London

Our last day in Paris finally came. Blake and Melisa were headed back home (I was slightly jealous) and my dad and I were off to London for a day. We stayed in the Sofitel hotel which was located in the Heathrow airport. It was the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at. I did feel a little out of place because of how nice it was.

Sofitel terminal 5

Pretty much what our room looked like. Except two beds.

It was hard to tour London all in one day but I think we did a pretty good job for getting a late start and not having too much time. We rode the hop on hop off red double decker bus to see all the hot spots in London. Our first stop was Hyde park.

I think the reason why I loved London so much was because it was so pretty and green! I felt clean. Sounds funny but in Paris it's mostly tons of old buildings, sidewalk, street vendors, and lots of people everywhere. In London there were still a lot of people, some old buildings but there was also a mix of new buildings, and green grass. I also spotted missionaries within the first two hours we were out and about. For some reason it was just so nice to see the missionaries. Living in Utah has made it so I am used to being around LDS people 24/7 so being out of the states and seeing somebody who was out spreading the gospel was just a nice touch. I didn't see one missionary in France.

One thing about London, it is not as warm as Paris. It was quite windy while we were out on the town. I didn't have any pants, only shorts. I was freezing! I was on a quest to find some sweatpants that said London on them we looked at ten stores and didn't find any sweatpants. WTF? So I had to settle with two sweatshirts.

When you see buildings like Big Ben in movies it makes it a little cooler to actually see them for yourself in person. (I didn't take this photo or any of these pictures of London because I lost my camera somewhere so when I find it I will post my pictures.) We toured around Big Ben for about an hour and walked by the ferris wheel, but didn't ride it. While we were taking pictures of the town some random wangsta who reminded me of Robby walked up to us asking if we would take his picture. We said yeah, where's your camera? He looked at us and said, "No, with YOUR camera!" Uh okay? So we actually did. We didn't exchange names or anything so we have a picture of a random English guy in a very gangster like pose. He was real cool. When it was getting late we were waiting at the bus stop just a block down from Big Ben. I was getting worried with the time, thinking that we were going to miss the bus and be stuck 45 minutes away from our hotel. I asked my dad what time it was and he didn't know but told me it wasn't lke we couldn't ask people because they actually spoke English. I told him to ask someone, so being an obedient father, he asked a stranger what time it was. The guy he asked looked at my dad like he was retarded and responded with the time. I burst out in laughter and said, "You do realize you just asked for the time while we're standing by Big Ben, right?" Ultimate blonde moment.

Hakuna matata

We started out with 23 and now there were only 4. This was our last day in Paris so we had to make it count. We found a street a couple of blocks away from Gare D'lest that had cheap stores galore. This is where I did all of my souvenir shopping. We  also went to all the sites we didn't get to tour yet, like the Louvre. We didn't actually go inside because it was closed. Honestly I'm not too bummed that we didn't go in though. The only thing worth seeing would be the Mona Lisa. Plus being in Unified made me not so fond of art museum's. Thanks Anna...

After this picture we got Hakuna matataed. A guy came up to us and told us to hold our wrists. We did and he made a bracelet on our wrists in under 10 seconds. It was kind of amazing. The only thing this guy could say in English was Hakuna matata, yes, and no. My dad knew he couldn't speak English so he just started asking him dumb questions like where's the bathroom? The guy would smile and say hakuna matata. Thanks man, I totally know where the bathroom is now! Unfortunately, we didn't get the bracelets for free, we got schemed into buying them for 5 euros. We are stupid and that guy was just a really smart salesmen. We really had no choice the bracelet was MADE for our wrists. 

Boy or girl? I'll let you decide. I do feel bad because IT knew that I was taking pictures of it. I really need to work on being discrete. 

The Catacombs

Today there was lots of talking and no hugging before 10 am. My dad's friend Terry, is apart of a secret Catacombs club where they tour the underground so he made for the perfect guide. This was not the Catacombs that I was expecting, like the museum. But basically it was an undergorund tunnel where I saw only one bone. To do what we were doing required us to wear hardhats because, duh we were underground and that could only mean that smacking our noggins on uneven cement ceilings was going to be a reoccuring thing. The tour that Terry took us on was illegal because it is off limits and really dangerous. We had 11 people total touring the Catacombs: Terry, 2 musicians that Terry hired to play Doors songs during our breaks, a cutie named Adrian (seriously he had the best smile I had seen while being in Europe), a guy with a camera who was friends with Terry, Lauren, Mark, Blake, Melisa, my dad, and myself.

