snapshots of the day.

Much anticipated pictures!

enjoy.

ps I'm in Belgium...

listening to some freaky concert outside of our hotel that goes till from 5pm to 12am!

They sure love their Dutch Rap and techno + their beer and cigarettes, they all look like they are 12 years old...pleasant site to see. NOT!

{Chartres Cathedral}

{Samantha, Kaylin, Danielle, Me and Brianna in Chartres}

{Spider at our concentration camp hotel}

{Leonardo da Vinci's house}

{A Tower at Chenonceau}At Chenonceau there was this green river that you couldn't tell there was any water under the green, but we saw little eyes peeking up from the water. They were FROGS! So as any young age student would do we got things to try and hit them. We got pretty close to hitting some frogs, but we felt bad after we hit one on the leg. 

{A view from the street in Saint Malo}

{Paesha and I on the beach}

{Our friend we met at Saint Malo, we named her Michelle Obama}

{Mont Saint Michel}

{Gun batteries in Longues}

{Battleground in Longues}

{Omaha Beach}

{Omaha Beach}

{Head stone of those not known but to God}

{American Cemetery in Normandy}

{German Cemetery}

{Water Lilies Monet painted}

{Water Lilies Monet painted}

{Claude Monet's House in Giverny}

{Battlefield of Somme}

Battle of Somme was a WWI site in France that we visited today. It was great to see the battlefield because this was the first war they started using trenches and we were able to see those trenches because they kept them so well. 

Welp the Belgians have a crazy language I can't understand, it looks like gibberish. Here is a little taste of what I have to look at for the next week or so before I head to the UK where I can at least understand the majority of what people are saying. 

"Zondag Maandag Dinsdag Woensdag donderdag

 vrijdag zaterdag"

(Those are the days of the week)

tot ziens

(that's dutch for see ya)

it's gonna be a long week, 

but at least the Belgium has really good WiFi, that's a plus. Also the town is nice to walk around when there isn't 12 year olds getting wasted listening to techno. 

on the road.

Bonjour!

Sorry for the delay in posting but the WiFi (wee fee) in our past hotels have been really junky. 

So onto the good stuff.

*LONG POST*

We have the pleasure of touring France, Belgium and Amsterdam in a bus...for 16 days. Sounds fun eh? But it's not. 8 days down. There is only so much you can do in a bus that will keep you entertained. I unfortunately can't read in a car because it makes me sick, so long reading Jane Eyre. But our bus driver is a hoot. Peter of Holland is a funny man that just randomly gets on the microphone to tell us things and stops mid-sentence, plays music of his daughter singing (who is really good in fact) and has amazing driving skills weaving through the dinky streets of France...it is unbelievable what he can do without getting a scratch on the bus.

Once we left Paris we headed to Chartres, which is a little town located in Northern France. We got to just walk around the town for a couple of hours and it was a nice little town in the countryside. Chartres is known for its Cathedral Notre Dame de Chartres, one of the finest gothic style cathedrals. It was great because we got to have a tour by a man who has been doing tours of Chartres Cathedral for 60+ years. I loved how he explained the stained glass stories and sculptures that throughout the cathedral. After tour we got to walk around the town again just to take the atmosphere of being in France. 

The next day we headed to Amboise in the Loire Valley, where we stayed in what seemed like a concentration camp like apartments. It was gross because there were TONS of spiders in our room that a girl would freak out and make me kill them…awesome. Plus some were giants like this one.

The next day we had a bus tour of the Loire Valley from a wonderful lady who knew her stuff about everything in this valley. It was great to learn new history about France that we never learn in the US. After our tour we had the option of going to a Chateau that had rooms decorated different times they were occupied or Leonardo Da Vinci’s house he lived in that last few years he lived. Hands down Leonardo won. After seeing so many chateaus and extravagant things it was great to see something different. I have always been interested in Leonardo Da Vinci because he did so many things, he was a painter (painted my girl Mona Lisa which is in the Louvre), he was a sculptor, he was an inventor, and he was just an overall brilliant man. Throughout the house were many of his inventions, which was great to see them recreated. Plus in the gardens outside were many of his inventions that you were able to play and use them. It was interesting to see how many of his ideas were of items we have today.

