Saints, Bells, & Bones

Hello there everyone!

It took a bit longer than I expected to get around to my first post since my return from France.  The past few weeks I’ve just been enjoying some much needed family and boyfriend time and getting my life a little bit more in order. After catching up on some reading and going through the ridiculous amount of pictures I took while abroad, I suppose I’m finally organized enough to make an actual post.  I feel a tad guilty for not posting about the things I did on my trip as they were happening, but better late than never, I guess.

One of the very first things I saw while in Paris was Notre Dame.  I got up with the sun and had a pretty tasty breakfast (my host family thankfully kept plenty of cereal in stock.  My American stomach’s not used to having just coffee and a tiny crust of bread in the morning as is typical for French breakfasts).  I rode the metro to the Saint-Michel Notre Dame stop just south of the Seine and walked across the bridge to l’Île de la Cité.  In the square before the cathedral there were tourists, great hordes of tourists and flocks of pigeons, several of which were slowly enveloping one lady who had been a little too liberal with her dispersal of seed and breadcrumbs.

The inside of the cathedral was, of course, stunning in both size and in the amount of gorgeous detailed work present in every single corner.  I opted to pay to get into the treasury exhibit (€4), a choice that was well worth the cost.  My dad loves Catholic artifacts and things so I managed to get some nice pics for him of crosses and one very sparkly monstrance.  I was also able to get up close to the lovely stained glasswork and even got to see several beautiful reliquaries. The one below actually had an enormous piece of one saint’s jawbone! It was all so wonderfully macabre and I was reminded of my serious love for Cadfael, the crime fighting monk, played by Derek Jacobi, of course.

Later as the group stood in line to climb the bell towers, it started raining a bit and I was terribly glad to have remembered my umbrella. It rained quite a bit during the three weeks I spent in Paris and a couple times I got drenched on the way home on one of those days when I didn’t pack it.  The weather liked to be deceitful, pretending to be all sunny then dumping rain all over.  Grr.  Anyway, I must have been well prepared that day because I also chose to wear my tennis shoes instead of sandals for the lengthy climb up the towering (heh) spiral staircase to see the bells.  When we all got to the top we were rather winded, but then got to see my old pal, Emmanuel, the very, very fat and happy 13-ton bell.

And then there was the view: 

I’m still blown away by it.

Love,

Ariel Rose

P.S.: This post was brought to you by: Parisian pigeons who like to sit on gargoyle heads.  I was the only one in the entire study abroad group who found pigeons adorable.  My professor kept calling them rats with wings, but I like rats, too, so I wasn’t quite deterred from saying “aw” whenever one of the birds got all fluffy.

Kandle

So the during the very very first week of my trip to France, the group of students I'm here with got to go to a Coeur de Pirate concert at le Zenith in Paris!  The concert was wonderful, but I wasn't really motivated to snap any pics probably due to my being exhausted and coming down with a bad throat ailment, but Shannon from the group did a post about the concert on her blog.  Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good "Comme les Enfants" as much as the next girl, but I honestly enjoyed the group that opened at the concert even more than the actual show.  She's called Kandle, she's from British Columbia, and she blew my mind.

Kandle was sadly a bit under-the-weather-on-the-way-to-the-hospital sick while performing, but with the support of the crowd she managed to play some really great stuff.  I'm not terribly good at describing music, but it was dark and it was bluesy so I was really digging it.







Happy listening,
Ariel

P.S. What I wore:

shirt, bag, shoes: thrifted
shorts: J.C. Penney
necklace: Crown
tights: hansel from basel

My Neighborhood

Aw man, I am seriously behind on my posting!  I just finished a five hour TGV fast train ride from Paris to Nice, where I'll be spending the last week of my study abroad.  I have no plans for this afternoon and evening beyond eating my first dinner with my host family here so I may just try to get a few posts out of the way.

In Paris I lived in the 14th arrondissement in a neighborhood called Alésia.  The view from my window was absolutely charming.  I was a short walk from the theater where I saw Moonrise Kingdom, the preview for which you can see here.  I was also within walking distance of le parc Montsouris, which I visited the day after I was sleeping off my tonsillitis (or was it strep throat? I'm still not sure).  The parks in Paris are completely different from anything I've seen near Cedar City.  People don't worry about having manicured expanses of grass, it's more just a question of letting things go just wild enough to feel natural.  I stayed for a couple hours there and ate a baguette viennoise I bought at the bakery up the street and some enormous raspberries I got at one of the local fruit vendors.

