So I started this on the 12th of May... sorry it took me so long to publish it. It wouldn't let me publish my photos. Said I had faulty html.
Two weekends ago, four girls and myself decided we wanted to go to Paris for a couple of days. We left early Friday morning and got back Saturday night around 9:00. It was a really good experience, very fun and most educational. I think that everyone should go to a foreign country where they don't speak the language--you feel so stupid and it is quite exciting when you can figure out how to get around on your own. It is also fun because you learn words rather rapidly. I learned that "sortie" means "exit," "musee" (with an asterisk on the first e) is "museum," and "nuit" is night, among other ones.
In any case, we arrived in Paris, and scouted out our hotel. It was only nine by the time we made it to the hotel, and we couldn't check in until noon, so we decided to go to Versailles while we were waiting. The palace of Versailles was beautiful, as expected, and huge. The Hall of Mirrors was gorgeous, and the King's Chamber was covered with an insane amount of gold. The gardens were even more incredible.
It has huge ponds and trees and flowers and classic maze-like hedges and beautiful fountains, though it is too expensive to run the fountains all day. They only turn them on for about an hour each day, and we got lucky enough to get into the Gardens just as they turned them on. We hurried and tried to see as many as we could before they turned them off, since the only way you could possibly see all of them spouting water is if you run through the gardens, which would be quite the feat, since they cover over 250 acres of land. We just hit the ones that sounded interesting on the map.
After Versailles, we checked into the hotel and headed back out again to find some dinner. Then we went to the Arc de Triomphe and took pictures. Then we went to the Eiffel Tower and took more pictures. Just as we go in sight, they turned on these lights that made the tower look as if it were sparkling. They only lasted about five minutes, but it was fantastically gorgeous in any case.
The next day we checked out early and made our way to Luxembourg Gardens and got a bite to eat. (The bread and pastries of France are absolutely amazing. Worth the whole trip.) Luxembourg was pretty, though I much prefer the more wild and natural gardens and parks of England. I don't really understand what the attraction for so many authors was.
After Luxembourg we made our way over Notre Dame, which was probably my favorite part. While we were there, they held mass and it was really interesting to watch, even though I didn’t understand a word. I loved hearing the organ and listening to them sing. Music in a cathedral was divine.
We also went to the Louvre. We got in free, because we were under 26, so that was sweet. I saw the Mona Lisa; it was actually bigger than I was expecting, since everyone has always told me it was smaller, and I also the Nike of Samothrace, which is one of my favorite statues of all time. The Louvre is humongous. We were there for a couple of hours, and moving fast since we couldn’t read any of the plaques, and only made it through about two floors out of the six or five. It was pretty crazy.
We hurried back to the station, managed to get through customs and rode the chunnel back to London. Excellent trip.
5.12.2009
French Bread is the Best
5.05.2009
I am a druid...House of Lords...London Eye!
So, the internet is painfully slow. PAINFULLY. It took me a half an hour to sign into blogger. It's just not worth the updates. I think they are switching to a better provider, so hopefully updates will become worth it.
Anyways, yesterday, 4/4/09, was one of the best days ever! We went to Stonehenge, Wells, and Stourhead Gardens. Amazing.
One of my life-long dreams has now been fulfilled. I GOT TO TOUCH THE ROCKS OF STONEHENGE!! (Hence the druid-ness) Waw, I'm still geeking out about it. We left for via charter bus for Stonehenge at 6:30 in the morning so we could be there by 8. And then, we got to touch the rocks. I spent a whole 20 minutes of pure bliss within the circle. (I took lots of pictures, which I will eventually post for people to see--it doesn't really work at the moment:slow internet.) I think that I can die now and be happy. I sometimes randomly break out into a little song, which goes something like this (sung to the tune of "We've got a dollar" from Little Rascals): I've touched the rocks, I've touched the rocks! I've touched the rocks hey, hey hey hey!... Ok, not really. But I did just now.
