FAMILY!!!

Yes. I cried when I saw them. I’m such a baby sometimes. I was so excited I couldn’t pay attention in any of my classes today and it was hard because I don’t have a cell phone here so I couldn’t just call them and see when they were coming. So I just waited and waited by the door. Haha. I was like a little child. My family finally arrived and we all embraced one another. I thought I could hold it together until when I got to my mom she was sobbing so I lost it. I love her so much! I get my crying when happy curse from her. We had so much fun just laughing, hugging and catching up. We then headed to Oxford Street where we did some shopping and then went to some museums. Surprise we got separated in the Victoria and Albert Museum and we never did end up finding each other so thankfully we had set up the London center as a meeting place in case we did get split up so eventually Cailey, Cami, Caitlyn (Cami’s friend that came with them), and I met up with mom and Kenna at my home. By then it was getting pretty late and we had tickets to go see Love Never Dies! We ran to the tube and barely made it to the show on time. Love never dies is the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. It is brand new and it was amazing. Well the story was kind of strange…. But so is the original phantom. The music is amazing though. Absolutely breathe taking. This play takes place in Coney Island so you can imagine how eerie it was with the circus atmosphere. But I quite enjoyed it. And being with my family made it better. Thank you Broadway and thank you Andrew Lloyd Webber for the amazing night.

Today I just explore London and had a good time roaming the streets and getting lost in little shopping markets. London is seriously the best! I was able to go see a play at the Shakespeare Globe. It. Was. Incredible. Funniest play I have ever seen. Hands down. It is called Comedy of Errors. The characters were hilarious and it was so much fun! We were in the standing are but that didn’t even matter because I was so entertained! Oh the wonderful, fun little entertaining things you can do here in London. After the play we walked the streets of London for a while. Just for fun. When we got to St. Peters I just stood in awe at its beauty. It is so beautiful with the moon shining on its marvelous dome. I love St. Peters. It is magnificent. Oh and not to mention the fact that my friend Lizzie and I got way lost in the “Bad parts” of London. Clubs everywhere and drunken men walking around. We were kind of scared… but we knew that we would eventually find out way back home and that we would be protected. We were and we eventually found a tube station to get us back home. Just another fun adventure to add to my summer memories.

There's so much in the world that I'd like to soak up with my eyes.
Those are perfect lyrics from a song by Zee Avi called "Just you and me" That's exactly how I feel. There is so much to see and explore in the world that I know I will never be able to experience. But I dream every day about the wonderful places to see and the adventures to be had. I will never stop traveling. I will save and travel and save and travel for the rest of my life. It is my one true love.

My time in London is going all too fast and I don't know what to do. We are already half way done and I only have a month left here in this fairytale life.

Saturday we went to markets like we always do and walked around London.
Unfortunately we have a test on Monday so I spent a lot of the weekend studying. My classes here are not easy by any means. They might just be the hardest classes I've had so far at BYU. A lot of work. but thankfully the work requires me to go out and visit museums and studying paintings. The papers are so much fun to write when you can actually see the paintings in real life and experience them in such a different way than just reading about them. I love this place. I love Art. I love History. I love London. I love life here. Never make me go back.

Goodbye France

Well our France trip is coming to an end. But not to worry! It's not quite over yet! As we rode in the bus to get back to Calais to get on the Ferry, we stopped at a couple of WWII sites. First site was the Lochnagar crater memorial. Wow, this was crazy. Just a huge crater in the middle of a field. Whenever we learn about WWII and go see these sites a piece of my heart breaks for the people that had to endure through it. So many lives lost, and families broken.

I played around in the wheat field after and had a good time. Sometimes my child instinct kicks in and I immediately want to play orphans and run through the fields away from the children catcher... strange i know, but it makes for a good time!
Our next stop was Battle of the Somme memorial. Wow, this was a somber experience. So many names listed on this huge memorial. I walked around for a bit and then just sat as so many thoughts went through my mind. All I could think about is how God must feel seeing his children fight in war. His beautiful creations fighting and killing each other. It must be heart breaking to him. Not to mention all of the paint each soldier feels, along with all of the families. Heavenly Father's heart must just break. But thankfully He gives the wounded comfort. I know I definitely had to pray for some comfort while reading down a list of names. Very humbling experience. Thank you to all who served or who are serving our country! I love you and am thankful for you!