There's a neat old church right near the metro stop in Alésia with some great stained glass and artwork that I unfortunately failed to photograph.  The building next to it is a restaurant called the Hippopotamus, which is like a chain kind of place in France, but still has some tasty meals.  Some friends of my parents recommended it to me and I just happened upon it after leaving the Catacombs one day and realizing that while the entrance was a couple metro stops away, the exit was just a short walk from where I was staying.

 These two aren't really from anywhere near where I live, I just thought they were some eat random
 free art to take a look at.

And finally, allow me to present DouDou, the family kitty.  He was such a cute little cuddly fluff and liked to visit me.  He's also a huge cat, which you may not be able to tell from the pic below, but he could take up my entire lap no problem.

Love,
Ariel Rose

Moonrise Kingdom

So I'm pretty excited to see the new Wes Anderson movie, Moonrise Kingdom.  There's a theatre right in my neighborhood here in Paris so I think I'll pop by for an hour and a half this weekend and see it.  I can tell it's going to make me a little homesick for the states and outdoorsy pic-nic-ness and all that, but I should be ok if I remember to enjoy the French landscape while I'm here and just plan a fat old camping trip for when I return. 

 Hope everyone is having a lovely week!

Paris!

Hello everyone!

So I'm in Paris.  It took me a little while to get used to the idea, that I'm eight hours away from dinky Cedar City, but I've had about a week and a half of time to adjust myself to my new location.  This week has been full of cathedrals, monument, metros, cafés, museums, and one nasty case of tonsillitis.  Yep, I ended up getting sick my first time in France. My left tonsil swelled up to the size of a golf ball and the lady from my host family had to call in the SOS médecin.  Six days and one course of antibiotics later, I'm nearly fully recovered, but I'm still obviously a little bummed to not be in top form.  But, I figure at least I got an interesting cultural experience out of the whole ordeal.  No better time to improve your French than when you're struggling to understand what meds your doctor is telling you to take. 

So before I got sick, the study abroad group I came here with were in constant let's-go-see-stuff mode.  The first day after we arrived we walked around la place de la Concorde and checked out les arènes de Lutèce. 

Meet Shannon and Sydnie, study abroad friends and masters of smiling.  They somehow managed to not look exhausted at all unlike me and my jet-lagged face in the photo below.  I think I got about two hours of sleep the night before these were taken.

All the buildings are beautiful here.  

Love,
Ariel Rose

Leaving Tomorrow!

So I haven't had much time at all to blog this last week due to my having to study for a few finals and get my affairs in order for my voyage to France (my flight leaves Las Vegas at five tomorrow afternoon, and then it's off to Paris!).  I did manage to get some fun things squeezed into my schedule like a quick trip up to my boyfriend's home town, Milford, Utah.  We went on a lovely motorcycle ride and took a look at the wind farm, which was quite silly.  I didn't have my camera with me so these pics come courtesy of Ben.

 

These things are huge, man, but really neat to see up close.  Isn't my helmet just so fashionable?  Haha! I'm not generally a fan of putting such unflattering pics online, but who cares?  I don't tend to dress up when a trip involves motorcycles or 4-wheelers.  Hikes and the like are worth some effort, but I'm not about to wear my nice things just to get covered in dust and possibly get in a wreck and really wish I was wearing a leather jacket instead of getting my flesh ground off.

And to continue the parade of oh so glamorous photos, don't you just love this protective eye and ear wear?  My guy is a fan of firearms (Milford comes with a limited set of activities to pursue), so I get to play with the revolver whenever we go up and visit his parents.  Shooting is fun but makes me nervous sometimes.  I'm a bit clumsy, and one day I'll probably end up accidentally shooting my foot off.  At least the random bits of garbage up there don't mind if you pump them full of holes.

I'll be posting soon about my first couple days in France I suppose.  My host family in Paris indicated that they have a cat, so I'm super excited about that.  I adore cats, but I've never really had one as a pet before, which is a real bummer, but yeah, kitty!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!  See you soon!