Jours de pluie à Paris

I love the rain. 

and street art.

I love autumn. autumn+rain=joy

This is what the Eiffel Tower looks like on a rainy day:

I love umbrellas. especially in the rain.

I love clouds. I love taking pictures of clouds...and everything, actually. 

*jaw drop*

I love people watching. These tourists are kissing.

"Portrait of smooching tourists taking self-portrait"~Hailey

   Friendly statues are what makes the world go 'round. Oh wait, that's love. If you don't agree with that go and discuss it here.

I like lions. almost as much as I like narwhales.

I love living in Paris. 

but sometimes I miss home.

rainy days are nostalgic like that.

Speaking of rainy days, you must listen to this song. 

Mmm. Remind me to find a guitar-playing lad.

Je suis allée en Allemagne.

So this weekend a group from my church went on a trip to:

Germany!

The drive was so pretty! But reeeally long--it took 8 hours! 

Bless you!
German looks so funny.

This here is a "landhauskuchen"

    We drove right by Frankfurt, but our destination was a small town called Friedrichsdorf.

    It was a nice, quiet little place--the autumn leaves were so beautiful. I really wished I could have stayed a couple of days and explored, the near-by woods was a'beckoning!

     Because I just went up for Friday night, I can't really say much about Germany other than their cakes are more bready tasting than French ones, and that everything was super cheap compared to Paris. The few German people I encountered were nice and very confused when I spoke Afrikaans to them with an American/French accent. Afrikaans is the only sort of German-sounding language I knew words in....so that was fun.

So why were we going to Germany again? To visit the temple!

   In my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--a mouthful, I know) temples are super important places where we not only worship God, but also make sacred covenants with Him. They're different from our chapels where we worship on Sundays, because anyone can attend a Sunday service, but temples are limited to worthy (meaning you follow God's commandments) members.

   The reason we went all the way to Germany is because it's the closest one to Paris. Back in the U.S., I'm lucky enough to have several within an hour drive, so it was really beautiful to be able to travel with the lovely people over here who make major sacrifices of both time and capital to accomplish the things they believe in, and also to see how blessed I have been. On the temple grounds there's some housing in a sort of hostel set-up, so I got to share a room with 8 other ladies and that night there was the most melodious snoring concert. Just kidding, it wasn't melodious. You can't snore melodiously. sorry to break that to you.
    We went to the temple and then spent the evening exploring the town! Unfortunately the town was totally shut down by about 8:00...so we just had a fun picnic-style dinner in the hostel kitchen. We went to the temple again the next morning, wandered the town again (there was a nice little Saturday market), and then piled on the bus, suuper excited *sarcasm hand* for the 8 hours back.

     The ride was actually quite fun, I sat next to some kids my age and I got some major French conversation practice. I have a hard enough time communicating with people my own age in English, let alone French! One of the girls is really funny and sassy and was always making sarcastic comments...I definitely didn't pick up any of them. So that was a nice reality check, I had been getting all excited about how my level of French has improved...well nothing to get excited about folks, I don't have a sense of humor in French. Great. However, I did understand what words she was saying...just not what she meant? Well, I'd better get back to studying. 

 So that was my little taste of Germany.  I really want to go back and do some real exploring! Ja!

Halloween: Paris style!

 Happy Halloween!

   Halloween in Paris was definitely different than in the states. First of all, it just isn't the same holiday and really isn't celebrated the same way. Halloween the American way is getting more popular, but French traditions are just a lot older than American ones and deeply-rooted at that. Because of globalization and English classes French people know about the American tradition of Halloween, but it's really only been common knowledge since the 90's. 

      Because Catholicism is a major part of French culture most people instead celebrate All Saints Day, which is on November 1(think Memorial Day). However, the younger crowd who have been exposed to marketing campaigns and are not opposed to the American cultural influence often have Halloween parties with costumes, etc. The difference I noticed is that people tend to focus on the scary instead of the cute/flirty costumes that seem to be more popular in the U.S. Also, trick-or-treating isn't very popular, but that's also part of living in a big city.

     Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because of the dressing-up part--it's so fun to get all costumed up! However, because I'm doing Halloween French-style this year I didn't get to really dress up (I did a half-hearted attempt at a fey-thing costume) so that was sad. Quand meme (all the same), French-style was pretty great!

   We went to the massive cemetery:

 Père Lachaise!

"All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity."
Hamlet Act 1 Scene II

It was fun to go and see all of the beautiful tombs/crypts, but the place was so massive we didn't see very much of it (110 acres!)

 Here are some of my favorite tombstones:

Spooky!

The Adam's Family!

And now for the grand finale:

An art nouveau tombstone!!!!

So...when I die, can I have this one?

  It was a very nice, peaceful sort of place, the sun was shining, and it felt really great to be alive!

    Père Lachaise is one of the most famous and frequently visited cemeteries because of all of the important/famous historical people who are buried there.  

I...don't know who this is...

So we made a quick visit to pay our respects to a couple of our favorite people.