We stopped at a couple more memorial sites before we headed to catch the ferry back to England. We even got to put a small cross by the grave of our choice at one of the cemeteries.

Heading back on the ferry! We played lots of fun games to entertain ourselves... Love these people!

France Trip: Day 4

Today we spent our last couple of hours in Paris on the Eiffel Tower! We took the stairs to the first elevator (which was quite a trek) and then decided to pay for a ticket to the top. Why not, right? You only live once. So we waited and finally got to the top. Emily was freaking out. haha. We were all laughing so hard because she could barely move. It reminded me of my dad. The last time I was on the top of the Eiffel tower my dad was freaking out. Emily and my dad would get along great. I have to admit, I am so terrified of heights as well. I get it from my dad. I wasn't as paralyzed as Emily, but it definitely took strength for me to move around. We debated asking some random guys to kiss us so we could say that we had been kissed on the Eiffel tower... but we chickened out and didn't. Too bad. It would have made for a good story. We played around and took some pictures and then headed to the elevator for the long ride back down.

So This whole time of climbing stairs, and riding elevators I had one earphone in with my ipod playing french music. It was fantastic. I wish that we had background music to our lives. How awesome would that be. I'm a hopeless romantic so I actually have music playing in my head in a lot of situations of my life. So retarded I know but it just comes to me! haha.

After some girls headed to get a crepe but me and Emily wanted to go see Sainte-Chapelle. We walked through the streets of Paris stopping to take lots of pictures. (something me and Emily do... a whole lot!) I am SO glad that we decided to go to this small chapel. It is famous for it's stained glass and it was B-E-A-Utiful!

We walked around and just soaked up our last little taste of Paris and then headed back to our Hostel to get on the bus for our next adventure. We all bought some snacks for the road in a small grocery store and the headed to AMIENS!!

So I absolutely adore this town. It is so cute and pretty much picture perfect. We wanted to get to the Amien's Cathedral (The whole reason we came here) before it closed and we came into town with only about 20 minutes to spare. All the girls were too tired but Emily and I just didn't want to miss any opportunity so we ran and found the cathedral and boy am I glad that we did! It was only us and the professors that made it into the cathedral before it closed. It was the most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen. And I have seen more than I can even count. I can honestly say it is my favorite cathedral. The ceilings are amazingly high and are so because the people who built it wanted the high ceilings to represent heaven. I walked around in amazement for about 15 minutes. I wish I had longer to admire the art and architecture, but unfortunately they kicked us out. I saw the most wonderful sculpture in this cathedral. It is special because normally people sculpt Mary holding Jesus as a baby but this one is of Joseph holding Christ. It is such a sweet statue and I teared up a bit while admiring it. A very sweet experience. I am so grateful I was able to see this particular cathedral. I have seen so many cathedrals that I have seen and forgotten about, but I will never forget this one. I walked around it a couple times trying to memorize every painting, sculpture, and aspect of the architecture. I didn’t leave until I absolutely had too.

After we walked and met up with a bunch of other girls for dinner at a café. We had a lovely dinner and then headed back to the hotel. On the way home Emily and I ran into some LDS missionaries! We were so excited! Haha. I just love that we always seem to run into missionaries no matter where we are in the world. I we chatted with them a bit about the church and the members in that area and then headed back home.

Now this is probably the best part about Amiens and just made me love my Cathedral ever more. Every night they have a light show where they project lights onto the cathedral the colors that they originally were painted way back when. People gathered in the town square and sat on the pavement while music was played and a story about the cathedral was read in French for the whole town to hear. It was incredible. And quite magical really. I sat there next to my professors and their wives and just tried to soak in this amazing experience. Truly one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life.

