The importance of punctuality.

So, imagine this scenario. The following is based on a true story.

Your train leaves at 10:49. You wake up at 8, finish packing, eat breakfast, and say goodbye to Anne Charlotte. You leave the apartment at 9:45 to get to the train station by around 10:15. When you get to the bus stop, a bus is just leaving. You try to wave him down but he wags his finger at you to say no. So you wait ten minutes for the next bus. Next thing you know, it's somehow 10:30 and the bus is still basically where you got on. So you jump off the bus and into a taxi. The taxi driver tells you it's a ten minute drive. Then, next thing you know, it's 10:47 and you pull up in front of the train station, throw money at the driver, and start running like a crazy person screaming things like "Où est Hall 2?!" and "À quelle voie est le train pour Nice?!" and then a French man says to you in English "Too late, gone." and you have a panic attack for a minute. That's when you realize maybe you're really not that calm in stressful situations like you say in all your job interviews so maybe you should rethink that statement.

After that, though, you do some breathing exercises, accept the fact that you're buying a new train ticket, and get in line. When you get to the front, your card doesn't work and you have another mini panic attack until you realize your card never works in those machines and you always have to type in the numbers but for some reason you can't do that in France. Luckily you have an amazing friend named Sydnie who buys your ticket for you and you now owe her big time. Then you call your professor, explain what happened, and everything is fine. So you sit on a bench and stare at a wall for two hours. Then you get on the train with plenty of time to spare.

Okay, stop imagining.

When I got on the train, I was not a happy camper. Which should not happen when you are on a train through the French countryside on your way to Nice. I tried to tell myself that these things happen, but all I could think about were questions like "What if that bus driver had just stopped and waited for us? What if I had woken up 15 minutes earlier? What if I drank my grapefruit juice a little bit faster?" (Side note: One time I read a book/short story/something that was about a girl making the choice between milk and orange juice in the morning, and how that choice changed her day completely. I don't know if I believe it or not, but still: "What if I had chosen milk?")

That's when I decided that all these things needed to go away so I could enjoy the rest of my trip. So I filled my headphones with Trevor Hall, got out a piece of paper, and wrote down everything I was mad or unhappy about. By the time I was done, I was feeling a million times better, so I made a list (I've realized I make a lot of lists) of things I should remember.

• Everything happens for a reason. You may never know that reason.
• You are never alone.
• I'm going to be in Nice, France for the next week, and there's a beach there.
• Things will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.

After that I listened to the song "Carry On" by fun. and enjoyed the amazing scenery that was outside my window.

I made it to Nice. I met my new host, Colette, who is an incredible cook. I have my own beautiful room. I spent the day at church, where I met a missionary that knows people from my high school, and then walking along the beach of the Azur Coast.

Even after all that madness, this honestly could not be more perfect.

Life on the daily.

Bonjour, bon soir, ou bon moment de la journée où vous lisez ce post.

Today I present to you: a day in the life of a Parisian study abroad.

7:15 am: Wake up. Take an awkward and dreaded shower while sitting in a bathtub and holding the shower nozzle. Try to shave your legs. Give up and feel a little more European.

7:45 am: Eat breakfast (toasted baguette) in the tiny kitchen. Anne Charlotte provides corn flakes too, but it's not very French, she tells us.

8:00 am: Leave for school. Walk to the Metro, board the Metro, leave the Metro, walk to school. On the way, pass by the cute little primary school where we sometimes see our relief society teacher dropping off her child. School starts at 8:30, but get there at 8:45.

12:30 pm: Leave school (finally!). Get a sandwich at the boulangerie.

1:00-8:00 pm: Explore Paris! Shopping, hanging out in a garden, and eating crepes are among my favorite choses à faire.

8:00 pm: Return home to eat dinner. We have enjoyed many delicacies courtesy of our host Anne Charlotte. The frog legs from last night's dinner are among the more exotic.

9:30 pm: Head out for a night on the town, which mostly just involves walking around to see and be seen. And eating more crepes.

Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Other things I have done since my last post are as follows:

Père Lachaise Cemetery

Oscar Wilde

Edith Piaf

Jim Morrison

Saint Sulpice

Statue of Liberty

National Treasure 3 here I come! 

