Dear Athens, Why did you hate me so much? It wasn't very nice that you made my life so difficult. But that's okay, I still love you. I think you're awesome and think it would be totally cool if we hung out again sometime. No hard feelings, ok? Love, Candice
To reread the crazy adventures from Athens, click here. To see pictures from Athens, click here.
I didn't take too many pictures in Athens because I was sick and I looked it and was just feeling kind of crappy all day, (pun intended) :)
THE SLEEPER TRAIN When we were making plans to go to Europe, I had read people's travel blogs and the suggestions were to take a sleeper train from Paris to Rome because you would be to see the Alps and it was just a more fun experience. We found tickets that were about the same price as airline tickets so we got them. Well if anyone is reading this and thinking about doing sleeper trains, DON'T!!!! It was the worst thing ever! We got there are there was this lady dressed in full tradition African gear sitting on the bench, taking up the whole thing with her bags and her, instead on putting them on the racks or under the bench. We put our stuff out of the way and pretty sure our other bunk mates came (6 people in total). The French couple that came in were friendly and kind of annoyed with the African lady too. She decided to take her shoes off (PEW-EE!) and start massaging her feet. It smelled, and it was about 85-90 degrees in there. We went down the "snack car" and they had dried out sandwiches and...oh wait, that was it. The bathrooms were the size of airline bathrooms but smelled like a combination of cows, burned broccoli, and throw-up. So in the morning when we were stopped in Milan, there was a group of high school students from Texas that got off the train, the African lady poked me really hard to wake me up, "your people leaving, get up. Your people leaving." My response, "no, we're going to Rome. Those aren't our people." She left the room and we never saw her again. I had set my alarm to get up at about 4am so that I could go out and see the Alps and there was nothing. So overall the sleeper train, no good. But it makes a great story!! :)
Rome was truly amazing. I had mixed feelings about it though. Of all the cities and places that we went, it was the place that I felt the least safe. But overall I am so glad that I got to see what I did. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip and see what I did.
My favorite thing in Rome: THE SISTINE CHAPEL ...which is actually the Vatican City, but oh well. I know that there has been a lot of preservation and restoration over the years, but it AMAZED me at how vibrant the colors were and just how amazing it was. I knew I was in the presence of greatness. Here's the videos I took during our trip to the Vatican.
Brigham Young University hosts a campus Education Week once per year right before the school year starts. It is a week mainly designed for educating adults on MANY different topics. Here's what the website describes it as:
Campus Education Week, begun in 1922, is a program unique to adult continuing education in the United States. For one week each August the program utilizes the campus of Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah) to present approximately 1,000 classes on education, religion, marriage, family relations, health, history, genealogy, science, youth interests, and many other areas. The program is designed primarily for adults, although anyone age 14 and over may attend. It is believed to be the largest continuing education program of its type.
It is truly an amazing opportunity for me to be able to attend. This was my 5th or 6th time going, I can't remember but it is always so powerful. I love the timing as well heading straight into school for the semester. It rejuvenates me and inspires me to be the best that I can be.
The classes that I went to this week, probably not by chance, had an overwhelming theme of LOVE. The love of our Heavenly Father has for each one of us individually, the love of Christ and his sacrifice so that we might return to him, the love each one of us needs to continually develop for our family and all those around us. I learned numerous times through different speakers that love is indeed the most powerful force in the world. We learn in the Book of Mormon that charity, the pure love of Christ, NEVER FAILETH. President Hinckley said this: "Love is the only force that can erase the differences between people or bridge the chasms of bitterness."
One of the teachers of the classes I went to shared this video clip with us that reduced everyone in the room to tears. It was so powerful and sent such an important message.
Think about who you need to say, "I love you" to and who needs a hug today.
One of the websites I check everyday for a daily dose of laughter is failblog.org. It basically is a website of "what were they thinking?" videos, pictures, newspaper articles etc. Some are funny, some are crude, this made me really laugh! Enjoy :)
Paris was an absolutely beautiful city. I went into it thinking that it was going to be my least favorite because I was never really interested in French history, and I'm not a super artsy-fartsy kind of girl and I always pictured Paris as that. I quickly changed my mind. The city was beautiful! The buildings had beautiful architecture and detail, and not just the famous touristy ones, but everywhere! While we were there is was cold and rainy. When you look through the pictures you'll see that I am wearing the same sweatshirt in basically all of them. We were in Paris for three days but I kind of look like I was only there one because I'm wearing the same thing in all the pictures. It was cold and that was the only sweatshirt that I had with me.