On Saturday the 29^th we went to Chenonceau Chateau that was Huge! It also had beautiful gardens all throughout the estate. There was a labyrinth that we played tag in that was way fun! Hiding in the shrubbery and running in a circle, even an old couple joined in on the fun.

On Sunday we headed to Church in a little branch and we doubled or even tripled their member count. We got there for Sunday school and you could feel the spirit so strongly there, it was just a great experience to have. Most of these members are converts to the Church, so it was great to see their love of the gospel and how it has influenced their lives. The lesson was why and how do we follow Christ; there was even a man nice enough to translate the lesson for all 42 of us adults. Sacrament meeting was wonderful because we had another man translate the Sacrament Talks, the first was by a women who is a convert and the only member in her family, her husband is not a member but her talk was wonderful as well as her testimony. After, the Branch President spoke to his branch about how we or in this case they could make their branch big. He made a great point of how we can become better examples of Christ and invite others to come unto Him. After Church we headed to Saint Malo, a little town on the coast of France. We were able to walk along the beach and splash our feet in the Atlantic Ocean! It was a great little town we walked around the next day before our trip to Mont Saint Michel, the abbey that was the inspiration for Tangled.

It was a cloudy day when we went there, but it is a town that in practically on it’s own little island with an Abbey. After seeing all the magnificent stained glass and amazing architecture this was not as grand as I thought it was going to be. The town was fun to wander around the little streets and alleyways but overall it was fine.

 We were able to walk around the American cemetery and go to the Visitor’s center there. It was very wonderful experience viewing and pondering about all the deaths that happened in WWI and WWII. I am proud to be an American and thank all those who serve and protect our country.

Tuesday Oct. 2 we had a tour of the Normandy beaches by a wonderful man who knew everything…he was British. We first went to Longue and wandered about the battleground and looked at old German gun batteries. After we went to Omaha Beach, which was a sad but great experience to see where D-Day happened. I really wish I could have know more or at least reviewed more about WWII events because it would have made the experience more meaningful but it was a great adventure to think of those who fought for our country. Later we headed to Normandy, which our tour guide Michael told us we were on American soil, many were really happy to be “back in America.”

(Sorry for the cheesiness)

Today (Wednesday Oct 3) we went to the Tapestry in Bayeux. It is the oldest tapestry that is still intact. The story on the tapestry is about William the Conqueror in 1066. There was also a nice little audio tour to go with it, which made looking at it much better. After we were able to walk around the town and enjoy the small town…just like all the other little towns we walked around. Once we came to the bus it started to pour, which was no fun because we had to go Claude Monet’s gardens today. I really enjoyed Monet’s garden because we were able to see where his inspiration came from for many of his paintings such as Water Lilies. We were also able to walk around in his house which was filled with many of his paintings and Japanese artwork, not sure why but I will have to look that up. Fortunately the rain ending once our tour was over, but we had a 3-hour bus ride to our hotel in Abbeville and something was up with my stomach that I struggled the whole ride…not good. But my friend Ellen gave me some oils to rub on which seemed to work.

**Back-story to oils: whenever someone is like “oh, you should use some of my oils for that.” First I think, “Right rubbing some oil is going to help my sickness.” Then I always think of my grandma who had oils all the time. Every time you would enter her house or go near her within a radius of like 100 feet, you could always smell her oils that were not the best smelling. Ps I have the nose of a dog, so whenever anything smells weird I will be sure to point it out**

After we arrived at our hotel we were welcomed to an interesting dinner. For those who have seen the movie Errand of Angels, there was a dish we were give that was exactly like the first meal Sister Taylor has to eat at a member’s house. It was some mix of meat or I at least think it was meat. In the movie it was pig snout, something else and gelatin. Yeah it tasted like cat food. But later we were served chicken with frites! Love me some frites.

Sorry for the catch up game and lack of pictures. It takes FOREVER to post all the ones I want, let alone just one picture is way to long. The next post will be all of the pictures for this post.

Thanks for sticking with me.

XOxo lauren

^^^any of you think of Nacho Libre?^^^

(Big kiss, Big hug, little kiss, little hug)

disneyland paris.

First off, you would think Paris would be up to date on the whole free WiFi but they aren't. The internet is so spotty here it is ridiculous...I'm using an ethernet cable. Oh and the French pronounce WiFi Wee Fee which we make fun of all the time. 

