did i mention?

i am home.

i found my way, toured london, grudgingly left l'abri (not without a few tears), navigated a taxi, a train, the tube, the chunnel, the metro (not without begging for spare euros to pay for my trip to the airport, which granted me five euros, an e-mail address and a moroccan boyfriend), sleeping in the paris airport and two planes (including a delay in newark that was longer than the flight itself).

currently i inhabit a lovely house on jacksonville beach with four lovely girls. who knows what adventures the future holds (cheesefest 2008)


l'abri manor house

welcome to the 21st century

how fun is the internet? i can tell you (IN REAL TIME!) that i am lost in london. i am attempting to find the london city mission, but i've been lost for about an hour. i stopped at an internet cafe to look up directions and such, but i paid for a half an hour so i figure i'd better do some other things for my 200% markup. while this may not be the best thing to be telling worried family members...it's still kind of fun, right?

dear reader

you can find a lot of information and a map of my location here: http://www.labri.org/england/.

update, everything is going great and well. today was our first day off, we went to the nearby village of petersfield. it was an adorable, picturesque english town. after dinner there was a rainbow and we could see the entire arc, it was amazing.

best decision ever

so thanks to the insight of family and friends, i am currently in greatham, england at the english l'abri. wow. this place is ridiculous. i don't really think i'll have much time to write on here, and the end of the pictures has probably arrived. if i get wifi somewhere, i might be able to upload some things. but anyways, it is going well (although it is COLD!)

bargain!

so i just bought these awesome moccasins for ONE EURO.

they were priced at 10€, marked 50% off and rang up for ONE EURO.

i am so excited right now.

(bargain hunter on TWO continents...actually asia and africa too....pretty much everywhere i've been)

fête de la musique!

well well well well well.

what a day.
i started by going to "les puces" (the flea markets) in the morning. the timeline was like: 1st hour: I LOVE THESE FLEA MARKETS! 2nd hour: ok im still into this, but less so. 3rd hour: how do i get out of these flea markets, right now? there was a lot of cool vintage stuff, but also a lot of ghetto knockoffs too. i bought some earrings and two scarves.

and then. fête de la musique. i met up with my friend jennifer at the san michel fountains, right as the festivities were beginning. you can tell it was going to be quite an evening.
some boys took a shower in the fountain.


so we ended up going to the bastille. there was supposed to be some big concert there. we hung around there a while, and then started making our way towards another part. there was literally music everywhere, anyone who could play an instrument did. every type of music, every kind of person. it was quite exciting. this was also the first time that i had been out in paris at night (walking back from the metro at night is a bad idea) and so that was cool. we found this like drumline group with a small crowd, and it can only be done justice in a video (first time for this blog!)

[note: i did not post this yet because the videos are taking a really long time to put online, so not videos now, sorry]

it was like a musical, everyone dancing along in the streets and marching down the road.

we had some delicious pizza and then walked a little further, where we found a band that was playing the macarena! awesome! they also played the worlds worst version of sweet home alabama. we had an extremely sketchy metro experience and got a nutella crepe, probably not the best idea.

i don't even know what to say, it was such a crazy night. note: skirts and grates are not a good combination. i love the fête de la musique!

trifold happiness

so today is a BIG day here in paris, france (nay, the world)

it is:
a. the first day of SUMMER
b. the longest day of the year
c. fête de la musique!

i have certainly been awaiting this day for quite some time!
its basically free music, in the streets, all over paris, all day and night long! yes, please!

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fête_de_la_Musique



it's sunny and it's warm and i am going to wear a skirt for the first time. more later!

get me a red hat

because i think i just became an old lady

i pretty much lived the retirement life today. i went to giverny, which is monet's home about an hour outside of paris. but wait, alison, didn't you have school today? why yes, concerned reader, but i skipped it in favor of a more educational experience. strike number 1: i went on a weekend (prime old lady time) strike number 2: i went to an old house and a garden (places old ladies love) strike number 3: there were a lot of other old ladies there.

hey sometimes old people know where its at. (no, they don't.)*

but anyways, it was really cool. it was super untouristy and uncrowded and i think if monet had lived there and not painted there would have been another french revolution because that would just be ridiculous.

but i know what you greedy folks are after: not words, but pictures. i will be the enabler of your insatiable demands.
(by the way, it weirdly cropped them so if you want to see full size just click on it.)





me, yadel, some iranian woman who did not speak english or french, and marie claire








beth look at this plaque!