That little angel on the bottom is a famous WWII symbol. And this Statue of Joseph and Jesus is one of my all time favorite statues. It is so sweet and it is one of the very few that actually show Joseph with the baby Jesus. I experienced something very special while looking at this statue and it will always hold a special place in my heart.

France trip: day 3

Who said we couldn’t do every single thing we wanted to in one day? Whoever did was more than wrong. We made a list last night of things to do in Paris today and boy did we hit them all and then some.

We found our way to the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur. This Basilica has a very different look from the ones we have seen so far. The basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city.

After we admired and awed for a bit we turned around and took a look at the view of the city. As we did this, there was a rush of applause's and ohs and awes. We looked and saw a man proposing to a girl. He had people holding a huge sign that said “Will You Marry Me?” It was adorable. We over heard the happy couple’s blissful story and then we girls walked away feeling quite joyful about life. Oh sweet love. Haha. After we had fun walking around admiring the paintings that were being sold along the streets. One man was quite convinced he could get me to buy a 200euro painting. Little did he know I am close to broke now. :)

Our next stop was nothing other than the Louvre. I got to see one of my favorite pieces. “Nike Winged Victory of Samothrace!” It is just beautiful! Of course we saw the popular works: Mona Lisa, Venus De Milo… etc. I’ve studied a bunch of the works in this Museum so I just love being able to see them in real life. It is a little discouraging picking what you want to see in the Louvre since it is something like 15 acres big with nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century. Yikes! I wanted to see it all! Maybe next time I'm in Paris... sigh....

Next up!? * RAIN*

I have never before seen rain fall that hard before. We were just outside of the Louvre taking pictures and exploring when we heard some drip drops. And then BOOM! Waterfall! We ran to safety… which was already filled with people so we didn’t really fit under the roof of the Louvre. So Umbrellas went up!

We waited for a while and then realized we would be there for a while so we got our lunches out and ate French sandwiches in the rain at the Louvre. At that moment I didn’t even care that it was raining. Life was perfect.

The rain let up a little bit so we walked along the river and sang in the rain realizing that Paris is wonderful, rain and all! We ran to a little bistro when the rain started to fall harder and got Crepes. Amazing banana Nutella crepes. We laughed and talked to the funny French waiter. FInall we gave up on rain and decided to just live it up while soaked.

We ran and finally got to Notre Dame de Paris. Can you believe they were going to tear this building down? Thank you, Victor Hugo! We walked around and enjoyed the beautiful stained glass. Then we sat down and listened to the music playing. It was still raining hard so we decided to stay a while. Oh, and guess what I can now say I have done? I have taken a nap in Notre Dame! Haha We all were so tired from running and going all day that we fell asleep on a bench for about 20 minutes. Then we moved on out and walked around back to see the flying buttresses.

We saw many more places such as

Centre Georges-Pompidou

The Panthéon

Latin Quarter.

Les Invalides

But my favorite part was just walking down the streets of Paris. I think we walked probably 20 miles today. Haha. I have no idea how far but we walked a LONG way form place to place and counting the times we got lost… it probably was around that many miles. Ha. One thing that is so bittersweet about Paris is that even though I walked all day and saw so much I know I still missed so many great and wonderful things about this town. Now that’s the bitter part, the sweet part is that I know that I can come back to Paris and explore so many new places. It will never get old.

We went to a nice Restaurant for dinner… Splurged a bit… and then headed over to a park to watch the Huge FIRE WORK SHOW!! Today is Bastille Day here in France! And they have one of the biggest fire works show in the world at the Eiffel Tower! I was so excited I couldn’t contain myself. Fireworks are one of my most favorite things! I was so giddy! And let me tell you… it did not disappoint. There were tons of people and the firework show was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It never ended!! We ran around on the grass, laughed, awed, and had the most amazing night watching fireworks in Paris.

I feel so incredibly blessed to have experienced all that I did today. It was perfect.