Mr. Chopin:

 Madame Edith Piaf:

Mr. Oscar Wilde:

His tomb was being cleaned from all of his fans' kisses. 

Mr. Jim Morrison:

On the way to one of the tombs I spied:

    Seeing a butterfly at a cemetery seemed very appropriate considering all of the butterfly mythology dealing with the souls of the departed.

   En route to a tomb this shady character started talking to us:

  Sorry, I didn't get a very good picture--it's awfully hard to take paparazzi shots of someone who is talking to you. Anyway, this is Gabrielle who approached us and proceeded to talk about the importance of remembering those who have passed on. He's a gravedigger. As soon as he said that I almost sniggered because I was thinking about the grave-diggers in Hamlet, and it was just so perfectly creepy.

      He then told us he'd show us around and take us on some shortcuts to the tombs we were wanting to go see. He spoke pretty great English, and when we commented on it he proceeded to give the most heart-felt, dramatic speech about all you need to succeed in life is love and desire. I couldn't help but giggle a bit though, he had a heavy accent and was so into what he was saying, and this situation was so unexpected--it was like something out of a spoofy movie (think O Brother Where Art Though). I definitely tried sneakily filming it, but the problem with being sneaky is that you can easily get great audio, but the movie is of everyone's bums....so I'll try to get the audio up because it's so funny!
      He took us all over the place and it was only about half way through that we started suspecting that this was probably part of a complex kidnapping plan or a sort of a thing where he'd demand payment for the tour. It really was a dodgy situation, and even better because it was set in a maze-like cemetery--what other elements do you need for a horror film? I really might make this story into a "B"-grade horror film because as he was talking about Jim Morrison's death he said something to the effect of: "He, like you, was American and he, like you, came to Paris and visited Pere Lachaise and seven days later he was dead." *cue scary music*! It was quite eerie! Also, he smelled like death. He had this smell of something rancid and rotting that you'd occasionally get when you were down-wind from him. Even after *we got away you'd get a little whiff now and then...it lingered.... BOO! No but really, I'm not exaggerating. He was probably a zombie, or even worse-- a non-sparkly vampire!

      And that was my French Halloween experience. It was just the right amount of spooky and mystery without getting out of control. I definitely prefer American Halloween, but the experience of getting let to potential doom by a grave-digger was the most legitimate Halloween thing I've ever done. Hope y'all Halloween-American-style celebrators had fun, ate some lovely bon-bons, and found super cool costumes!

For some spooky-ish music check out Lykke Li 

* How did we "get away"? Well, we pretended we had to go and meet up with someone else in our group, so we hurriedly thanked him, said goodbye, and left. He was really nice about it, I had thought he would insist on us paying him for the tour, but he just let us go. I kinda feel bad now, we probably should have tipped him--maybe he's just lonely and likes giving tours? Well, I have 6 days left now if my scary-film idea is indeed reality, so maybe we didn't get off as easily as I had thought. *duh, duh, duuuuhhhhhh* Ok. I'm really freaked out now, I shouldn't entertain scary thoughts this late at night! 

Fountainebleu-- bless you!

   The chateau Fountainebleu is about a 30 minute train ride from Paris, and because the tickets to go there were super reasonable, some friends and I decided to go for a nice countryside outing. There is a massive woods surrounding the massive chateau and the two displays of grandeur from two very different artists was a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

    This chateau, like most, has passed through many hands: kings, emperors, and now finally the education system (part of it is a music/art school now).
   The chateau was like Napoleon Bonaparte's Versailles, he renovated it, and overall just tried to make it as fancy-pants as he could to show off his power.

   Luckily, even with Mr. Napoleon changing bits everywhere, the history of the old kings is still there and very few paintings/carvings were altered.

However, Napoleon did leave his slippers behind:

Bio-hazard crest

My initials! I'm obviously going to inherit this chateau.

Everything was so ornate! In fact, I think it may be more ornate than most of Versailles--good job Napoleon.

   Seriously, every little nook and cranny had a carving, tapestry, or mirror inhabiting it. 

    After we went through the chateau, we went to the gardens!

Beautiful.

    The weather was perfect! "Not too hot, not too cold-- all you need is a light jacket."

    My only complaint was that the leaves were not satisfyingly crunchy...they just kinda flopped, but that was because it had just rained.... So it was actually okay because the smell of wet leaves is almost as delicious as stepping on a really crunchy patch of leaves!

   Unfortunately, because of our leisurely wanders through the chateau and gardens we ran out of time to explore the woods...but the train drove through them for a bit, so we got a little peek. 

A "religieuse" pastry:
puff pastry+chocolate/cafe icing+chocolate creme interior=
bliss.

  What is that you may ask? What does that delightsome concoction of empty calories have to do with the story you were talking about earlier? Well, it's what happened next in my story! We came home on the train, I bade my friends a bonne  soirée, and on the way to the apartment I spied this in the bakery window and thought: what a better ending to a most perfect day? And so I got it for dinner--yum!