Really excited...

to drive again. I got my driver's license the week before we left (Which apparently I had not blogged about! Shame on me!), and so I only had a brief taste of the delicious freedom that came with it. I love driving* and I can't wait to drive again!



*Do note that I do not love driving manually. My dad tried to teach me last week and it was miserable. I know there's a learning curve and all, but... holy complicated!

Les tatas

Just did my first MWP interview today, with some of my favorite people ever: my aunts Adeline and Veronique. Now I won't spoil anything yet, you'll just have to read when it comes out! But I can share a few photos:

Part II of Normandy adventure: Bayeux tapestry

So I was mildly excited to see this at first, because let's face it it's an old piece of cloth and as historic as that is I couldn't imagine it being that cool. But you know, we were there and it's supposedly really famous so we went and saw it--why not?--and I'm really glad we did because it was actually incredible. There is so much detail and just the sheer length of this thing is impressive! (It could probably wrap around an average house) 

You get to the place and before entering the darkened room they hand you a device that looks like a very old cell phone, which you press against your ear to hear the story told by the tapestry (which is actually an embroidered cloth, not a tapestry--there's a difference!). And as you can see below it is very... colorful. 

You know, pillaging, chopping off arms and clubbing people, raping villagers... the usual. Guillaume is victorious and everybody's happy in the end (except for the serfs who lost their villages but they don't count apparently. Oh, and Haley's comet makes an appearance. It's a bad omen.)

Then you can walk on to an expo about the tapestry and how it was preserved, how it's made, etc. And it hit me: it is such a cool idea to record the history of your people in such a vivid manner--the idea was to make it pictorial so even illiterate peasants could understand (ah you see, poor people did matter enough that it was important they know their history!), and it's kind of the same idea with making it accessible to kids don't you think?

So I think it'd be fun to do some sort of project like this that I could add to over time and that would tell our family's story. Eh? Of course, I think I'd go for something a little more... sophisticated than disproportionate guys in chain mail hacking at each other's horses, but it could be a pretty awesome idea. Oh and I'd drop the Latin too. French and English should be plenty enough. Say, for example, something appliquéd onto some sort of quilt or throw, and I could create new ones every couple of years to continue the story. I don't know, but I feel inspired. The craftsmanship that went into this tapestry is so meticulous and so unique that it just comes alive and the stories jump off the cloth. I love it.

Part I of Normandy adventure: Mont St Michel

After taking a pleasant train ride through the French countryside to Caen, Mark & Danielle, Clayton & Amy (our Paris roommates), and Andrew & I all piled into a rental van and made our way towards Mont St Michel. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's a monastery built on a rocky island-ish. I guess technically it's not an island since it isn't always surrounded by water... 

See? Not sure what to call it. Anyway... 

It already looks pretty impressive from the outside. It was quite windy (as it always tends to be along the coast) but the sun was shining brightly as you can see, and once we got into the walls of the fort it was perfect.

I loved just walking around the streets of the place. There's a cathedral at the top, then around that a monastery, then below that a village where there are now plenty of vendors selling their wares and taking advantage of stupid tourists like us :)

I finally got leggings by the way. I feel so scandalous

It was really a magical place though. There were gardens and trees growing out of all the corners so it wasn't at all just a stone cold place--I can see how people would have come here to find peace and commune with God, it's a miniature paradise. And so many birds! They didn't stop chirping one second!

So after walking around and being very tempted by all the crepes (although we had stopped for some on the way--and they were delicious) and the butter cookies, we paid to get into the actual monastery and chapel. (Except I got in free because I'm European. Hehe)

The chapel was beautiful, and very clean, which is something I'm not so used to--the main Bordeaux cathedral is always black from all the pollution!

In the monastery's refectory. I guess this is their interpretation of how monks eat?

Some pretty narrow streets...

And stairways!

This was pretty funny and somewhat unrelated: In the gift shop they had plates for kids that had little sayings about being a lady/princess, like this one below. It was pretty awesome.

"I never leave the table until the meal is done"

A view from the village

Also, I was really excited because every time we'd go on trips you'd see those stupid personalized bracelets or keychains, but they never had my name, only Lydie (the French version of my name). But this time I found mine!

