Bonjour!

Hey all! Long time, no blog!
Sorry for the late update. I'm back in the London Centre and the wi-fi has been a little temperamental. Other than that, the London Centre is amazing! I'd encourage people to come on this study abroad just so they can live here. Apparently Johnny Depp has an apartment just down the street and several people have seen him walking around, so that's pretty cool too. (Speaking of celebrities, some girls from my group went to stand outside the Maleficent premier and got pictures with Brad Pitt. They were in a local newspaper too. Crazy stuff.) I'll need to post some pictures of the Centre, but I think I'll save that for another post since this one's going to be ridiculously long.
Okay, Paris. So, we left at about 4 am on Tuesday morning in order to catch the Chunnel train at about 6:30 at St. Pancras station. I think I fell asleep during the part where we were under the English channel, so I can't really tell you what that was like. Anyhow, we arrived in Paris at about 9 am local time--it's one hour ahead of London.
The first thing we did was take the Metro over to the Pompidou Center, which is right by an LDS church where the BYU Paris study abroad group has their classes. They gave us a little introduction to the city as well as some advice (say "bonjour" and "pardon", don't buy things from people by the Eiffel tower, don't go around by yourself) and then sent us on our merry way.
A few girls from the Paris group showed a group of us around to a few places. We walked down the Champs Elysees for a bit, and I had this song stuck in my head the whole time, even though I only know about three words of it:
Champs Elysees song
We then ended up at the Arc de Triomphe.

And they were doing construction on it, so the picture's kind of lame. We walked around under it for a bit too. I feel bad that I don't know too much about it. There were signs with historical facts on them, but they were in French, and I couldn't decipher them very well with my limited French skills. I would look it up, but I need to get a move on, since I still have homework I need to do tonight. There was also this terrifying clown wandering around, which leads me to my first observation about France. They have a lot of weird street performers.

For instance, there was a guy in a superhero outfit breakdancing by the Eiffel tower, and later a guy fire dancing in the same place. I saw two different Michael Jackson dancers, one of which was dancing inside a Metro car as it was moving, and numerous bands in various places.
Another observation about France, while I'm thinking about it, is that there are lots of creepy men who are very forward. There were several guys who asked if we wanted to go somewhere with them or asked us where we were staying. Rachel kept having guys try to hug or kiss her, which was pretty creepy. Moral of the story: if you're pretty and blonde, men will harass you in Paris, so be on your guard.
Anyhow, back to my day. We next went to Notre Dame. It was incredibly beautiful to see it in real life. You just don't get the idea of how big it really is from seeing pictures, or even from watching the Disney movie. It was gorgeous, though, and I loved being able to recognize the Gothic details that we'd learned about in my history of architecture class. As we left, we heard the bells ring, too, which was really cool. No sign of Quasimodo, though.

Just a side note: check out how blue that sky is. The weather was ridiculously beautiful (except for the one time it rained) the whole time we were there. Paris is just a gorgeous city.
Next, we tried to go to the Catacombs (at least I think it was next. My chronology has gotten a bit messed up since we did so much), but they were closed, so a couple of girls and I went to the Eiffel tower. We hung around there for quite a bit, waiting for it to get dark so we could see the tower light up. We got really good crepes at a stand and ate them in front of the tower, which was pretty surreal. It was just about the most French thing ever, to eat crepes in front of the Eiffel tower, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. We also took lots of pictures. This one is probably my favorite:

It's like High School Musical up in here. After it got dark, the tower lit up, which was really pretty. Then, it started "sparkling," which basically means that a bunch of lights on the tower flickered on and off randomly. I found that a little bit tacky, personally, but it was still fun to see.

The sparkling was hard to get a very good picture of, but this one gives you a bit of an idea. After that, we headed back to our hotel and went to bed, since we were all pretty exhausted from walking around all day on only three hours of sleep.
Next morning, we got up and ate the hotel breakfast. Now, I'm not usually a continental breakfast fan, but (besides Granny's bacon/french toast breakfast) this was the best breakfast I've ever had. I had baguettes, croissants, crepes, pain au chocolat, you name it. And an apple so it was healthy. It was beautiful.
Some girls and I then headed to the Louvre.

It was enormous. And beautiful. We were only in Paris for three days, though, so we had to move pretty quickly. I feel like a total jerk, but we probably only spent an hour and a half there, and you'd probably need at least two days to see it properly. I did see the Mona Lisa, though. The room was absolutely packed. It was insane, and smelled terrible. To give you an idea:

And it got even more crowded. I managed to squeeze in a little closer, but this was the best picture I could get:

I actually don't get what all the fuss is about. I mean, I like da Vinci and everything, and it's a nice painting, but it's not really all that cool, to be honest. It's pretty small and it's just some lady with no eyebrows. Yet hundreds of Asian tourists pack into a room to see it and it's probably the most famous painting of all time. If anyone knows why it's so special, please let me know, because I'm quite curious.
We then went to the Eiffel tower, as the girls I was with had tickets to go up to the top. I got a few great pictures on our walk from the Metro station to the tower. Look at this pic of the Seine. It was the prettiest day. I can't even handle that sky.

