Paris holds the key to your heart

Well, Paris is not what I thought. I have been a little disappointed in the city. Not disappointed I guess, just not what I expected. Last night was great though. We got our stuff in the hotel, I went and bought some cereal and milk for breakfast til we leave because they don’t give us breakfast, and then Patrick took us on a night tour of Paris by bus. It was pretty awesome! I loved driving around Paris rather than traveling underground. The main part of the city is awesome. The Eiffel tower was incredible. We got out and walked by it. We also drove by the Louvre and the Arc de Triumph, and a few other things. It was really neat. We didn’t get home til 12 or so.

Today we had a business visit. We were almost an hour late because we got lost. Our director didn’t know where to go. He is kind of unorganized and it is a little bit frustrating. There are not a lot of group things organized which is annoying.

Then a small group of us went to the Eiffel Tower. We walked actually. It took us almost two hours to walk it. I enjoyed it though because it was along the river and we got to see a lot. I hate traveling by metro. However then we went up the Eiffel tower and walked some 600 plus stairs to get there. We climbed to the second level and then took the elevator to the top. It was amazing. That structure is incredible and the view from the top is as well.

After coming down we were exhausted and just collapsed on the grass for a while. Then we wanted to head to the Arc de Triumph. So, I mapped it out on the metro and found where to go. Or so I thought. I thought the stop was number 17, but it was 47. It looked like 17 on the map. Anyway, we ended up in this really sketchy part of town. Really sketchy! Lines of people selling stuff, huge crowds, people handing out cigarettes and who knows what. I was starving because I hadn’t eaten. I felt totally responsible and like an idiot. Some people were nice about it and others didn’t say anything. I think they were bugged. I felt bad.

We found our way to the Arc eventually and then went to McDonalds. I grabbed a burger earlier, but I got some ice cream thing because I was depressed. Haha. It was expensive and tiny.

Everything in Paris is expensive. I really don’t think they like Americans. L

Anyway, today was a little rough after the Eiffel Tower. We were all so tired and it was hot and I was feeling really weird. I wish I had stayed with the bigger group because they went to the catacombs and this crepe place and had a lot of fun. Oh well. Can’t go back now, right?

I am excited to go to church tomorrow. I think it will be a better day tomorrow. I won’t be so tired. 

Waffles and Chocolate. What more is there?

I absolutely love waffles. Love them. They are the best. Belgian Waffles from Belgium – even better. Maggie and I split one with just powdered sugar because it was cheap and we wanted to taste the waffle. It was really good. The waffle was kind of caramelized and the powdered sugar just added a little more. I think it was a good choice. A lot of people weren’t that impressed with them.

We saw the Manneken Pis…the statue of the boy peeing. We walked around the square and it was really beautiful. It was 10:00 at night and it was as light as if it were 8:00 on a summer night in Utah. It was cool. I also bought a chocolate because supposedly it is the best. I bought a hazelnut chocolate. It was really rich but it was good. I was going to buy some for gifts, but I was told in Italy it will just melt. Sorry!

I bunked with my director’s daughter last night. It is kind of annoying and a little inappropriate that they have their kids room with us. It was just us two. I got up early to go use the wi-fi across the street so I didn’t wake her up and I left her in there with the key. I figured she would get up. Bad idea. i came back to get my stuff and the door was locked and she was asleep. I pounded on the door, I called her room and let it ring for minutes. Nothing. I went down to breakfast and turned it over to the Godfreys. They finally got in to the room and got her up.

The bus got broken in to last night and our driver’s wallet was stolen. I had a few things on the bus, but nothing valuable. It had been searched because it was on the chair, but nothing was gone. Thank Heavens I didn’t leave anything else.

We went to a business visit this morning. It was to the European Commission. We were all sooo tired. We tried to stay awake but a lot of us couldn’t. I felt bad. I stayed awake but I was struggling.

After the visit we grabbed some frites with everyone. I got a much needed diet coke. Haha. The caffeine felt pretty good. It is called Coca-cola light over here. It tasted a little different, but it was good. Next time I will get Coca-Cola Zero J. The frites are Belgian fries. Don’t worry Mom, they weren’t that amazing. I tried to put a lot of salt on them. They were pretty good, just different. Not as flavorful.

We are now on our way to Paris. I am excited to stay somewhere for more than one night. Hopefully our hotel is okay. 

Amsterdam and Holland

After hours and hours on 3 different trains, we finally made it to Dam Amster. It was not my favorite city. We got there in the evening and we hadn’t eaten since 7 or so that morning so we were starved and tired. Then we followed our bus driver (Patrick) to Dam Square, but it turns out he didn’t know how to get there. We got lost and walked way longer than we needed to and ended up just taking the tram. We finally got there and found a pizzeria to eat at. There were not very many seats and they took forever to get us our food. It tasted pretty good though. We chowed down.

After that we rode the bus home and tried to go get some stroop waffles, but they were all closed. So we snapped some pictures and headed back to the hotel to take advantage of their free wi-fi. My wi-fi wouldn’t turn on so I spent a long time working on that. We finally got it working and I just uploaded a couple pictures to the group blog.

We got up super early today to go to the flower market. It is the largest auction in the world. It was huge and it smelled amazing. So many flowers, so many colors. It was really interesting. There was a room full of people with computers and headsets auctioning on the flowers.

We headed from the auction to Delft. I LOVED DELFT. It is this quaint little Dutch town which is home of Royal Delft, the blue and white porcelain pottery. It was such a cute place.

From Delft we went to the Hague Temple. It felt so good to get out of the world for a bit. I loved it in there. The Temple is an amazing place. How blessed we are to be able to enter the house of the Lord to serve and worship Him.

We are on our way to Brussels, which is going to take a while. I might try to take a nap. J

Love you all

London

Well I have been in London since Saturday and I am now on a train under the English Channel heading for Amsterdam. Pretty sweet, right? London was great! I really liked it. I am excited to continue our trip and get out into more countryside for a little bit.

Yesterday was one of my favorite days. We started the morning off going to the Tower of London where we saw the crown jewels and a lot of other stuff. It was Brilliant, as they say in Britain—quite exquisite.

After that a few of us we made our way to the British Library. There we saw some of the Beatles handwritten lyrics on papers and envelopes and stuff. It was sweet. They also had original scores written by Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and more. They were written in tiny handwriting. Other treasures: writings by Jane Austen, Tyndale Bible, Guttenberg Bible, and the Magna Carta.

We grabbed lunch after and on our way to the post office we saw a group of people standing outside this huge hotel. They all had cameras, so we made our way up there to find out what was happening. Spice Girls were there! Apparently they are making their songs in to a west end musical called Viva Forever. We discovered Victoria Beckham had already left, which was a bummer. We waited around for another half hour for the others but we had to leave to get to Harry Potter.  I took this picture of a guys laptop who took a picture of Victoria aka Posh.

We barely made it to the Warner Bros. Harry Potter studio tour with a few miracles on the way. It was pretty sweet. We didn’t have enough money for the bus ride back and the man just let us get on. Thank heavens. It was so far away.

We went to Singing in the Rain last night. Definitely a highlight. It was so fun! They had real rain and we were in the third row so they splashed us as they were dancing. Loved it!

Lessons learned at work

Today at work there was a girl who came in with her father. She was new and hadn't gotten anything set up yet so she could not print. Another girl in the lab overheard and offered to print out her document on her own account. This was a super simple favor, but it was a good reminder about being charitable and just down right kind. :) I love when I see stuff like that. I need to be a little less selfish and look for opportunities to help others out.