*note, this is a blatant swipe at 75% of my readership

what what did someone say two posts in one day? i think they did, and i think it was me.

pictures:

sacre coeur


the grass slope in front of sacre coeur...we definitely laid in the grass for an hour or so and it was nice


the view of the eiffel tower from the top of sacre coeur (a view i earned after martin-luthering it up those stairs)


ok i had a cool picture of sacre coeur from the eiffel tower but i forgot to upload it. if there is popular demand i might do it later.

just this classy store we went into...it looks like a church....the church of commerce


just me on the roof of the classy store, in from the the opera (yes as in christine, raoul ♥ and the phantom of)


and finally
marie claire and driss with my delicious cake that i made (see todays previous post)


it turned out sooooo good, looks like i am an expert baker on two continents

domestication

so mom commented on the title of last post, paris is burning. i had heard it somewhere, i think as the title of a gilmore girls episode, but i didn't know where it came from? oh, just this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_is_Burning_(film). haha.

i was like sooo domestic today. well first i went to church at the american church in paris. it was pretty cool. it was cool inside, with stained glass and stuff. i went to the contemporary service at 1:30.

yadel and i did laundry for the first time. its amazing how complicated something easy is when its in a different language. it cost us 13 euros to wash and dry 2 loads of laundry...ridic. they weren't even entirely dry in the end. thats like $20 by the way. i am going dirty from here on out.

then i just made a cake! seriously. i am so impressive. i did it all on my own. this was my recipe, word for word.

"gateau au chocolat.
4 ouef
200 g sucre
200 g chocolat
200 g buerre
fondre au bain-marie chocolat et buerre
melanger sucre et oeuf
rajouter le melange chocolat et buerre
40 min au bain-maire"

oh my gosh. we will see how this turns out. i will try to interpret it for you:
chocolate cake
4 eggs
200 g sugar (i hope you have a measuring cup in grams, i bet you don't)
200 g chocolate (one bar of baking chocolate)
200 g butter (4/5 of a french bar)

mix the chocolate and butter in a double-boiler
mix the eggs and sugar together
add the chocolate and butter into the sugar mixture
cook for forty minutes in some confection oven thing at a degree which i do not know

good luck!

now its cold again. what is this, jacksonville? oh jacksonville, i miss you.

so today was exciting because i have been looking for a bookstore that has used books in english. well today i found one, and it was a JACKPOT! i have decided since i have lots of time to linger and parks abound, this shall be a summer of reading. i bought "a picture of dorian gray" (written in montmartre, oscar wilde is buried in paris) and "les miserables" (duh) with a grand total of 2.28 euros. bargain! i paid with four coins.

list of trends that are still popular in paris but not in the u.s.:
converse
scooters
leggings
rollerblades

i saw cops on rollerblades today, it made my life.

yadel and i had a conversation (as it was) with driss about americans and philosophy and environmentalism. before you get too impressed, i must say that i did not say a lot, mostly because it was super hard to try and figure out what he was saying, process it and figure out if i knew what to say and how to say it. quite complicated. it was really weird to hear someone non-american bashing americans, i definitely had some defensiveness well up in me that i didn't know existed.

paris is burning

not really but it is very hot.

friends! i have so many friends, its not even funny. haha. i made some new friends in my class today. this boy valentin, he is from germany but he is asian. confusing. he is super funny and i love him a lot. he is like david wagner + josh jarvis. funny because i'm pretty sure no one knows both of them except me. maybe in the whole world. that a weird thought. anyways. we were partners in class and we work at lightning speed. i also talked to this girl miwa from japan. she was nice. this was entirely in french, btw.

i went to the eiffel tower today and went up! it was pretty cool. i have some sweet pictures from sacre coeur yesterday overlooking the city and the eiffel tower and then pictures from today looking at sacre coeur. perspectives. oh did i mention sacre coeur? yes, i went. i climbed literally 1000 steps, i am not even kidding. i thought i was going to die. but i didn't. it was really nice. i mean no saint chappelle, but what can you ask for, really? as for those steps, i think it was worth it. as yadel said, "we are young."