There was a big group going up the tower, and a few of us who didn't have tickets were able to buy some there. Unfortunately, as we found out later, our tickets were printed wrong or something and we were only able to go up to the second level. I wasn't too upset. It was cool enough to just be there. Plus, there were some really great views just from where we were.

Beautiful. My favorite part of the tower, though, had to be this little warning sign on the elevator door. Despite the single tear and the slight frown, he doesn't actually seem all that distressed by the giant red sunburst of pain around his hand. It just made me laugh

The next stop was the Musee d'Orsay. This was the place that I was the most excited to go while we were in Paris. I love the style of art in the Orsay much better than the Louvre, even though the Louvre is cool and all. However, we arrived too late. The museum had shut its doors for the day. My only consolation was a nearby crepe stand and this statue of Thomas Jefferson, which I thought was funny because I didn't expect to see him in France.

There's also a Metro station named after Franklin D. Roosevelt (and one called Stalingrad, which is irrelevant, but interesting), which I think is funny because you always hear about how much the French hate Americans, but that hasn't really been my experience. It seemed, to me at least, that the French were friendlier than the Brits. We ate out one night and our waiter kept refilling our water pitcher and bread basket, which has never happened so far in England.
Anyway, we next stopped on this bridge. There are lots of bridges like this in Paris with these locks on them.  Looking at the other bridges that we saw later, I don't think this was the original one, since there were a couple where you couldn't even see through the handrails since there were so many locks. I'm not really sure what the significance of the locks is, other than that it has something to do with love. We got a picture, though.

We then met up with the entire group to go on a boat tour down the Seine. It was pretty cool to see all the sight from the river and see where places were in relation to each other, which you don't really get from taking the Metro. After that, we walked around the Champs Elysees for awhile again, trying not very successfully to find a bathroom. Public bathrooms aren't really a thing here.
Next morning, we ate another superb breakfast and headed out to Versailles. I was really stoked to see it since I'd learned about it in my architecture class as well. We took about an hour's train ride to get there. Unfortunately, there was some sort of strike going down and the palace was closed. The sad thing was that lots of people in our group had been saving Versailles for the last day and nobody got to see it. The pictures I took aren't even worth posting since we couldn't get past the gate. Boo.
So, we took another train back. The kicker was that we had to pay extra for the train since it was so far away, and we didn't even get to go inside the palace. That hurt.
The good news is that we got to go to the Musee d'Orsay after all. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed, so you don't get to see. We went through the Van Gogh exhibit, which was very cool. I really like his landscapes. My favorite of the ones of his that they had there is called Starry Night Over the Rhone, which isn't the Starry Night that you're thinking about. I just really love the reflections of the light in the water. I wish we could have spent more time in the Orsay, since we only saw a small portion of all the gorgeous paintings that they had, but it was our last day and we had to keep moving.
Our last stop was the Palais Garnier, which is the opera house where the Phantom of the Opera is set. It was beautiful, but quite opulent. I mean, take a look at this hallway:

It was also a bit creepy, in a way. There were lots of archways, some with mirrors, and some without so it was hard to tell what was real and what was just a reflection. It gave the whole place an air of mystery and unreality. It's not a place I would want to be alone in after dark. It's hard to explain, but it did kind of give me the jibblies.
After that, we picked up our bags and headed back to the train station to go back to England. It was a pretty crazy three days. I don't think I've ever had sorer feet. We were just on the go constantly. We saw lots of really cool things, but I was very tired by the end and very glad to get back to London. I guess that's what this little trip did most for me: it made London feel more like home. London just feels much safer. I don't know if it really is (one of the girls in our group had her phone stolen today) but at least men aren't always harassing you. I much prefer the Tube to the Metro, and it's nice to see signs in a language that I understand. Paris was very nice and I really enjoyed going, but I think my heart will always belong to England.
Anyway, that's the Paris trip for you!
The past couple of days have been pretty unremarkable. It's mostly just been settling into the Centre, doing laundry, and meaning to do homework but never actually getting much done.
I did give into temptation and buy these, though. Take in the majesty:

And I bought tickets to go to the Harry Potter studio tours on Tuesday, so look forward to a full report of that.
Anyhow, I've got homework to do and miles to go before I sleep, so I'll blog at you later. Thanks for reading!