On Sunday we went to Versailles to go to stake conference which I was late for because a group of us decided to follow a kid who know where he was going but we ended up across town at another church that was not it. So we trekked across town to the other side to get to the convention center where stake conference was being held, which was right by the Chateau we need to visit afterward. This little trip included an hour to an hour and a half of travel on the train, which we didn't have to take because there was a train much closer to the convention center that got there much quicker too and it was freezing in a skirt, so I was not in the best mood for stake conference or the rest of the day. 

After stake conference which was great to listen in French and English (a missionary was translating for us) we headed to the Hall of Mirror which is where Marie Antoinette lived. The Hall were very pretty and luxurious but freaking crowded, there were so many people there it was insane. After we went to the gardens, they went on for miles. It was neat to see how well kept they were, it was beautiful! Just a brief summary of what I did on Sunday, and now back to what the post is really about...

DISNEYLAND PARIS!

Yesterday on Monday we had a group of about 12 that went to Euro Disney. It was great, maybe except for the weather at the beginning because it was pouring, but overall a fun adventure. They had 2 parks there at Euro Disney, Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios. We headed to Disneyland first because that's what you're supposed to do whenever you go to Disney. They were celebrating their 20th anniversary so there were lots 20's everywhere. 

We went to Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

They had beautiful stained glass telling the story of Sleeping Beauty, the fairies were always my favorite.

Aurora and Phillip.

Mr. Smee.

I was entrusted with the time card at Buzz Lightyear, as you can tell I was excited.

Mad-Hatter Tea cups.

Paesha, Me and Demarie in the Tea Cups.

Walt and Mickey with a little reenactment. 

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream on Main Street, sadly no waffle cones.

Vermuntster and Cookie Dough

It's a Small World, glad to know other countries think we are all cowboys.

One of my new favorite things to do in Frontierland...but it was 2 Euros so I wasn't gonna pay that when at Disneyland Cali it's only 50 cents!

A cute pink Mickey Mouse.

Disneyland was lots of fun! We went on Space Mountain and had a little episode with some throw-up. This kid totally just threw up everywhere and we saw this happening before our eyes, it was disgusting. We also went on Hollywood Tower of Terror which is always a favorite, and then we went on Rock'n Rollin Coster, it was like being at an Aerosmith concert while being on a Roller Coaster, it was awesome. Then there was this other called Crush's Coaster, it was like being on the EAC with Crush and Squirt. I had my first Fish n Chips experience, it was quite good! Overall it was a great day in Euro Disney. One thing that was weird was that men were in the LADIES bathroom. Hello there were men's bathrooms too, I don't know why they were in there, maybe it is some weird French culture thing they do. Welp that's it for now, today we leave Paris to travel around France for a bit then to Belgium and Amsterdam. 

Au Revoir.

delectable.

Being in Paris you think of all the scrumptious French foods like crepes, baguettes, fancy cheeses and croissants. Although nutella crepes are divine, I found a new love for gyros and fancy gelato. Here are some pictures of some lumping awesome food I ate while here in Paris!

{Cami, Demarie and I with our gyros}

These are the best thing ever! First you take the pita and lather some sour cream or some greek sauce that is amazing. Then you add the lamb of awesomeness, lettuce, tomatoes and to top it all off FRIES! (Does this remind any of you of Sandlot? s'mores...) This was tres tres bon. 

This was the delicious gelato place and supposedly the best in Paris. It is called Amorino and they sell gelato of all sorts and I think belgian waffles or something like that. But they make your gelato into a little petite flower with all the different flavors you choose.  I chose hazelnut, nutella and strawberry, of course the hazelnut and nutella were practically the same but let's be real they were scrumptious plus the strawberry was great!

Earlier yesterday we went to the Notre Dame to walk inside and climb to the top. This is me hanging out with my gargoyle friends plus the view of Paris.

{Cami, Me and Carol at the Top of Notre Dame}

We climbed into the little doorway to go and see the bell in the tower, sadly I didn't see Quasimodo ringing the bells. They don't ring this bell anymore because it causes structural damage to the building, so they just play recordings. 

{Inside the Cathedral}

The Cathedral inside is amazing! The stained glass is unreal and so intricate. Later we went to Sainte-Chapelle to see the chapel there in the Palace de Justice. The upstairs windows were all stained glass and the room with filled with different colors of light from the windows. It is crazy how detailed each pane is and different each on is.