Too bad I really don't want a dolphin bracelet...

That evening we were definitely all tuckered out and promptly fell asleep in the car. Poor Andrew drove though, so he wasn't quite as refreshed as the rest of us when we returned to Bayeux, where our hotel was. We set out to find a place to eat and explored the town a little. Bayeux is gorgeous by the way, it was lovely, complete with a canal cutting through it.

And that's about all for now. Plenty more of picture-intensive posts to come :)

C'est parti pour la Normandie

Not many photos today, just a short update I suppose. Things are going rather well. We have two more roommates as of yesterday; I went to pick up Mark and Danielle at the airport in the morning and let me tell you, it was quite a trek to get through RER, Metro and Trains with all that luggage... I even lost my scarf :( But we made it and we're happy to see them again. Now we're gearing up to leave early tomorrow morning for our weekend road trip!

We're going to be visiting several D-day beaches and the American cemetery in Normandy, and then we'll head over to see the Bayeux tapestry. It's essentially a really long embroidered cloth that tells the story of a big chunk of medieval history.

Funny/embarrassing story.. I'm French right? well, the first time I ever heard of this famous tapestry was at BYU, when I was convinced for the greater part of the semester that my roommate was learning how to make medieval carpets... Thank you, Lindsey Williams, for culturally enlarging my world.

And then we're going to go see Mont St Michel, an abbey/prison/historical site that's located just off the coast: the tides rise and fall so fast that you can drown if you're crossing the sand on foot to get there, so there's a bridge they've built a walkway to get to it.

I think I went there when I was under 2 years old, so I really have no memories of this place. It's also the home of some really, really delicious buttery cookies.

We should probably get some good crêpes bretonnes, we won't be too far off :)

We're eating far too well, and I've regained all the weight I was so proud of losing... oh well. I'll just have to get to work extra hard when I get back. Or now. But having bread every day at every meal is so nice!

Oh and by the way... you have a new reason to love the Mormon Women Project... I'm going to be producing some interviews for them! I already have one set up in Bordeaux, and I'll conduct several of them throughout my stay here. I'm really excited because I love this project and I am so happy to be able to contribute. Plus, it can't hurt my resume, even if it isn't hard news per se :)

And no, I haven't forgotten about my documentary, it's just been really busy. I do have one interview set up for that and as soon as this rush of translations is done I'll have some more time to dedicate to it. (I translated over 6000 words today... ugh)

Oh, also my keyboard is missing three keys, so typing is SUPER FUN! woohoo! at least only one of them is a letter.

And here's a fun family photo courtesy of my uncle:

No, the naked little kid in the white hat is not me :)

Article of the week, or something like that

Just came across this article by Patricia T. Holland on becoming women of greater faith in Christ.

It's a good read :)

Good food, culture and laundry

It may not have been such a good idea to get a really stinky Camembert... because now the kitchen smells like feet every time I open the fridge. Anyway. Just looking at what's inside our fridge makes me happy enough to counteract the bad odor. Real yogurts. Grenadine syrup. Country bread. Lardons. Ahhhh life is good. I just about die every time we go grocery shopping because I have to force myself to not grab everything I see... it's all about pacing yourself, but self-restraint is just so hard!

Yesterday we slept in, then cleaned, then did our grocery shopping and bought fantastic food, came home and prepared a fantastic lunch, then went out on the town for a stop at Ladurée--my personal heaven on earth--although I vow never to return to the Champs-Elysées one because it was packed with tourists (I realize that sounds incredibly snooty of me... but hey! I have more of a claim to that place than them--so there! Eh, what am I talking about, I took a picture of myself with the fancy bag just like the Japanese girl before me... whatever). Anyway. Everything in there is not only absolutely delicious but also beautifully presented/packaged/wrapped. It's like the Cartier of sweets.