After Stonehenge (we spent about an hour there before they opened) we traveled down to the city of Wells, which is, by the way, the smallest city in England. Our bus driver, Tony, was fabulous and pointed out interesting sights along the way. He also knew lots of tidbits of information, and he explained to us the differences between hamlets, villages, towns and cities. A hamlet is a community that has no church and/or no pub. A village has at least one church and one pub; a town has a certain number of churches and pubs (Tony couldn't remember the specific number), and a city has a cathedral. Wells, even though it is smaller than most towns, is considered a city because is has a cathedral. An absolutely gorgeous one.
http://www.lastrefuge.co.uk/images/html/aerials_UK_historical_sites/cathedrals/images/AWDS_Cathedral07.jpg
Here is an aerial picture I found online. You can also see Bishops Castle to the right of the cathedral, which we also visited and was very cool. I loved Wells. I want to live there. Anyways, our tour guide was magnificent, a cute old man. Not only did he have one of the most fabulous accents I have ever heard, he was really entertaining
, and very knowledgeable. He mentioned all sorts of fascinating things, like how to read stained glass windows, and how cathedrals are made.
After Wells, we drove some more over to Stourhead Gardens, which, if anyone happens to care, there was a scene from the new Pride and Prejudice filmed there. It was the scene where Elizabeth runs through the rain into the little temple thing and then turns Mr. Darcy's first offer of marriage down. (I've only seen the movie once, and it wasn't that exciting of a point for me, but some of the girls were absolutely crazy.) Anyways, Stourhead. Is. Gorgeous. It feels as if you are walking through some sort of fairy tale land.
http://www.tichbornes.co.uk/images/stourhead.jpg
Here is a picture, though the gardens are miles long and this is only a very small piece. (That building in the background is the temple I was talking about. ) Aren't the gardens stunning? We spent two hours there, and I didn't get to go all the way through--I wish we could have been there a little bit longer. But it was good.
Today, el Cinco de Mayo, (Happy Birthday Syd!), was an interesting day as well. I lazed around a little bit, had classes, took a cold shower (the boiler is still not fixed--more about that later), and then we went to Parliment. We got to go inside and see the action actually taking place. You go through a whole bunch of security, the whole air-plane shebang pretty much, they take a rough picture and give you a flimsy paper Visitor I.D. and you can't take your bags with you into the actual houses. We went and watched the House of Lords, which was a very pretty room; it had a throne and statues and stained glass and everything. The discussion/debate was interesting to watch, though I wasn't exactly sure what they were talking about. I know it had something to do with the Swine Flu though, and cleaning the air on airplanes. I was excited that I could kind of even remotely follow what was being discussed.
We watched for about a half and hour and then we had to get back for dinner and evensong by 4:45. Evensong is the time where we get announcements, and Bro. Schueler, the center's caretaker I guess you could call him, announced, yet again, that we still had no hot water. They have had the boiler and everything ready since Friday, except one special piece they couldn't get a hold of. Apparently they had to special order it. It won't be here till Thursday. I am so tired of cold showers, and so tired of washing my hair in the sink. Oh well, I guess I can last a few more days. Dr. Durham announced that he had been so impressed with how well we have handled the cold shower situation, that he wanted to give us a tangible award. So he is going to pay for us to ride the London Eye! I am so excited, especially since I wasn't planning on going on it, even though I wanted to, since it is so expensive. I guess the cold showers were worth it. Well, almost. I don't think I'll ever take a warm shower for granted ever again, that is for sure.
Well it is late and I need to get off bed. Cheers!
4.27.2009
Adventure #1: Boarding House
Adventure #1: Boarding house
The boarding house is amazing! It's a really old building, and I feel like I'm in Harry Potter or something with the dormitories we have. I'm in a room with 13 other girls, 7 bunk beds. We have one shower room on our floor with four sinks and three showers. Speaking of which:
40 girls.
1 broken boiler.
No hot water.
ICE cold showers. I lasted three days before I had to take one--though I did wash my hair in the sink a day before. Apparently the boiler broke about a week before we got here, and it will hopefully be fixed by the end of the week, but until then...
We live in a beautiful neighborhood, right across from Hyde Park, which I am in love with. We live on Palace Court street, I feel sometimes as though I am in Peter Pan or something. It is absolutely fabulous.
Well that is all I have time for now. I've got to go and do some homework. I'll try and post again soon!
1.25.2009
Yurts. They are awesome.
Well, I am attempting to keep up with my promise to blog more often. I have been waiting for pictures from the Yurt, but decided I had better tell of my adventures before too much time passed away.
So last weekend was MLK day, which meant we had a three-day weekend. I, along with two of my roommates, had signed up, through the Honors Program, to go on a two-day backpacking trip in Cedar Breaks National Park. SO MUCH FUN. It was a Partners in the Parks adventure, which meant we were volunteering to do some kind of work for the National Park. In this case, we had volunteered to staff the Ranger's yurt for a couple of days. 