{Sainte-Chapelle}

Just a little taste of what I am having in Paris.
Enjoy.

bon appétit.

overload.

Bonjour mon amis! 

Hello my friends!

I hope everything is well back in the good ol' USA. Paris is just dandy. The So for the past couple of days I have been not so good on keeping up to date the things we have done, so bear with me as I try to go through 3 days worth of seeing Paris. Here we go!

Monday

We had a 3 hour long tour of Paris, where we were able to romp around the city and see it from a different point of view. It was awesome to just wander and explore the streets of Paris. Although the tour was FOREVER, it was great learn different things about the city, the people and the culture. 

Here are a few highlights from the tour.

For the Ratatouille Fans out there, here is where Chef Gusteau's Restaurant is supposed to be. It is on the Seine River and just south of it is Notre Dame. 

 Chef Gusteau's Restaurant 

We went to the bridge called "Lock Bridge" because of all the locks people come to put on to "lock" their love with one another. Funny thing is someone from the city comes and cuts the locks off every so often that they don't last that long. 

The Louvre. The LOUVRE. On our tour we just walked around it, but it is beautiful! The architecture here is magnificent that these pictures don't do it justice. Bonus, they were setting up for Fashion Week next week here! Later on I'll talk more about my trip to the Louvre.

After a long 3 hours and walking a bagillion miles, our tour was over. We ended right at the start of the 

Champs-Elysees, the 2nd most expensive street in Paris (it's similar to 5th Ave in New York but much, much more to see and walk). Which I might also add is FOREVER long, but filled with luxurious designer shops like Hugo Boss, and Louis Vuitton (which had a line for the entrance all the way around the corner).  At the end of Champs-Elysee is the Arc de Triomphe, which is a large archway built for Napoleon and his victories. I spent a couple euros to climb to the top, which is about 550+ stairs that are in a spiral to the top, let's just say my legs felt a little like jelly after that, but the view was gorgeous. I saw almost all of Paris and almost all of the main sites the city is know for. 

Tuesday

This was the first day of many we had to ourselves to plan, but we had plenty of museums to see for our classes. First we went to the Les Invalides, which is an army museum filled with all kinds of history and exhibits. The ones I enjoyed were World War I and World War II memorial exhibit and Napoleon's tomb. It was HUGE! For just a small man this thing was like 20x his size. It was a bit of a let down because it looked like fake wood, you would like it would be bedazzled in jewels and gold but it's not. 

We hurried of to the Musee de Rodin, who was a famous and great sculptor. There were many pieces I liked but the ones that stuck out to me were The Kiss, The Thinker, Gates of Hell, and The Age of Bronze. 

After Rodin we headed over to Musee D'Orsay, which is quite a large museum. It starts from where the Louvre ended, from 1842-1916. Here we saw pieces of Edouard Manet and Vincent Van Gogh. The art is spectacular to see because it is the real deal, no fake or knock off imitation, it's the real thing! It is still unreal to me that Paris has so much history and artifacts from it. Later we wandered back over to Notre Dame to find this gelato shop our tour guide recommended, but we had no luck so we ended up buying crepes! My first ever REAL crepe from Paris, a piece of me squealed with excitement. I got a nutella with walnuts crepe...it was fresh to death, as you can tell I was super excited to eat. We went and ate our crepes by the Seine River right by Notre Dame with an old man playing an accordion...doesn't get more french than that right? 

Plus I bought a France tshirt...you can see in the coming pictures.

Wednesday

We started bright and early and went to the Pantheon which was a Christian Basilica but later turned into a monument in Paris. Here it houses many famous and life changing people. Here are the only ones I knew: 

Voltaire

Victor Hugo

Marie Curie

Alexandre Dumas

A bonus was finding the man who invented or came up with Braille, Louis Braille. 

We then made our way to the L'Orangerie which is close to the Louvre and Champ-Elysee but we stopped for some yummy ice cream. They made it into a little flower with the different flavors you got. Once at the L'Orangerie we say Claude Monet's Water lilies, which was absolutely stunning, his eye for detail and for mixing colors so well made the pieces sing. There was four large murals on each wall in a room that was an ellipse and there was another room just the same that had another set of four murals, both were to symbolize eternity or infinite, that it never ends. Then we say some of Renoir's paintings, Cezanne, Matisee as well as some of Picasso's. 