Catacombs 

Also, a list of the little things that have made me happy this week:

• The adorable Brazilian boy at the Swatch store that learned my name, said it in a likewise adorable accent, and then sold me a cool watch.
• The owner of the café on our street that always says "bonjour les filles!" when we walk by. Yesterday he asked where we were from and welcomed us to Paris.
• The cute old man on the Metro that said "à tes souhait" to me today when I sneezed, and then told me to have a good night when his stop came.
• The lady at a museum we tried to visit that put up with my terribly formed French sentences.
• The little boy on the Metro that danced to a street performer. He screamed when he saw a dog, but I think he just wanted us to laugh.
• This conversation that I had with some kid while I was on the lover's padlock bridge today. Keep in mind it was all in French.
• Him: Hi.
• Me: ...Hi?
• Him: I like your outfit, it's very charming.
• Me: Uh, thanks.
• Him: How old are you?
• Me: 22. (Ha!)
• Him: What's your name?
• Me: Michelle. What's yours?
• Him: (Something incomprehensible)
• Me: Nice to meet you...
• Him: You should give me your number.
• Me: Uh, no.
• Him: Do you have a boyfriend?
• Me: Yes.
• Him: What a shame. Let me give you my number.
• Me: Thanks, but no. I have a boyfriend!
• Him: That's not a big deal. Let me just give you my number, then you can choose to call me or not.
• Me: Uh, okay. (Pretend to type his number into my phone)
• Him: I would like to take a walk with you if you want.
• Me: No, I'm meeting my friends in like ten minutes, so I should go. Thanks though!
• Him: Okay. Call me!
• The party we had in the Metro station tonight with street performers and an old man who loved to dance.

It's been real, Paris. But it's time to say au revoir. En route to Nice, France at 10:49 tomorrow morning!

When it rains.

You know what they say: "When it rains, it pours."

We decided not to go to Erasmus on Thursday night, which was a good idea since we have been doing things nonstop all weekend! Friday there was school again in the morning, followed by a long and much needed three course meal (mussels, duck, and crème brûlée) and a trip to the Pantheon and a little vintage store shopping, where I tried on this fantastic Three Musketeers leather jacket.

That night Sydnie and I were going to go rollerblading in this giant rollerblading parade that happens every Friday night. After doing some research and discovering it was an 18 mile ride over cobblestones, though, we decided to just go watch them leave and then walk around the Latin Quarter and get crepes.

Best sneaky picture I could get of the boy wearing the alligator costume

The French love rollerblading!

Saturday morning was the Marché aux Puces: gigantically huge flea market. Sydnie, Ariel, and I spent a good four or five hours there and got some fantastic stuff before we decided we were completely tired and headed home.

That night after dinner we met up again and went to the Centre Pompidou since it was la nuit des musées, and all the museums were open all night for free. Pompidou is another modern art museum. My favorite was this one. It's a piano placed in a room that has the walls covered with rolls of sound-absorbing felt.

"She was a piano in a place where everyone had their hands cut off."

We went to church yesterday, and it was amazing, of course. I had been a little burned out, I guess you could say, with school and walking all over the city. Church was just what I needed, though. The subject was "testimony" and even though I didn't understand every word (Especially since one girl spoke in Chinese for a minute. I have a hard enough time with French, thank you!), I definitely felt better afterward.

These last couple of days, though, have been some difficult ones. I didn't expect that a simple, month-long study abroad in Paris would be hard, but sometimes it is.

After church, Sydnie and I went to walk around in the Luxembourg Gardens, where we got stuck under a tree and our parapluies (umbrellas) while it poured rain around us. Our feet got soaked (I was wearing Toms... again, not the most practical shoes. But they're still my favorite!) as we walked over to the Latin Quarter for more cheap crepes and then on to meet our group to go to a Molière play. We were about ten minutes late because we went to the wrong theatre, but we still got in... and I have no idea what happened for the next two hours. I did not understand anything in that whole play, and I was super discouraged. I've been studying French for over seven years now, and for what? I was ready to throw in the towel.

