And At Last...

...I'm coming home! What an adventure this has been. But since my brain has replaced the word "home" with "hotel," I think it's about time I returned to good old America. I'll see you all soon!

Disneyland Paris

I went there. I loved it. I was relieved beyond belief that my cast member comp tickets from 2010 actually worked. :)

I have this sneaking suspicion that the foreign parks have better shows because they aren't restrained by certain safety laws. Not that I'm complaining about safety laws. I did a little research before coming to Paris and found out that the big rollercoasters here (Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain) are supposed to be some of the best in the Disney Parks and I have to say--I might agree. Big Thunder is built on an island, but you board on the mainland. The train takes you under the water twice! And Space Mountain shoots you forward fast now, like you're blasting off. SM was a little too jerky for me, but it was still fun. They also have an Indiana Jones rollercoaster that goes upside down. It was fun. :)

Walked through the castle, took lots of pictures, saw a Tarzan show that was absolutely AMAZING (tumble monkeys!), and watched the 20th Anniversary Parade. Which blew my mind. Loved seeing Merlin and the Blue Fairy, who don't get out in the parks much.

We're doing the other park tomorrow, on our last day of this amazing summer. More from me then!

I Marathon My Way Through Paris

No kidding, either. We pretty much covered central Paris in one day. And our timing was actually pretty good! We started with a lovely walk through the bowels of the city: the catacombs. We got in line an hour before it opened which ended up being a really good idea because fifteen minutes later the line was four times as long and still growing! The catacombs are much deeper under Paris than the metro is, and they are actually quite extensive. They only let you walk through a small part. The first half of our tour was through a bunch of old passageways made of stone. There were exhibits here and there that talked about what the land was like billions of years ago. Then we entered the ossuary. I don't know the specifics, but I do know that they needed a place to put all of the bones when people were dying of the plague, so they decided to pile them up in the old catacombs. The ossuary is a giant mass grave where bones are piled on top of each other. As my friend put it, the whole time you're walking through thinking "this is really cool! ...I'm totally creeped out... I like this! ...No, I don't like this..." It was creepy and fascinating at the same time. I couldn't even guess at how many bones were down there. Millions of skeletons at least. It was crazy.

We got out of the catacombs on schedule and decided to take a look at Paris from the sky: our next stop was Notre Dame. Again we waited for about an hour, but then we got into the North Tower and climbed a bajillion steps up to the top. It was really cool. The gargoyles are awesome and the view is fantastic! We also got to see the biggest bell in the cathedral: it's called Emmanuel. Apparently, back in the day, there were twenty-some bells in Notre Dame. Now, howver, there are only eleven. We have French revolutionaries to thank for that. They took ALL of the bells down. The eleven we have today are all replacements. We heared them chiming on the hour a couple of times.

We went inside after coming back down, and it is definitely beautiful. They let you take pictures as long as your flash is off, but they ask you not to talk so that you don't disturb the worshipers while you're there. The stained glass is beautiful and so is the organ. I loved it. And I have to say, Disney did a fabulous job portraying it in their Hunchback movie. 

We had expected a longer wait for Notre Dame, so we were delighted to have enough time to visit the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower, all in quick succession. We didn't go inside the Louvre, but we took pictures outside of it. It was fun. :) I think this is the first day that my camera has actually run out of batteries--we did a lot and took a lot more pictures than usual. I also ate two crepes today, and they were both incredibly delicious. 

And now we're turning in. It's not quite seven, but our feet are exhausted and we have an even bigger day tomorrow: Disneyland Paris! 

I'll check in with you all after that. :)

I Set A New Personal Record

I have never, EVER been so exhausted, and that includes when I was jetlagged. I think the reason is just that in addition to a great deal of physical stress, I've been feeling a considerable amount of mental stress just worrying about getting to Paris safely. Well, we made it, and we didn't get lost or anything.

Let me give you the abbreviated tour through my day: I spent sixteen hours traveling or waiting to travel, staring at 4:00 this morning and ending at 10:00 tonight. I was worried about luggage weight right up to the very last, but I got in with 19 kgs, which is just under 44 pounds (the limit over here on small planes). Our plane was delayed for a little bit. I slept a lot en route. I realized that I'm not very comfortable being in a country where people speak a language I don't understand. :) I felt a little bit lost when I was trying to understand the train station. I worried that we wouldn't get to our hotel until after dark (but we just made it!). I lugged my suitcase and two carry-ons onto a train and on two different metro lines and up several staircases before finding the hotel. My poor hands are developing blisters.