i went to the american church in paris tonight and their young people's group. it was nice to speak english in a group and meet other people. surprisingly only about half the people were even american. we made pizza and it was delicious.

ok so bye.

p.s. grandpa i really like that you leave comments on my blog, i'm pretty sure none of my friend's grandpa's leave comments on their blogs so that makes me and you like 900 times cooler. you are partially to blame for this traveling anyways, putting in my bones.

the french open

so first pictures from saint chappelle and versailles, then the french open (which is a tennis tournament, btw, part of the grand slam with wimbledon, the us open and the australian open)!




the gardens at versailles


a cute family having a picnic that i creepily took a picture of


garden of the king (just one section in the huge garden)


inside: everything was ridiculous and gold-plated. i took a lot of pictures but they all kind of look alike. if you want to see more when i come home, you can.






bye friends going the other way on the train!


today: great day or greatest day?
oh yeah SO yesterday, marie claire asked me if i wanted to go to the french open (called roland garros...super confusing cause i thought that was someone's name but it's the event). i didn't have anything to do, so i was like, uh ok. i went with her and driss in her bic car (seriously, it's made by bic. like the pens and lighters. well thats like the edition or something? its all bic-themed). it was the last day, so we watched the final match of the legends. it was funny because it wasn't like tense at all, because it was these old guys playing tennis for fun. it was like a stand-up comedy show. i saw john mcenroe play doubles with a swedish guy (♥) against a french guy and an iranian guy, Mansour Bahrami. the iranian guy was ridiculous. i just wikipedia'd him and apparently he is "tennis's most entertaining player". i thought it was pretty cool to see mcenroe play, especially since he was throwing his signature tantrums before i was born.



the big, final match was that day but we didn't have tickets for that. they were showing it on a huge screen on the next court, so we went in there and watched it. it was pretty cool. i only had heard of roger federer (swiss!), who is no. 1 in the world right now, he was playing rafael nadal from spain.

federer lost. boo. but i was like adopted by marie claire and driss, they packed a delicious lunch for me and bought me a post card and ice cream! it's like the family i never had! (just kidding, real family). afterwards, they drove me all around and saw a ton of things in paris. it was a great day.

dinner party!

i went to versailles today. i don't have pictures up yet. it was cool. i went with ian and his two friends from unf, chayla and shonda. that was fun. they leave tomorrow. it was a really good day to go to versailles, the weather was pretty nice and it wasn't too crowded. it was still a little crowded for our tastes and we got a little claustrophobic. more on versailles when i put up pictures.

so i had my first french dinner party tonight. actually probably my first dinner party ever. i didn't even get to wear a cocktail dress, one of the things i've been looking forward to for a long time just cause the concept of wearing a cocktail dress to a dinner party is so grown-up.

marie claire's cousin david and his wife colleen and their baby elise and also marie claires boyfriend driss came for dinner. it lasted from 7:00-11:00 pm and we were literally eating the whole time. ok this is the menu:
aperatif:
chinese snack mix stuff
pina colada liqueur

first course:
hard salami
carrot-cilantro salad
pickled ginger
baguette

main course:
some sausage thing (not really sure what that was)
ratatouille (!)
fried potato wedges
baguette
white wine

cheese course:
three different cheeses
baguette

dessert:
strawberry tart
hibicuis tea

how ridic is that? it just kept coming. it was a lot better than it sounds, when i type it out its kind of gross sounding. but yeah, i understood about 15% of the conversation. maybe. between mrs. morreale's delicious italian cooking and marie claire's authentic french food, i'm gonna get the whole european union cuisine experience.

oh, mes pieds

this entire blog is dedicated to my feet. they have definitely gone beyond the call of duty. i might not have to pay gas prices, but i'm gonna have to pay pedicure prices (which are inflated due to the rising gas prices...)

oh yeah, i know i also told some of you before about the article i read about biking at versailles (where i am going tomorrow). here it is online. thanks to the morreale's bathroom magazines for this. :-)

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/ride-through-versailles/

so i am so happy that people are reading my blog! you know what that means to a reformed(?) emo kid like myself.