We went home for dinner, and then Sydnie, Ariel, and I decided to make it a girls' night since we have all been a little bit homesick lately. We went up to Montmartre, the home of Sacre Cœur and also known as one of the most romantic places in Paris because of the grassy hill that couples like to sit on and overlook the city. Just the thing to cheer us up, right?

As soon as we got there, it started to rain. Hard. We went into the cathedral and listened in on the service that was going on for a few minutes, and then walked around the square that usually has the street artists and vendors and lots of cafés. The artists were there, but everything was pretty subdued because of the rain and many of the restaurants were closing. By this point we were soaked, so we stopped to get some ice cream and hot chocolate and called it a night.

Today, I woke up with a new and more optimistic attitude because it was Disneyland day! Sydnie and I bought tickets last week and we were super excited. The weather said it was supposed to rain, but from our experience so far, rain doesn't last long in Paris. And we already bought the tickets. So we hopped on the train to Disney!

The rain started before we even made it halfway to the park, and I'm not completely sure as to whether it has stopped yet or not. It poured all day. We were soaked and freezing by the first ride. Of course it was still fun, and the lines were very short so that was a plus! I guess it just wasn't what I was really hoping for. And Disneyland Paris does not have a single giant pickle. What is Disneyland without those? That's the real question.

So we came home early: drenched, frigid, and a tad dispirited. You know what the funny thing about this is, though? The last ride we went on was It's a Small World. And that stupid ride with its annoying song actually made me realize that its true. I might be 5000 miles away from almost everyone I know, but is it really that far? I am in Paris, France, having one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I was letting a little rain and a little loneliness get me down. There are only two weeks left and then who knows how long it will be until I get to come back?

So I'm making a list of things I am thankful for, and then I am going to go out there and give it everything I have.

• My amazing family (extended family included!). Without them I would never have this opportunity.
• My friends. Who always text me back or Facebook chat me when I'm missing them and who (hopefully) won't forget me by the time I'm home!
• Growing up in the circumstances that I did, where I have the chance to go to school and learn a beautiful (if difficult) language like French.
• Rain. Without rain, the Earth would not be the gorgeous green place that it is. Also, it helps us appreciate the sunshine a little bit more.
• Of course, these glorious four weeks that I have to spend in France and learn things about myself and the world that I could never learn in a classroom. There honestly is nothing more I could ask for.

Museum edition.

We'll just call this week Museum Week, plus Versailles and Chartres. My feet have walked so many miles on museum floors that they don't know how to walk on any other floors.

Saturday May 12:
Versailles was first. Palace of King Louis XIV. Not technically a museum but I think it might as well be! Sydnie and I entertained daydreams of Alice in Wonderland themed scavenger hunts or huge wedding receptions/parties in the massive gardens.

That night we headed to the top of Montparnasse Tower for a view of Paris that included the sparkling Tour d'Eiffel, as opposed to one from its viewpoint. It really was breathtaking. Isn't any view is when you're 59 floors above the Earth?

Sunday May 13:
Church! We might have arrived almost an hour late and had to stand in the back because it was so packed, but it was still so good. It's always reassuring to know that no matter where you go to church - Utah, South Carolina, or halfway around the world in France - it's always the same gospel and the same amazing members. There were two meetings to choose from each hour, either French or English speaking. I went to French Sunday School and Relief Society, and even read a scripture out loud in my awful American accent.

After church, Sydnie and I had a fabulous little picnic lunch underneath the Eiffel Tower and stayed there for a while enjoying the sun and the people walking by. Then we took a walk down the Seine to les Invalides (Napoleon's burial grounds) and looked around before heading home. It was lovely!

Monday May 14:
This was the day of our journey to Chartres, the site of one of the oldest cathedrals in France. It's a cute little town spreading out from the church, with winding streets and lots of fun shops. The strained glass windows are exquisite and tell the stories from the Bible in a way I have never thought of them before.

We then stopped to eat at one of the many pizzerias lining the streets, where I proudly ate this entire pizza by myself. Why don't I entire eating contests and make a living off this talent?

