Sugar

At Versailles with a few other cool people after Stake Conference.












Why do they even need a Baby Dior?














I just discovered a new tarte - rhubarb. Its my new favorite, and I think it is going to stay my favorite for a very very very long time. I got so excited when I was eating it that I thought it deserved a picture. Legay choc - one of the most unresistable pastery shops near the institute.









This one is pretty good too. It has strawberries and cream inside, fondant on top, and chocolate on the bottom. But rhubarb is still favorite :)

My Bedsheets for the Week

So the other day I came home from my daily festivities, and I notice that Madame de la Motte has cleaned my room. But it wasn't just like any other normal cleaning day. Oh no, because THIS is what I found for my clean comforter. Where in the world did she find this thing and why did she buy it?! That would be an entertaining history. I especially enjoy the lemon with the sour look on its face. Just showing his internal conflict I guess. Or something...
I think its a sign that I was destined to choreograph a dance where I put fruit on my head and wear some form of grass skirt.

And while I'm talking about this, I might as well discuss some other interesting aspects of my host family. They are the type of people who will always have some sort of tear in the upholstery of their couch, who have several very nice paintings and sketches in broken picture frames hung askew on the wall, and who have an old 16th century looking apartment in Paris (three stories I might add). Eileen and I have found an entire photo album of the dad bungee jumping, and another entire photo album of the mom riding a camel (oh man, of all animals, who rides a camel? I love it!). And yet they are the type of people you can tell are very well off. Each kid has two computers, their own room with a loft included, the kitchen has huge marble counters, and they not only have a house in the countryside near Versailles, but also a house in Guadaloupe (the island in the sun). They are very Americanized, which you can tell by the way they do things. They never close their doors, they are always watching American pop star type shows, the mom is always trying to force the kids to eat (I think they are the first people I have met that dont like chocolate cake), they don't even have shutters on their windows, and they dont really seem to mind us invading their personal space. Kindof differenct, n'est-ce pas?

Some Food

Meal Number 1 in Tours: The Four Course Ridiculously Gourmet Professional Meal


Course 1: it was some kindof crazy fish that I had never heard of (that wasn't very strong), with a salad on the side, and mint flavored whipped cream (it was so bizzare - can't say I would have ever put a combination of those two together).









Course 2: Beef, asparagus, a cheese puff, and some rice. (I guess I could get more specific, but I think the picture explains it well enough).












Course 3: Chèvre spread in a little flakey puff pastery.











Course 4: Chocolate mouse cake.













Meal 2 in Tours: Traditional Food for the Everyday Person

Cassoulé - mystery meat if I ever saw one. I wonder if there was any meat that was the same in this dish. For a while I thought it was all duck. And then I realized that it had sausage. And then I realiwed that it had this other crazy duck stuff. And then it had another kind of sausage. Very heavy- similar to beef stew in that sense, but definatly several steps up from Dinty Moore.







I just had to put it up - chocolate mousse cake will never get old.













Sacré-Coeur (sorry, I dont know how this ended up in some random, boring food section, but oh well - the joys of blogging) - a modern basilica that was built
with stone that cleans itself. It was cool, but I find the random hole in the wall church behind it much more fascinating. Seriously, when you walk into the hole in the wall church and you know for a fact that the eclectic neighborhood surrounding it must be responsible for the interior decoration. There were swinging lights, crazy stained glass windows that look like Picasso might have made them, upbeat organ music playing in the background, it had added charm due to its small size, and it was somehow surprisingly still Romanesque looking (although it had quite a few Gothic elements). Anyways, now that I have talked about the hole in the wall church for an entire paragraph, Sacré-Coeur is cool too I guess. The steps are really fun to sit on. :)

Les Petits Aventures!

Oh boy. This Chocolatier makes all their chocolates on the spot, and they are amazing! Some of them even have little flakes of gold on top.










Le grève (haha, I've never actually spelled that word in French, so I hope that's right). A few of us were marching down the street doing an assignment for one of our classes, when all of a sudden there are like explosions all over the place, and a huge mob of firemen come running down the street yelling. I guess the firemen weren't too pleased with the current retirement age (a typical French thing to be upset about - seriously I don't know how they can still be complaining - the retirement age is so low, and they even have an entire program where they are half retired before they are fully out of the work field to allow for an easier transition) so they decided to go on strike about it. I loved their technique - light all sorts of things on fire, shoot off fireworks, and run down the street - all things that they are supposed to clean up after. Anyways, we were all just kindof dumbfounded, little cameras in hand for the assignment that we were supposed to be doing - so a bunch of them asked us if we wanted our picture taken with them. I felt like a tourist, but why not, right?


And you thought Provo was only a word with a negative connotation in Utah...












So this was at the Parisian Thai Festival. I think my favorite part about this picture is the fact that my hair is like cascading down the uniform, so that it looks like I
have some kindof of odd shaped beard. Haha, je l'aime.

Mes Petits Lapins

Palais Royal - a place where political minds once discussed and compiled ideas, where the Revolutionaries came to hang out, and where Madame Tassaud first created her wax heads (based on all the people they guillotined during the Revolution). Once again a stark contrast with the old and the new. Classical style gardens and stone fountains create a background for the modern metal ball fountain and the white and black striped columns in the adjacent courtyard.





So my petits lapins and I were all just chillin out along the Seine, eating our little tarte citrons, when some interesting characters pull up in their smart car and start pestering the guy on the bench next to us. Just as I was working through the most lemony part of my tarte citron, Natalie gets the crazy idea that the guy has a gun in his back pocket. But the thing you have to know about Natalie is that she is obsessed with staying safe, controlled, and on time. (And im pretty sure there wasnt a gun in his back pocket.) In any event, Im not about to leave my tarte citron, so we stay. Then they pile back up in their little smart car, drive off, and I finish my tarte citron. Anything for the pastry :)






I have decided that the street performers along the Seine are my favorite. The ones that congregate near the Pompidou Center are a little too obsessed with the way of the future, the ones near Montmarte are all a little too bohemian, and the ones in the Metro shouldn't be called street performers because they all use those little stereo things to play background music while they attempt to sing along (unless you go to chatalet - they have some pretty talented musical groups trying to sell their cds there). So here we have some big band swing performers. Sure, its a little Americanized to be playing jazz music, but it sure beats that guy playing the fiddle at Champs-Elysées metro stop every morning on the way to school.



Notre Dame et moi having a moment.
















Landon, Natalie (although I like to spell her name Nathalie because I think it looks cooler), and Kelli - mes petits lapins (haha, i don't think i used that phrase correctly, but I wasn't sure I would get another chance to use it :)