinda fun because it felt like amazing race. Like here's where our hotel is; see who can get there the fastest haha. But by the time I was in Munich I was done with getting lost. While we were lost though this random little man helped us and gave us directions. I kid you not, he looked like a gnome. he was little, had a beard, came out of nowhere, and had grass in his hair! I think that there are magical dwarves or gnomes in germany that help people because it was magical. He shows up and knows english and then like magic he dissapeared instantly. Very cute man. Still though after getting directions from the gnome we were still confused and lost. Luckily all of the metros have been much easier but basically the way we home was random king running into our professor and figuring out that we had the wrong written down for our hotel. Haha so once we got that cleared up we made it home in no time. Munich was beautiful though! Went to the worlds biggest beer hall and got water and yummy food haha we looked pretty silly but there were a lot of funny drunk people and especially giant groups of bachelor parties. Very fun to watch them, it was like dinner and a show. That's it for Germany though. Very green, very pretty, didn't like the metro

Christmas store with decorated eggs. This is only one little section of the store. Entire store was FILLED with these hand painted eggs

Oh my Venice.

So as we made the long journey to Venice we stopped in the city of Civici and saw The Scrovengi chapel which is home of the absolutely breathtaking frescos by Giotto. When I first started my art history classes in the winter the first painting that I felt like I truly loved and was possibly my favorite painting ever was Giotto's Lamentation. I actually didn't even know we'd be seeing it until I got there and was watching the orientation video they show you before you go into the church..then it hit me that we were about to see it in real life and I began to freak out! For those who arent familiar with the chapel, there are dozens of scenes of all of christs life and miracles and crusifixion. pretty much the entire new testiment is painted on every wall. Not only are the colors beautiful and the composion interesting and perfect in my eyes, but in the video they talked about how all of the frescos are so famous because Giotto painted them as they would have truly occurred. Minus one scene of the devil eating the wicked and then pooping them out I feel like all of the paintings of christs life were very inspired and accurate. It was the closest I have felt to the story ever. For example they show the nativity of Mary laying down and Joseph half asleep in the stable which is kind of funny but at the same time that's exactly how it would have been. Mary would have not been standing beautiful over the newborn Christ child and Joseph would have been tired. Also the image of the slaughtering of the innocence was very beautiful in showing all the tears on all of the mothers faces and showing real emotion in the face instead of an archaic smile or a glorified angelic grin that most paintings or statues show women as. I also loved the one of the 12 apostles at the end and they are all looking in different directions when Christ is appearing to them after the resurrection. It reminded me of Hollands talk two conferences ago about how the apostles didn't now what to do when Christ was gone. They were simply going to go back to fishing and Giotto shows this so beautifully in such a simple composition. And of course my favorite is the Lamentation where they take Christ off of the cross. The visual lines, the colors, the expression on the faces of even the angels weeping, and most of all the interesting figures sitting away from the viewer so you see their backs. We were taught that Giotto did this because he wanted the viewer to be able to sit themselves in the painting with everyone else. So cool when a painter includes the viewer. Which is also why I like a lot of the Impressionism and the manorism paintings more than the classical because you can usually see either look through the eyes of the painter, or the eyes of the subject and apply it to yourself. So cool.

Well once we finally got to Venice, we saw many things like Manet and tons of famous Venician paintings. Today however I have never felt more tired. I think that everything hit me all at once and I couldn't even write notes because my hand was exhausted. So after a bunch of museums I went back to the hotel and took a 40 minute nap. Then after we went to another church with some famous Titian paintings and I learned that in Nancy Drew books she said her mother said she had Titian hair which means strawberry blonde. I now understand the reason behind this because Titian always made Christ have strawberry blonde hair because it was said that was his favorite hair color. Kinda funny. I'm going to tell Erin now that she has Titian hair, and she is NOT a ginger haha.

Then after the museum, Maddie, Madison, Caroline, Jessica, Abby and I all split a gondola ride that was AMAZING!!!!!! It was 40 minutes and our gondolier was very handsome and said he had been a gondolier for 21 years! That's as old as me...so that means he's probably 35-40 and he looks that good.. Dang. He even sang to us and whistled love songs, it was great. He showed us the hotel where The Tourist was filmed. So cool. I think I'm the only one who loved that movie. Maybe because I love Venice and Johnny Depp, and any movie that takes place in Europe. Also I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to movies. Anyways, Venice is prettier than I ever imagined. Got a REALLY pretty watch with Venician glass in it that is gray and my favorite thing in the whole world. I think I might wear it to bed.. Ok maybe not. But I love it. Leave for Austria tomorrow. So excited but sad to leave Venice and Italy in general.