(Here is something of what our Yurt looked like. The snow wasn't quite that high though.)
It was a short hike to the yurt, only about 3/4 of a mile. And we got to do it in snowshoes! I am quite the snowshoeing expert now. We hiked all over that area. Anyways, We left Cedar aroung 7:30 am Saturday morning. There were only 10 spots open for students, plus Captain (Prof. Nickerson, director of the Honors Program) and Petersen (one of my English professors) so it was a nice, small group. We drove up to Brianhead and, during the attempt to park the cars, got Captain's suburban stuck in a snow bank. It took all of us, plus a Ranger, a botanist, an intern and, when all else had failed, the sheriff to get it out again. After that exciting adventure, we unloaded and hiked to the Yurt. On the way, the Ranger and the botanist pointed out awesome facts and we held awesome discussions. When we reached the yurt, we got the stove running, ate lunch, and set up our toilet--the pog-wog, or el ba~no natural as it came to be called. Since we had to pack everything out, we basically took a five gallon bucket and screwed a toilet seat on the top. Captain's idea. He was really proud of it.
Then we had lunch, and I had an MRE (courtesy of my wonderful father) and impressed everyone with my lunch (which is why I mention it--its the only meal worthy of mentioning, even though the others were really good as well, like grilled cheese sandwiches[without butter] and crawdad gumbo[with real crawdads] anyways...)
So after lunch we explored a little bit and relaxed. We were going to make snowcaves, but the snow wasn't deep enough for most of us to make them. You need a drift that is at least five feet deep, but we could only find three-four feet. It was kind of crazy though to find out we were walking three to four feet off the ground though! John and Denise made snowcaves, and they were going to sleep in them, but then John's cave collapsed on top of him. Captain went pull him out, but, according to John, he had a testosgerone/adrenaline rush and just RARGHED right out of the snow. Like the hulk. In any case, even though Denise's cave turned out quite well, they decided to sleep with everyone else in the Yurt.
Then the head ranger from Zion came to speak to us (a really big deal) and that was really interesting. She, and the head ranger from Cedar Breaks as well, talked mostly about park management and what went into that job. The botanist talked about botanist things, such as the bark beetle cycle, and foreign plants that come on visitors clothes and extremely rare plants found in Cedar Breaks and the like. It was really interesting.
We went on a night hike after dinner (the rangers had left) and stargazed. The sky was absolutely gorgeous and we saw the most incredible comet! It lasted about 5-7 seconds and took up half of the night sky. SO COOL.
Sleeping kind of sucked. We weren't cold, or at least I wasn't, but the yurt floor was pretty hard and we were all kind of crammed. I did feel bad for Nickerson though. He slept outside in a tent and it was really cold that night.
Anyways, next day was just kind of chill. We had to service people (hot chocolate and warm stove) from 10 to 3 but only 2 people (or 1 Captain) had to be there, so we decided to go on a hike. We hiked out to the rim and it was incredible. I wish I had pictures! But I will hopefully...soon...eventually....Anyways, we had to be back at the yurt by one, so we decided to come back to the rim that night for the sunset. We hiked back off-road and I felt like I was in the artic. Very cool and lots of fun.
When we went back that night (this time Captain came and Monica and Jamie stayed to make dinner) we went the same way and, on a particularly icy hill, slid down on our backs and fronts like penguins. It was quite amusing. And at another point, we charged down a hill screaming battle-cries, such as FOR NARNIAAA!! though some people just yelled. We were filming it, and it was supposed to be quite epic, but... have you ever tried to run in snowshoes? Well, if you haven't, it is much like trying to run in shoes that are too big for your feet--like clown shoes. We had actually gotten quite good at it, but charging down a hill was apparently much different than runnning a race across a field. We made it about five steps, more or less, before we were falling down and snow was flying everywhere and we were trying to stand back up and resume our epic-ness and we would just fall down again and slide the rest of the way down the hill. We were laughing really hard too, and that didn't help much. I am laughing now just thinking about it. So, so, so funny!
In any case, the sunset was amazing. Again, I wish I had pictures!
That night, everyone slept better, though not great, and no one was ready to go back to school, though we were ready for hot showers and clean tap water (we melted snow for our water) and bathrooms. But I could have probably stayed up there for a week and have been perfectly happy. I think all of us could have.
Well, that was my yurt adventure. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures soon, so stay tuned for more.