Just a few of us

We hopped a fence that led us down to some traintracks and walked towards the tunnel to find the entrance.

The entrance.

There was a lot of walking this day, I believe we walked over 6 miles.The first three hours being underground was pretty exciting because it was new and my dad talked it up A LOT. But after passing the occasional man hole and seeing a spot of light I was really beginning to miss seeing the sun and basking in its glory. Twelve-thirteen hours in complete darkness was a bit draining and depressing. I saw a lot graffitied walls, which was more like art work. Whoever would graffiti down there was wasting their talent because it was beautiful and it's not like it was being shown off to the world only to a limited amount of people.

Some of the randomness you'd spot underground

This wasn't scary at all...

My absolute favorite graffiti

There was a spot where we walked through a "puddle" of water that went up to everyones knees but for me that was not the case. It went up to my waist. After we walked through the water our guide warned us that there was rat pee in the water so if we start "a vomittin" 2-3 days after our tour we needed to go to the hospital immediately because we could die. Thanks for the heads up Terry!

Here they are bustin' out some tunes

We were supposed to be go on the River Sane Cruise at 6 but since Terry got a little carried away with our tour (and got a little lost) we made it out around 8:30 causing us to miss the cruise.

I had a really hard time writing this post. It's a little hard to describe everything that went down because I feel that to understand or even comprehend what went on you had to be there. For being underground for 12 hours here is what I learned:

1. Don't let Kerry pick out food for an underground trip. All I had that day was breakfast from the hotel, a croissant, and some water. My dad thought it would be genius to only bring a few waterbottles, 8 pieces of pistachio bread, and 3 croissants. I hate pistachio bread and I had to share the croissants.

2. Bathrooms are LOVELY. I held my pee for 8 hours. That is a record. I am surprised I didn't wet myself.

3. I LOVE sunlight.

When we got out of the Catacombs I don't think I have ever been so happy to pee and shower in my entire life. After we were clean we ate some pizza from a restaurant down the street from our hotel. The restaurant kept the doors open so while we were waiting for our food we noticed that there were bugs flying around everywhere. We were swatting at them, catching them with our cups, killing them, you name it and it didn't even make a difference. Helaine was swatting at the bugs the most out of all of us and would freak out when they would land on her. Our waiter noticed Helaine, hid behind her and poked her with a straw a few times. She flipped out and would swat like crazy at the straw it was hilarious when she discovered that it was just our waiter giving her a hard time. Hands down he was my favorite French waiter.

Tonight was a bittersweet night since it was our LAST night with all of the Doors fans. We were two days closer to coming home but it was our last hoorah. After spending a week with these strangers they started to grow on me. Some of our group went out to the Piano bar to hang out and drink. My dad and I joined the group, but don't worry we didn't get it crunk.

The guy sittin in front of me, Alex, questioned my dad and I about our religion. Even though he was drunk and probably didn't remember anything we talked about. I am glad he asked questions about the church because it helped strengthen my testimony. It was nice to be challenged about our faith and have people questioning my beliefs because it only made me more thankful for this gospel.

Good Hygiene

To start our day off just right we went to some dead beat flea market where we found a stuffed turtle. Why we didn't purchase that turtle I am still beating myself up about it. After that we went to Jim's grave AGAIN. Since it was his 40th anniversary we went to see if we would witness anything amazing like a riot. We did have an eventful time but not for that reason. We walked by Jim's grave to see at least 1,000 people mourning this "great" loss, singing Doors songs in unison. It was... cute? The cops were scouting out the area and were incognito which they really need to work on becasue they were actually quite obvious as to what they were doing... But maybe that was the point?

Blake, Melisa, and I got bored of that crowd real quickly so we decided to ditch this joint and find something more entertaining. As we were making our way out we ran into an extremely nice older gentleman. He was the first person who had taken interest in us and who actually wanted to have a REAL conversation with us. We were quite astonished because France wasn't too friendly with us at times. I would say he was about in his early 60's maybe late 50's, had missing teeth, grayish hair, tan beacuse he was a grave digger, and smelled to high heaven of BO.