The long beautiful journey to Florence

So after going to some more amazing museums in Rome we got on the bus on our way to Orvieto and Florence. Sad to leave the beautiful city of Rome but little did I know that the drive to Florence was
Literally the most beautiful bus ride I have ever seen. So many grape orange vineyards and wild poppies. It looked like price and prejudice meets wizard of oz meets sound of music. Those hills were literally singing. So beautiful. We first stopped at the city called Civita that had a population of about 10. But only because the city was on top of this giant cliff that looked like a castle about to fall off the cliff. It was so beautiful. There was a sign on one of the doors that said "Pinocchio" was filmed here as seen on tv.  I haven't seen anything on tv about Pinocchio besides Once Upon A Time but I highly doubt they went all the way to a random city in Italy to film Pinocchio's part in the show haha. But that gives you an idea of how much it looked like a fairy tale. So pretty. And the best part: there were so many cute cats. And they were clean and nice and just chilled in the city. I am actually making a very lovely collection of pictures of cats in Europe. It will be famous someday. By the end of the time spent in Civita I realized this is the place I belong. Just give me a castle on top of a cliff that has hardly any people to bother me and overlooks the most gorgeous part of Italy with a bunch of cats and I can die happy. But really...

We then headed to the other beautiful town of Orvieto, Italy. Our professor lived there for about a year and loves this city. I love this city too. A little bigger than Civita and they have some very famous history. Very fortressy and very pre-renaissancey. Loved it. Got some SUPER good kiwi gelato there that was pretty cheap. Fun fact. I will buy gelato over food any time of day. It's a good thing I have a sweet tooth and I don't get sick from anything. Because gelato is cheap and wonderful.. But then again, so is pizza haha but not so cheap.

Finally after our super long journey to Florence we made it in time to explore a little and go out to dinner. Yum! First of all our apartments here are slowly and slowly getting worse and worse quality because the more we travel the more expensive it gets. Which is sad for my wallet. In Greece our hotel room was tiny but it was very nice. Then in Rome the apartment was huge but it was crapy and my friend Caroline literally had an evil spirit living in her apartment. Scary. Everyone in her apartment could feel it :( good thing we are not there anymore. Here we are staying in a hotel that Heather our professor, knows the owner very well. She is really cute and funny and loves everyone. But our shower towels look like table clothes, and the shower is never hot. Also the you need a light key to make all the lights work. Weird. And the soap smells weird. But the nice thing is that our hotel is right by the river and close to all the museums we want to see. I've never seen Room With A View but my professor Heather says our hotel is very close to where that is. Our room does not have a view though :( we open our Peter Pan windows to some lovely scaffolding. It's a good thing that I am very low maintaince though because some of the girls are having a hard time. Especially with the wifi.

We have technically had wifi every hotel we've stayed at. But they each have their own flaws the first place in Greece the wifi only worked if I layed down on the floor right by our front door. In Rome it worked really well except that you couldn't get Skype or texting to work. And here in Florence it only works in the hallway and it kicks you off every 5 minutes or so.


Anyways. So we got to Florence and we have seen so many amazing things. Seen some things like the David, climbed to the top of the bell tower and the dome of the Duomo, seen percius and medusa statues, Birth of Venus and Leanna and the swan which was RUINED for me when my teachers told me that it actually is suppose to be symbolic of zues as the swan being unleashed about to rape Leanna. :( ok I love learning about all these wonderful artworks, but literally all of them are about rape, or the artist was a crazy person, or the artist was raped, or they just made it becaus ether were commissioned to. So lame. Man, sometimes ignorance is bliss.. Can't I just look at a painting of the birth of Venus and pretend she's a cool mermaid instead of finding out that there is dirty meaning in a lot of the symbols.. Oh well, haha that's art I guess.

So my friend Caroline understand me a lot. We decided the other day that we have the same exact mother that loves Vera Bradley.. And actually that's the only thing I can think of haha. But also we have lots of fun. Sometimes during really serious art lectures in museums we talk about how inappropriate some of these paintings are. Also we discussed how this painting of this friar who was looking at Jesus on the cross in the air with this light beams coming down. And we decided that it looked like the friar was flying a Jesus kite. We might be struck by lightning soon but sometimes you have to laugh at all these silly religious paintings. Well that's all for now.