i definitely saw the most beautiful thing today that i have ever laid eyes on. at least that was made by man, mt. fuji and les dents du midi were pretty sweet too...

saint-chappelle! it is the amazing chapel near notre dame and it has the most glorious stained glass. it was built in the 13th century and has like 1,113 scenes in it, telling the entire story of the bible. seriously incredible. there are two chapels built on top of each other, and the bottom one is like the peasant one and then the top could only be reached by royalty. we went in the bottom one first, and i didnt know there was a second floor. like half the bottom floor was a gift shop and i was like, seriously, i paid 4 euros for this? this is super lame. and then, we went up this tiny winding dark staircase and at the top was this magnificent chapel. it is designed with the light to look like you are entering heaven, and it was did. i'm pretty sure i literally gasped. i don't have the pictures of my own up yet (not that they are super great) but here are some from the internet:


the back, depicting the apocalypse


these pictures in no way do this chapel any sort of justice.

oh and also there was like a professional shusher in the chapel. she just sat there and said "shhh!" like every 5 minutes. dream job?

i met ian too and we hung out! it was awesome, we had some mcdonalds and watched the office. just like home. oh and he said he read this, so hey, ian! and thanks for a fun day!

i am so happy to be sharing this with you all. since i wish you were here, this is second best.

please pray for me:
-that i will make good decisions and be safe
-that i will not be homesick
-that i will appreciate this gift to be here and make the most of it
-that i will find more about myself and my future
-especially that i will grow closer to God. the beauty and the grand history of this place often draws my mind to things of Christ.

and now, with photos

i spent the whole day alone today. it was great.

as promised: photos!


my room at marie-claire's


the view out the window

looking fresh après flight

the kitchen

yadel and me at the louvre

a fountain at luxembourg gardens

notre dame

close up of arc de triomphe

and.....because you know i couldn't resist (jenny is probably to blame for the posing like statues)

common outrage.

i am going to meet my friend ian tomorrow who is studying in paris for the last month. marie claire went to the french open today and saw john mcenroe play. during dinner we watched french american idol. marie claire told me tonight about some great places to go, including the famous flea markets, monmartre and sacre coeur, and the best hot chocolate in paris! c'est bon!

wanderings

so i had my first class today at the alliance française! it's a classy place, i like it. i tested into the second level of beginners (2 out of 4) so i was pretty happy that they didn't stick me in the lowest level. :-) my professor is a silly man with crazy wavy hair and red Converse. the group is about 20 students. in one of the groups i was in, there was 3 americans, one canadian, one iranian, one chinese and one japanese. crazy! all we have in common is french.

afterwards, we walked in the luxembourg gardens, which was beautiful although it was raining. we also wandered around without knowing where we were, which i thought was extremely fun. the metro makes it so easy to get around. i tried to find the place where the Natalie Portman scene was filmed for "Paris, Je T'aime" but i couldn't find it. i was in the right area but not the right place. I will find it.

we went again to notre dame, but this time we went inside. but first we rested outside. i saw all the tourists (it is very easy to spot the tourists: first of all I have an orlando-trained eye, but also the french are so classy that the shorts and crocs really offend your eyes) and it did indeed smell like pee (thanks, Jenny, for making me aware of that) but then we went inside and it was so amazing. fun fact: in that cathedral was the place where they decided that joan of arc was a martyr not a heretic and a witch. i thought it was cool. it was so serene and cool and quiet and there was a choir singing which resonated throughout the whole place. i have this problem where i think i'm the only one that "gets it" sometimes, and at that point, surrounded by noisy tourists, i definitely thought that i was the only one getting it.

let's play a game: there is one thing that i love too much, and i went there today. it's three digits, and one is not a letter.

like a rolling stone

and so i woke up this morning the lovely strains of bob dylan on the [french] radio, singing "how does it feel to be on your own, like a rolling stone" and i thought, you know, bob, it feels pretty good. day two and things are still looking bright.

breakfast consisted of cereal with half and half (BETH!), a bowl full of coffee and baguette. lovely. marie-clarie, her boyfriend driss and their pantsless friend (she was wearing only a t-shirt until driss loaned her a robe...oh la la) were quite jovial. i didn't understand most of what they said, except when they spoke about brad pitt and george clooney.