Thanks for reading! Cheers!
1.14.2009
Life and All That.
Well, much to the disappointment of my few loyal readers (that I do not deserve), I have not posted in a long time. I don't really have an excuse other than I am busy and lazy, but I shall try to be more dedicated in my blogging exercises. (It is one of my New Year's goals, so you can hold me to that.) 
Ta-da! Super Sam! (Random picture...) Anyways, it has been quite the crazy year! School is going well, though I am completely slammed with homework most of the time--lots of reading and writing. But I am an English major, so I enjoy it most of the time.
The smooth,
pure-white
shell gleams
on my sandy palm,
the delicate material
curving into a small
wing. But it’s only half
an angel's set.
Only half of the
creature's skeleton.
One of the many
traces of breath
washed in
from the sea.
I was
blissfully weary
when I first
held your blood-
smooth tiny body,
covetously savoring
each sharp rise of
chest, each
irate bawl.
I should have
pocketed each
intake of air, each.
Rather than the almost-lit
three-candled cake,
the almost-hung red and white streamers,
and off-key singing—
there are flashing lights,
red and blue,
sirens.
Your small heart
beating
heart
beating
slows.
lungs
droop.
gasping--
Only half an angels set is left.
I could taste it on my tounge
bittersweet and wonderful and
nearby reposed a grove of trees
their arms shooting upward into the sky
and around me the grass was trying
to do the same (I was completely hidden)
so I snapped a blade at its tender stem and
twirled it between my fingertips and
broke it, crimping it from bottom up
like the paper fans I used to make in church
as I watched an ant crawl through the redwood
jungle bent and pressed to my body shape
and stayed when I was gone.
I am going to Europe this summer with BYU's Study Abroad program! I will be studying English in London. I fly out of Salt Lake on April 24th, and the program ends June 15th. I hope to do some travel afterwards, but that really depends on my funds situation. Keeping my fingers crossed and working like a maniac to get enough money. I also have to leave Cedar the week before finals, so that is going to be interesting...I'm excited to go crazy this semester.
I have been published! Kind of. It sounds cooler than it really is. Last semester I wrote a poem for a project in my Intermediate Poetry class. The Braithwaite Gallery was featuring an exhibit about Zion National Park and asked my professor if any of her students would be interested in writing a poem for it. Several of us were and we collaborated with the photography students to add to the gallery. My poem is currently on display in the Gallery, and after a little less than a month here, the exhibit is going to Zion and then to Salt Lake. I'm on tour! Not really, but it sounds cool.6.17.2008
Long time.
Hey all of my readers out there! (If I have any left, that is.) I am working at Trefoil Ranch as a counselor this summer, and, most of the time anyway, I absolutely love it. Trefoil Ranch is a girl scout camp up Provo Canyon, with all sorts of awesome things to do, not the least of which is horseback riding. Right now I am one of the Star Riders five counselors, which are the girls ages 9-11. I only have four minutes left of my break, so I will say adios for now, and I'll write again when I can!
3.04.2008
Murder Mystery Photos
The Murder Mystery turned out amazing, as I said in the previous post. Here is the synopsis:
The other night in the library, while many characters were out of their books and enjoying their nightly sojourn, a grim crime was committed right in our own library. As a result, his Majesty Henry VIII –yes, that famous monarch from the English history books – has disappeared. Gathered are the characters that were present in the library at the time of this nefarious deed. Fortunately Master Sherlock Holmes and his trusty companion Dr. Watson are here to investigate. The perpetrator of this heinous crime will be revealed as the night proceeds.
Dacia and I were in charge of it, so we were the librarians. We were in charge of rounding everyone up so that we could figure out why King Henry had disappeared from the library.
I was Miss Belle and she was Miss Liddell. It was quite fun.
And here are some of the pictures from the Murder Mystery. I took 298ish so they aren't all going to be in here, as much as I would love that. Sorry, I am too lazy. It takes awhile to upload photos. I was also too lazy to really organize them, so I just plopped them in here.
Nickerson as Sherlock Holmes. He was absolutely incredible.
Miss Marple (from Agatha Christie novels.)
The Mad Hatter
Pinocchio
Anyways, you get the gist. Do you want to know how it ended? Well, it turns out that Cinderella got rid of Henry by burning the books he was in. She stole Shelocks lighter and came out of her book early to burn the books. Not surprisingly, she was welcomed more as a heroine than a killer. Not many people liked King Henry.