After a short break we headed over to the Louvre. It was ginormous! I had absolutely no clue where to go and where to look that it was just a picture overload. Plus with all the previous museums we went to it was just too much after a while. But besides that I really enjoyed the Louvre once I knew where to go and what to see. We say the Victory Wings, Venus de Milo, and the most prized art piece everyone and their dog comes to see, The Mona Lisa. We were lucky to have not fought  our way to the front to see the piece, but it was beautiful! In the picture it's not that in focus but you can see it in the background. That thing is behind 5 inches thick of glass, just think what it would take to crack that! Our tour guide told us that some tried to throw a shoe, and even a bottle of pee...um can you say gross, who the lump does that? 

The Louvre is so huge it will take 8 years to see every piece of art with only looking at it for 30 seconds. Our tour guide Sam told us some people have a race of who can sprint the Louvre the fastest, so far the record is 12 minutes...with only 9 arrests to trying and get that. 

(It's not sponsored by the Louvre)

Well that pretty much sums up the last couple of days here and how I spent them. As I said before OVERLOAD of museums...and the metro.

Au Revoir.

bonjour.

Bonjour from Paris! 

It has been quite an eventful two days so far. The flight here was so so so long! I really didn't know what to do during that time. I read and read and read Jane Eyre, managed to get about two hours of sleep that flight which was no fun with such small space. Oh plus all the free booze that everyone was drinking  Then we got to the Paris Airport in the morning the next day where we had no clue to go because everything was in French, no figure right? It took us almost an hour just to get our ticket for the train to Paris, that did not include the bus we had to take to just get to the train because apparently all the trains and metro were down on Saturday. Then we went on the metro, which is not as nice as the subways in New York, and that is saying something, but they do have nice carpet seats...gross. But you have to walk EVERYWHERE, no wonder most Europeans are so fit. After getting of the Metro we had to walk, what seemed like a mile or more, to our  hotel which is like a small apartment. Trying doing all of that with a backpack stuffed with heaviness and lugging two suitcases up and down those blasted stairs and in between the seats of the train/metro...equals not much fun and blisters up the ying-yang on your hand. *note to self: bring only ONE bag next time!

After getting to the hotel 4 hours later, we were all exhausted and tired from the long trek we had to go and walk some more. First we got a little tour of our hotel and where the market is, which has the best best croissant I have ever eaten, it was butter and soft yet it had a nice crust to it. Back to the tour, we then walked about a 10 minutes give or take to the Eiffel Tower! It was filled with tourists up the wazoo and plenty of street venders trying to sell you mini Eiffel Towers. It was great to see it and just walk about the city for a bit, but I would have enjoyed much more if I had a couple more of hours sleep. But overall it was a successful day in Paris. It is a nice city filled with neat architecture, and  lots of smokers, like a lot of smokers....I really hate that smell.

After a glorious sleep we were off to church (a small group of 10), all French speaking. It took awhile to get to the church, we left about an hour and a half to get there. We had to the Metro and two different trains to get there, plus about a mile or so to walk to the building. It was fun just traveling about the city finding our way there, walking about the small streets while a like a street market was going was great! Once we got there the church, which is squished in between two building, wasn't open yet but there were three members there waiting. We trying to ask if they spoke English but they didn't so it was hard to communicate with them. Others started coming and we all said our "Bonjour" and they just rambled on in French, which I had no clue what the were saying. First we went to Relief Society in a small room that later we had to change because we had so many ladies. We sang the Hymns in French which was hard to do because I have absolutely no background in French, but I went tried as best I could. Then we had our lesson taught in French but a nice member was kind enough to translate for us non-French speakers. Then we had Sunday school that was in English, it was great to finally understand something, after that we had Sacrament meeting. It was great to see all the members there, most are converts, but it was nice to know that the Church is True where ever you go no matter the language barrier. After Church, we make the trek back to the hotel and later today we are going to explore the city some more, maybe like go see Notre Dame. Tomorrow we have a 3 hour tour of the city then we have free time everyday to see the museums for class or just explore the city until we leave to travel more of France. So that is it for now, kind of a long post but there is more great adventures to come!

Au Revoir! 

seven.

Exactly seven days from today I will be off to the city of lights! I can't wait to live in Europe for the next couple of months!