The conversation we had with this man was by far THEE best stranger conversation I have ever had. He started it off by telling us some random facts about a grave that we were standing by whom I have no idea who or what he was talking about but we just smiled and nodded. Then he asked if this was our first time in Paris, we said yes and that we were loving it but the prices not so much. He got very defensive by our money statement and went on about how he got his jeans for 2 euro's, how you can stay at a hotel for 15 euro's a week, and then I am pretty sure he mentioned that he showered once a week... That would explain the body odor. As we were talking to him I noticed that he was personally giving me a shower with his saliva. I kept inching away from him and he would inch his way closer, dude didn't take a hint. Now for some reason I am twelve and thought the whole spit bath and inching away thing was HILARIOUS which it was, but I lost it and I mean lost it. When he was talking to us I would have to look away to laugh for a second then come back to the conversation so I wasn't rude. But I couldn't contain myself any longer, it was seriously killing me. I turned around and just let out a huge laugh. Of course the old man was confused and asked, "Why are you ha-ha-ha-ing? I don't know how to say it in English. But you smile real big." I was very embarassed and just looked at him and told him I was just so happy to be here that I couldn't contain my joy any longer. Surprisingly, he accepted that answer and just kept blabbering. Throughout our conversation he kept telling us how well we spoke English, we were confused but kept saying thank you. But after talking to us for twenty minutes he complimented our English again and asked if we would be more comfortable speaking in French. We politely declined the French offer and told him we should stick to speaking English. He was confused and asked where we were from, we responded with the states then his lightbulb came on. He smacked his head and apologized because he thought we were from Europe. I guess we don't look like fat Americans after all :)

Have a pastery for me

Side notes: On our second day my dad, Blake, Melisa, and I scoured the city for the perfect pastery shop. Lets just say that our first pastery experience was so bad that it shouldn't be relived, but I will tell you this much, it was a disappointment and tasted like shiiiiz.
On Saturday morning our whole tour group partcipated in the Jim Morrison Walking Tour, a Door's fans dream come true. We toured everywhere that Jim had went when he was in Paris, which was nice because it allowed us to see more of Paris then just our hotel room and Pere Lachaise. While on the tour we experienced what should have been our first pastery experience. This shop seriously knew what was up, they displayed everything ten times better than the first place we went to. Everything was beautiful and looked delicious, but I only got a raspberry tart and a croissant. Can I just say that the raspberry tarts are HEAVENLY?! If I could have them magically sent to me everyday, I would take up the offer with no hesitation.

While visting the pastery shop Melisa got a flier and stuck in her back pocket. I, thinking that it was money or something of value decided to pick-pocket her to be funny. I have no skill when it comes to pick-pocketing so it was only obvious that I took the paper from Melisa's butt pocket. I looked at and tapped on Melisa's shoulder and said, "Yeah, this sucks. You can have this back." She laughed and stated that it would be so funny if someone actually did that to her while riding the metro. I think Melisa is secretly psychic, because a few hours later that same scenario happened. Some old man was roaming the isle of the metro begging for money. He walked behind Melisa and I, grabbed the flier from her pocket, looked at it, tapped our shoulders (which we ignored thinking that he was just being aggresive with his begging), since he got no reaction from us he dropped the paper and decided to move on. I looked down and noticed the paper hanging out by our feet. Melisa and I laughed for a good twenty minutes. What are the odds, seriously?

I spy the Notre Dame

Since we were finished we visited this lovely site. I was honestly so excited to tour this cathedral just because of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. I realize now that that movie is super boring and creepy but when I was five I loved that movie. Sadly, Esmerelda wasn't out in the front dancing.

But I saw something better than an Egyptian belly dancer...

JEDI'S! Okay, okay so they aren't jedi's, they're monks.

As you can tell there was quite a few people touring Notre Dame that day, so there was a line to get into the cathedral. The weather was in the 80's so I didn't mind the wait, my dad on the other hand was dying because he sweats so much that it is not natural. When he took off his hat there was a pool of sweat on his bald head, to be funny my dad slicked the sweat off his head so that it would hit Blake. But Blake having cat-like reflexes saw the sweat coming towards his face, moved to the side. Fortunately for Blake he dodged that bullet, the people behind him were not so fortunate. The lady was taking a bite of her sandwhich as my dad's sweat hurled towards her face. Luckily, we were next to get in the cathedral so we fled from that scene which probably could have gotten ugly.