My favorite thing that we in the city was see the Eiffel Tower at night. It was so AWESOME!!! Every hour, on the hour the tower would sparkle for 10 minutes. We were up on the Arc looking out at the Tower for 9pm. We decided to take the subway down to the base for the 10pm. And it was so cool!
My second favorite thing that we did was The Pantheon. The Frenchies liked the one in Rome (pictures to come later) and so they copied and made their own in Paris. It didn't really look anything alike on the inside, mostly just on the outside. The reason it was my favorite was the crypts down below. There were so many famous people buried there, it was pretty neat!
The Laundry Story On our last night in Paris at about 9:30 we needed to do laundry. We asked the guy at the front desk and he pointed us in the direction of the closest laundromat. We find it no problem, and we go in and start to read the signs to figure we we need to do since they are all in French (none of us speak French). At 10pm sharp, as we are still trying to figure out what we do, the lights automatically turn off and the door to the shop is closing. I RUN over to the door and catch it before it closes, scared that we are going to get locked in or something. Of course after we gather up our laundry and leave we see the sign that says (we think) not to start laundry after 9pm. So we are kind of standing around looking stupid and a cute elderly couple is walking down the street and they start talking to us French. We realize that they are trying to tell us where another laundromat is. Talk about a language barrier! We kind of get the drift of what they are saying to keep going down this street and then take your 3rd or 4th right and it would be there. Please try and picture this, three 20-something girls walking around in t-shirts and gym shorts carrying a huge duffel bag of clothes at 10pm in a residential area of Paris. We looked awesome. About 15 minutes later by some MIRACLE we find this Laundromat right as we were about to turn around and head back to the hostel before we get ourselves lost. Well, of course it was closed. So we go back and decide that we are just going to have to do it all in the morning. We get the the original place early enough so that we don't waste the day away and there an overflowing washing machine. There was soap seeping out all over :) The person that had that load didn't come in the whole time that we were there so we didn't get to see a reaction or anything, but it was fun to watch! It was quite the adventure!!!
I've been having some troubles uploading pictures from Scotland and from our first trip to London. The reason is because those pictures got transferred to CDs and the CDs got damaged in all the moving around. I am trying to salvage what I can, but it's taking a long time. I don't want to put up pictures of some of the trip without the whole thing so I'm skipping over those pictures and will come back to them later. I've decided to move on to the rest of Europe and then when I'm done with those, I'll upload what I have of Scotland and London.
I realized that I haven't posted anything on the blog in well over a month. The reason: I have been having the summer of a lifetime and haven't stopped to blog! But I'm back in Utah now and have some time on my hands before school starts so I'm updating now and hope to be able to get all my pictures up from this summer!!! First, we'll finish up my study abroad experience. Many of you may have already seen these pictures via facebook, but if not here are the links. I'll post some videos from our adventures too!
A Saturday afternoon in England SEE PICTURES HERE Carianne and I went for an adventure to a park that had some hiking trails in it. We hiked out to a old mill and then decided to take a turn that we weren't completely sure where it led to. We ended getting lost, but it was tons of fun. We knew the general area of where we were, but it was still adventurous and we found our way back safe and sound. Here are videos of some sheep that we had fun with and the view of where we were :)
Sheep Video
Getting Lost Video (sorry about the noise, it was windy)
Pride and Prejudice SEE PICTURES HERE Pemberly is Mr. Darcy's home in Pride and Prejudice. In the long 5 hour version from A&E, Pemberly was filmed at Lyme Park. In the newer version with Kiera Knightly it is filmed at Chatsworth. The movie The Duchess was also filmed at Chatsworth. We got to visit both locations and they were truly beautiful estates! Lyme Park is owned by the government and is in the National Trust. Chatsworth is still home to the Duke and Duchess of somewhere that I can't remember, but they open part of their home to the public for tours and the grounds were open too! It was awesome!