We got rose, lilly-of-the-valley, sea-salt caramel, pistachio and raspberry-flavored macarons that we ate on our way to the Musée d'Orsay that was open for free tonight. There was a section on impressionism, and plenty of Monet and Degas which of course was great, but my favorite part was actually an expo on the Opéra de Paris. They had 1/100 scale models of the stage and then the entire building in cross-section. It was fascinating to see the inner workings behind and underneath and above the stage--it's massive! And then they-had models of various stage decors from the past (often designed by famous artists) in little boxes cut out of the wall. It was like peering into a lilliputian stage. I hope we get another chance to go the opera while we're here, it's just magical.

In other news, this is how we dry our laundry here...

It's pretty "folklo" as they say here :) (folkloric)

PS: lest any american readers think after reading our adventures in France that it's a backwards country where people don't shower, I'd just like to point out that many homes are much more modern than ours; we just so happen to live in a nearly 100-year-old house!

Oh, and we went to our ward this morning, the people are really nice there and I think we'll really enjoy it. Looks like I'll have a VT assignment very soon, and Andrew's already signed us up for a talent show :)

Teenpreg

That was the "slug" (short name or identifier for a news story) for my very first story at BYU Daily News. Yikes that was a tough one... Anyway.

I just stumbled across this today. A teen Latina faked her own pregnancy for her senior year as a sociology project/experiment. Only her boyfriend, parents and principal were in on it (not the boyfriend's parents mind you). The article is of course very flattering and she's portrayed as a hero. And she certainly is very brave, but my question is... well, why? She says she wanted to study people's reactions, gossip and all that sort of thing, but it seems like she didn't learn anything very new... wait, you mean teens gossip about girls that get pregnant? She could just as easily have surveyed pregnant teens around her. I mean, why not, but it seems pretty damaging to the rest of her family and her boyfriend's family. The biggest attraction about this is its shock value if you ask me: She did WHAT?! Anyway, regardless of the value of her experiment, I though the following comment brought up an interesting point:


"I would never have dared to get pregnant in high school because the social stigma was so great and I knew how completely crushed my parents would be. (Instead I went to Planned Parenthood.) Unfortunately, the social stigma has now loosened to the point where three of my nieces (children of white, middle-class, educated, still-married parents) had children too young and without being married....and they and their children are suffering the economic consequences. 

Gossip and stigma are used to enforce social rules - for good and for bad. In the case of unwed pregnancies, the pendulum has swung too far in terms of acceptance because the acceptance is a big part of what keeps teens from being careful about pregnancy in the first place."


What do you think? In being more accepting of practices we consider wrong, do we end up condoning those practices? Is there actually value to gossip?


EDIT: I think what I meant was more along the lines of "In being sensitive to the feelings of those who have made choices we condemn, do we end up condoning those practices?" 

Some random photos

This place always cracked me up. "Plume la poule" is a funny-sounding name to begin with, but how would you like to like in a neighborhood called quite literally "pluck the chicken"?

I found this photo on my dad's desk... I love it. Such good times. We would all hide near the entrance when we heard his car pull up and when he opened the door we'd jump out and yell "surprise papa!" Of course, the element of surprise had disappeared after a few weeks, but he loved it, and so did we.

I'll have to teach that to my own kids :)

We also had fun looking through his old architecture school drawings

This really cracked us up... notice anything wrong?Also, I'm pretty sure it's written in comic sans.

Like mother like son...

And this was our meal the other day: Doner kebab. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm be very jealous.

Madrid

I almost forgot!

We had several hours in Madrid on our way over, and we were completely exhausted by that point, but we got ourselves out there and did some walking around.

can you tell how tired we were...

The most important thing though was finding Paella--I was absolutely bent on having some, but it was pretty expensive in lots of places we were finding. We finally came across a bar that had cheaper paella.

 

And it was absolutely fantastic--the best Paella I've ever had!

those stupid tourists, taking pictures in restaurants...

Finally! An internet!

Phew! We are in Bordeaux now, with my papa and Amelia. Just a few more pics of our place though, because it really is crazy:

The plethora of cat books just cracks me up:

Our little room. I like our window, and what's really funny is the lady that helps school kids cross is outside our door every morning, so we have at least one friend :)

Our sweet 70s wallpaper.