Chantilly Castle

My Dad's friend Jan, planned for us to go on a tour of the Chantilly Castle and eat some lunch at some restaurant where Jim and Pam (and I don't mean Jim and Pam from The Office) had eaten at. We took a 45 minute bus ride to Chantilly and there the adventure begun. Chantilly was not what I had imagined a castle to be like. I was basically expecting a castle like the one in Beauty and the Beast.

The castle was enormous and most parts of the castle had been remodeled, which I thought took away from its originality. I kinda wish they wouldn't have remodeled it and would've kept it looking old and Victorian. We toured around Chantilly for a few hours, looked at the interesting art which consisted mostly of fat naked babies, a ginormous library, a lady with a wedgie, bathrooms fit for midgets, and a giftshop that had nothing appealing to my eye.

We took a break from Chantilly and headed to the restaurant and enjoyed some steak and chips or chicken and vegetables. I don't like steak and thought it was strange that they were serving it with what I thought was chips (but were actually french fries), so I got the chicken with bleu cheese. Simone sat next to me at the restaurant and he made fun of me for thinking chips were actual chips. It was then that I learned from Simone that chips are known as crisps. Simone is from England and he would say the funniest sayings like, "She's as mad as a box of frogs!" His sayings were the best and I wish I would have remembered more so I could have used them in my daily conversations when I returned back home.

My favorite part about being in a tour group was actually spending time with everyone because there was such a great variety of personalities. Even though they were all Doors obsessed fans if you got them talking about other things they were qutie hilarious individuals.

After lunch we returned back to Chantilly and watched a horse show in French. That was a mistake for so many reasons:
1. We couldn't understand what they were saying.
2. The horse barn smelled awful.
3. The horses did the same thing, every single one of them.
4. The show went on for far too long, I'd say maybe 45 minutes to an hour.
Click here and you too, can have the Chantilly horse show experience.

Not only did we visit a castle but I experienced my first French crepe. These crepes are nothing like the crepes in America. They are ginormous and not what I expected. I like my crepes with fresh fruit, yogurt, whip cream, etc so that is what I was expecting and craving. We got to the stand and read over their crepe menu, it was of course in French but I could kinda understand what they had to offer. My dad got a pulet et le fromage crepe which is chicken and cheese. I wasn't daring enough to get that for my first French crepe, becuse lets be honest chicken and cheese on a crepe just doesn't sound natural. So I got la banane et nutella, self explanitory, banana and nutella crepe. It was so delicious for the first few bites then I got sick because it was just too much sweetness at once. While enjoying this yumminess we hopped on the metro and made our way to the Eiffel Tower.

It was early dusk when we arrived at the Eiffel Tower so when we got there and waited in line it was light out, but once we got the to the top, the sun was beginning to set. This part of Paris was beautiful, still a little dirty and not as clean as I was hoping for, but it was still breath taking. This was the Paris I had been expecting when I stepped off our plane and I was finally able to experience the prettier, fancier side of Paris on the fourth day of our trip. To get to the top of the Eiffel Tower you have two options: take the stairs to the second floor and then ride the elevator to the top OR skip the stairs and take the elevator straight to the top. We decided to kick the typical American stereotype and climbed to the second floor. There really is no difference between the second and third story of the Eiffel Tower but if you go to the Eiffel Tower you have to be able to say I have been to the top of the EiffelTower! No one cares if you made it to the second story, that is just lame. Once my dad, Blake, Melisa, and I got to the top we walked around and somehow split up while looking for some other members of our group, who decided to take the elevator and not brave the stairs. I was trying to find my dad but instead I found a woman being proposed to. Are you kidding me? I was the ONLY one who witnessed this and had no one to share this experience with! I paused watched her face well up with tears, nod yes, then continued walking. I spotted my dad with Blake and Melisa so I ran up to them and told them what I saw and they seemed unimpressed. The next day I posted on Facebook about the Eiffel Tower proposal and I seemed to get a lot more repsonses from my friends back home then I did with my family who were with me. Lame.

As cliche as it is, could you imagine being proposed to on a gorgeous night like this at the top of the Eiffel Tower? We chose the perfect night to be at the top of the Eiffel Tower because this was the prettiest sunset we had the whole time we were there.