yadel, another student staying here from mexico, has a friend in Paris and she invited me to come with them for the day. yadel speaks english pretty well so we spoke english today, although we made a pact (probably too strong of a word) that we will speak french later. i bought a monthly metrocard and went to the louvre which is free on the first sunday of every month. we saw the mona lisa, yadel's destination in the louvre. we bought some sandwiches (the club parisien: ham, cheese, tomato and lettuce on baguette) and ate it by the seine. it was very touristy and perfect.

we went to notre dame for a few minutes, but as we arrived it started to rain. everyone was literally running into the cathedral to get shelter from the rain. it struck me as a picture of what Christ should be, a necessity and a refuge. it was very interesting in a so-called "secular" country like France.

somewhere between the louvre and notre dame, i lost my metrocard. yes, my 50 euro metrocard that i had bought that morning, which was supposed to last the whole month. yes, i had to buy a new one. it was not fun. oh well.

i had dinner without the other students tonight, only with marie-claire and driss. they are so nice and very jovial. i went to the train station to make a picture for my metrocard and my school id card, and on the way back i got lost. it was about 9:45 pm, and it was very bright when i went. i was happy with my pictures, listening to my ipod, and walking walking walking until i realized i did not know where i was. it was sort of creepy because it began to get dark but i found my way back.

i don't plan for these all to be just a log of my daily activities, but i am still trying to process everything! please keep me in your prayers! there is no place i would rather be right now.

j'ai arrivée!

And so, here I am, in gay Pair-ee. There are barely words to discribe my mélange of emotions right now, relief and fatigue and excitement. So I’ve been gone less than 24 hours and already things are looking so so bright. A little recap of the day for those who might be interested...

The flights went super smoothly. My bag was overweight by four pounds and according to some thrifty new guidelines I should’ve had to pay $50 for it, but the check-in lady let it slide (more on those four pounds in a moment). No problems except extreme sleeping on my part. I literally can’t stay awake on a plane for more than five minutes. I did watch most of “The Bucket List” but that was definitely time that I should’ve spent sleeping. Note to Beth–”Step Up 2: The Streets” was playing on the plane and I definitely didn’t watch it, although I did consider how you would be mad at me if I didn’t. Props to Continental for their frequent meal services. I think I got like six meals and nineteen drinks on my total 9 hour flight time. Note to Mom: Maybe we should have gotten the travel insurance, Continental is going to wine and dine themselves out of business.

So according to some super sketchy instructions from the Alliance Française, I managed to arrive from the Charles de Gaulle Airport right to the steps of the school. Unfortunately, they are apparently closed on the weekends. Luckily, some super nice man was there who worked there and showed me how to get my homestay house. This was communicated entirely in French. Cha-ching. I was definitely feeling those four pounds of suitcase that the check-in lady graciously let slide as I dragged my 54 pound bag up and down and up and down flights of steps in the Paris metro.

Finally, I arrived at Madame Boulesteix’s apartment in Ivry-sur-Seine, a suburb about 30 minutes or so outside of the heart of Paris. I had read that Ivry is the Chinatown district in Paris, so I was actually worried that she might be Asian. My senses were definitely confused to see all these Asian children and writing on the signs. Again with the schlepping of the bag down several (wrong) streets. And then, this is of course the climax of the whole story:

This place is awesome! Her apartment is super cool! She is extremely nice, doesn’t speak any English (perfect!) and has two other students from Mexico staying here too (who I haven’t met). She told me to call her Marie-Claire (just like my favorite song about Paris, “Where Do You Go To My Lovely” from the Darjeeling Limited) and told me to “tutoier” her, which means to use the informal “you” pronoun, which is a sign of friendship. The best part: My room is amazing! It is teeny, with a double bed that takes up like the entire room, and a dresser and a TV. There is a window that opens and right outside is the “Moulin Blanche”, a huge old white windmill, right in the middle of Ivry-sur-Seine! I could not ask for a better view at all. This is Paris, real Paris, not postcard Paris. I am so so excited about the next eight weeks and how much I am going to learn and discover! I miss you all, but I am très happy to be here! I am going to sleep now, and I can think of nothing better.