The Lake District SEE PICTURES HERE This was quite an adventurous day! We had made plans before we even came to England that we were going to spend a weekend in the Lake District, spending the night in a hostel somewhere. We booked our hostel the night before we went. When we got to the Lake District is was raining, hard, a lot. We had been planning on doing hikes, so that was sort of out. We then decided to go see the Beatrix Potter house (she wrote The Velveteen Rabbit). We got the visitor's center for the town that we had taken the train into, and found out that the house was closed that day. They were showing us some other things that we could do even thought the weather stunk. Michelle and I were immediately sold on the "Cars of the Stars" museum that was in a town about 45 minutes away. We jumped on the bus and got up to this town of Keswick. We were mostly excited about seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We take the bus up to the town and the museum end up being on this strange side street that we barely found. We go in and find out that we aren't allowed to take pictures, yeah right. We didn't just come all the way up there to see these famous cars and weren't going to take pictures. So we snuck some out of the pockets of our coats. :) We wander around this town for a bit and find out that this is the place that pencils were invented and they had a Pencil Museum and the largest pencil in the world at 8 feet long, who knew? We also mosied over to the 007 James Bond Museum. It was owned by the same guy that owned Cars of the Stars so we figured we wouldn't be able to take pictures so we just went over and took pictures outside. When Michelle and I were done with our adventure in Keswick, the other girls had called us and said that they were going to cancel the hostel and go back to Huddersfield because of the rain. Michelle and I figured that would be fine. We got back to the bus stop to meet Carianne so we could go home together and we found this trail that ended leading up to a beautiful overview of a lake. We walked through a sheep field. When we finally got back on the train to go back to Huddersfield, we saw the Elders on the train. We talked with them for a while. They asked us if we knew a sister that was serving in their mission that had been in the nursing program at BYU. Carianne knew her because she had dated her brother at one point. SMALL WORLD!!!!! It was a crazy day but it was beautiful there and we got to see a lot!
To see pictures from Athens, click here.
The French couple that came in were friendly and kind of annoyed with the African lady too. She decided to take her shoes off (PEW-EE!) and start massaging her feet. It smelled, and it was about 85-90 degrees in there. We went down the "snack car" and they had dried out sandwiches and...oh wait, that was it. The bathrooms were the size of airline bathrooms but smelled like a combination of cows, burned broccoli, and throw-up. So in the morning when we were stopped in Milan, there was a group of high school students from Texas that got off the train, the African lady poked me really hard to wake me up, "your people leaving, get up. Your people leaving." My response, "no, we're going to Rome. Those aren't our people." She left the room and we never saw her again. I had set my alarm to get up at about 4am so that I could go out and see the Alps and there was nothing. So overall the sleeper train, no good. But it makes a great story!! :)
Every hour, on the hour the tower would sparkle for 10 minutes. We were up on the Arc looking out at the Tower for 9pm. We decided to take the subway down to the base for the 10pm. And it was so cool!
My second favorite thing that we did was The Pantheon. The Frenchies liked the one in Rome (pictures to come later) and so they copied and made their own in Paris. It didn't really look anything alike on the inside, mostly just on the outside. The reason it was my favorite was the crypts down below. There were so many famous people buried there, it was pretty neat!
So we are kind of standing around looking stupid and a cute elderly couple is walking down the street and they start talking to us French. We realize that they are trying to tell us where another laundromat is. Talk about a language barrier! We kind of get the drift of what they are saying to keep going down this street and then take your 3rd or 4th right and it would be there. Please try and picture this, three 20-something girls walking around in t-shirts and gym shorts carrying a huge duffel bag of clothes at 10pm in a residential area of Paris. We looked awesome. About 15 minutes later by some MIRACLE we find this Laundromat right as we were about to turn around and head back to the hostel before we get ourselves lost. Well, of course it was closed. So we go back and decide that we are just going to have to do it all in the morning. We get the the original place early enough so that we don't waste the day away and there an overflowing washing machine. There was soap seeping out all over :) The person that had that load didn't come in the whole time that we were there so we didn't get to see a reaction or anything, but it was fun to watch! It was quite the adventure!!!