Tuesday May 15:
Back to school, unfortunately. But then again, this was the day that the museum hopping began, so maybe I should be glad I got to sit down for at least the first half of the day! We started with the Museum of Modern Art, where I saw many things that I enjoyed. Lots of people think modern art is too weird and too abstract, but I think it's cool.

Immediately following that, we headed to the Rodin, home of "The Thinker", and a nice garden, and a lot of other sculptures that are pretty sweet. This is the real and true Thinker over the doors to the Gates of Hell. I think the rain adds to the effect.

After dinner that night, our group met up again in the Latin Quarter for some crepes (How many days have I been here? 11. How many crepes have I eaten? 8.) and some very cold window shopping. It might be summer in other parts of the world but not in Paris!

Wednesday May 16:
More school and more museums. First up was the Shoah, which is Paris' holocaust memorial. It made me think a lot about what it would be like to go through things like concentration camps, losing family members, and starvation. I will admit that I have been a little homesick since coming here, more for people than places. But seeing that made me realize how blessed I really am. I can't imagine what it would be like to be ripped away from everything and everyone you know, without knowing if you would ever return.

There were pieces of walls in the museum that had inscriptions that people had made, perhaps in the hope to be remembered. Many of them had the person's name, the date, and the words "destination inconnu" - unknown destination. We still don't know where they went, and we may never know.

Next up was the Carnavalet, the museum of Paris' history. Personally, I'm just trying to find out where I can get one of these rings. It contains Marie Antoinette's actual hair. I know you want one too!

Which brings me to today.

Thursday May 17:
No school since it's a French holiday, so we got to sleep in all the way until 9:30, instead of our usual 6:30. A great start to the day, if you ask me. We got to the Louvre at about 11:30 and started off strong with the Mary Magdalene and the Code of Hammurabi. After lunch, though, stairs were looking daunting and people were being just a little bit pushy. However, we did make it to all the must-sees and even had enough energy for the crown jewels! It's not as easy as it looks, especially when there are literally miles of things to see. But it was worth it, of course!

My hair idol

I had to battle about three thousand people for this picture. Appreciate it.

Probably my favorite statue ever created.

Tonight Sydnie and I are thinking of hitting up Erasmus, also known as the free club for international students. But then again, we are exhausted from Museum Week, which probably still is not over, or may become Museum Weeks. So we'll see what happens I guess!

Phantoms and pirates.

It has been a week of dreams coming true.

1. Cœur de Pirate. 

Regular readers of my blog should know that I have been counting down to this one for a while. This gorgeous and talented Canadian has joined the list of concerts I have attended and loved. Despite the fact that her opening act was hacking up a lung, they wouldn't let me take my camera in, and the show started an hour late, it was well worth it. My voice was definitely among all the fans singing along to Comme les enfants!

Wish I took this. But I didn't.

My iPod is lacking in its picture taking skills.

2. Opéra garnier.

Also known as: the building that inspired Phantom of the Opera. It did not disappoint. We technically went there to see a ballet, but who can actually follow those things? Sydnie and I skipped Act II and walked around to take pictures. Also well worth it.

Oh my gosh. I'm there.

3. French fashion show.

It was no Louis Vuitton runway, but France Langue, my school, got us into a little défilé de mode on Friday which I would probably compare it to a Nordstrom fashion show. Either way, I've been to one in Paris! Cameras were not technically allowed here either but I did manage to sneak a few shots.

I know it looks like there wasn't anyone there... and I don't really have an explanation,
there just wasn't anyone sitting in those seats.

After the fashion show, we were wandering around the mall and stumbled across this very interesting art exhibit. We looked at a bunch of drawings down a hallway that led to a black curtain. When we opened the black curtain, we found a black tunnel that led to a black door. When we opened the black door, we found this:

Then we went out of there, and found other things such as these:

Then I found a mirror next to a fake puddle, and took a picture to show you all what I thought of this situation.

It was a very interesting and very cool place.

There have been other things, of course, such as school (4 hours of straight French a day. Yay. Love it.) and of course more food, which I will continue to tell you about as time goes on. Lifelong dreams becoming reality, though, need their own spotlight.