For the back story: the lady who owns this home will be 101 years old next month. She lived here as a girl, her parents built it in 1924 and then when they died she took it and lived there with her own family--she finally moved out to live with her daughter last September. I imagine these stairs were starting to be too much...

Our room with the flower power wallpaper was that daughter's room in the 70s. And this daughter is married to the president of the France chapter of BYU Alumni (who incidentally never went to BYU); they've been so nice with us, taking care of us and setting it up for us.

Anyway. Back to the tour. Here's the Narnia wardrobe in our roommates' room.

They're super nice too, they're one of the BYU couples that had signed up for the internship and miraculously managed to find something else the next day. The funny thing is we've really barely seen them, what with staying at my uncle's, going to Bordeaux, and all that. I'm sure we'll do more stuff with them once Andrew starts his internship for good. Which brings me to that: Andrew showed up for orientation on Monday and got the rundown, met everybody and his boss, and then before noon they told him "Ok, well we'll see you next Monday then!" So he just came on down to Bordeaux with me this week. It was definitely a nice surprise.

It also turns out my dad was doing a concert in Paris last night, so he got us two tickets to go see him. It was a concert representation of an opera, so the opera minus the costumes and staging and all.

Theatre des Champ-Elysees

I thought at first it might be pretty lame compared to the real deal but it was seriously awesome--the soloists still played a part and told a story, and the music was fantastic of course. We met my dad for dinner first and had something good at a Lebanese restaurant nearby, and then walked over to see him sing. Incidentally, apparently you have to tip the ushers in Paris. It was pretty awkward when I realized she was asking me for money for having showed us the 5 yards to our seats... The opera was Il Trovatore. It was sad (no surprises there!) and beautifully performed (duh, we're in freaking Paris. Side note: Andrew was flipping through the program and said: "wow, there's a lot of really awesome concerts and famous artists this summer" and we just looked at each other like what did we expect--we're in the cultural center of the world!). The two female leads in particular were fantastic. Leonora was played by a superb soprano -- she had such beautiful clarity and the way she went from filling the hall with her voice to the softest pianissimo was gorgeous. I may or may not have teared up a few times... And then the gypsy mother was fantastic, very imposing and terrifying at times... quite the diva too. In the end I didn't feel like decor or costumes were even necessary--they told the story plenty enough as it was. Ah, I love opera! I missed it so much!

And by the way, check out the five-star hotel next to the theater… 

We just sat there eating chocolate and watching rich diplomats come and go in their fancy cars.

And the cerise sur le gateau was the Eiffel Tower when we came out: it was sparkling!

As an aside, my cat is a snooty brat. But I should have expected that.

Also, I found the suit of my dreams. It’s only 600 Euros! 

Yikes, that’s more than what I paid for my plane ticket! But seriously, can you imagine me in that on my own show… oh boy. I’ve thought of making it, but we’ll have to see if I can find A) somewhat comparable fabric and B) a good enough pattern: it is perfectly tailored.

And that's all for tonight--we're off to have dinner with my aunts!

A tour of our abode

Ok the uploading is taking FOREVER (probably due to the fact that we're sitting outside McDo using public Wifi... no internet at our apartment for another 2-3 weeks. Awesome!) so you just get a few. 

Old-school living room:

The awesome view from the window. That garden is seriously gorgeous! And there's a cherry tree, strawberry plants and all sort of other good things.

Prepare yourselves.... The cellar. I try not to go down there, it's pretty sketchy! Nothing goes thump in the night yet though :)

And the shower, as demonstrated by Andrew.... Just a wee bit small!

Also, I'm terribly curious about this thing...

That's it for now, time to get on home!

Paris

So I'm in a cybercafe in Paris right now, don't have much time but we should get internet soon at the place we're staying, hopefully today! Things are good, although the apt we found is... old. Very old. I'm pretty sure it was built before world war one. And it's filled with books on cats and copper pans and our bed smells like cat pee. AWESOME!

But I'll get used to it I'm sure. Ok, I may have cried just a little. The nice thing is it's pretty close to Paris center so we're not too far out. And we'll se my dad sing tomorrow night!

Pictures to come soon hopefully.