And yet, Heavenly Father has been with me all day. Even though I was nervous and stressed, he heard my prayers and his Spirit was with us as we traveled. I feel so incredibly blessed to have made it to my hotel without any horrendous mishaps (I'm so good at imagining worst-case scenarios...). I cannot say enough how much he has helped me today.

Well, my whirlwind tour of Paris starts tomorrow, so I need to get to sleep. I have wifi in my hotel now, so I'll be able to contact all of you for the rest of the trip! I'll be back tomorrow with stories of the catacombs and Notre Dame, among several other famous landmarks. Good night!

Edinburgh and Glasgow

Well, I spent the last two days in a hostel in the middle of Edinburgh (pronounced eh-din-burr-uh). Apparently they have this yearly festival called the Fringe where a bunch of artsy people get together and put on various plays and comedy routines and stuff. It's almost impossible to walk down High Street this time of year because you're bombarded by people trying to get you to come to their shows and handing out flyers. Not my favorite thing in the world, but we managed somehow. We got into Edinburgh Friday around four and were given two hours to wander around before going out to a big group dinner at some fancy restaurant that the trip payed for. I was sitting across from our coach driver and spent the majority of the time asking him questions about where he's been (he travels all of Europe with his coach, taking people around). He doesn't get holidays off ever, so he has to spend time with his family late in September and early in March. I also managed to ask him a few questions about the royal family and what they actually do. Contrary to my uneducated assumptions, they don't just sit around being fabulously wealthy. They still have the ultimate power over what happens in the country (though parliament can check them if they feel it necessary) and they make the important decisions (or the Prime Minister does it for them). Also, the Queen apparently started a ton of companies over the years and was at one point making about 30 pounds per second. Yuck. I also learned that England does NOT want her son Charles to be king (something about how he treated Diana? I think they loved her a lot over here), so the Queen is planning on abdicating and nominating her grandson Will for the crown. After that, parliament votes and then the country votes (and common consensus is that they'll all vote yes--they love Will as much as they loved Diana). I thought this was all very interesting. What time was  not spent in conversation was spent watching Michael Phelps win his swimming races by coming up from behind in the last 50 meters. He was behind six people when he turned around and then all of a sudden he had the gold medal.

O.O

And on that note, I'll stop rambling about royal families and the Olympics and tell you about edinburgh. It's beautiful. It's like Rohan and Gondor combined. There's a giant castle in the center of the city on a rock that sits above everything else. The rest of the city is built into and around the surrounding landscape, so you could be in the center of the city but have a mountain two streets away. It's really cool. We spent most of our time in Edinburgh window shopping and wandering down streets. Alexis and I found a street where her ancestors owned a shop and she got to take a lot of pictures there. We also found another cathedral and just sat in it for a few minutes. Another find? The Elephant Cafe. It's the place where JKR created Harry Potter on the corner of a napkin. She was dirt poor and would buy a coffee and drink it really slowly so she could just sit inside. I didn't eat there, but my friends did. I took plenty of pictures, though.

Saturday night, we finished up our trip with one final show: the Edinburgh Royal Military Tattoo. Oh my goodness, it was amazing, especially for a band nerd like myself. Tere was a lot of marching and a lot of bagpipes and even some traditional dancing. I took videos of most of it because it was just too cool. The highlights, though? USA's military european band doing a medley of superhero songs, the fireworks accompanied by live music, the exhileration of hearinga hundred pipers accompanied by drums, the Norwegians marching like nobody's business, the drum corps with the drums that lit up when you hit them, and last but not least, hearing a selection of music from Brave and then being told that the composer, Patrick Doyle, was in the audience with us that night. He also composed the music for Harry Potter 4! The tattoo was amazing and I would come back during the Fringe again if it meant being able to see it again too.

Today? We went to church in Edinburgh and attended at YSA sunday school class with a bunch of Scottish boys and one African boy who looked like Wayne Brady. It was like being in a high school sunday school class again. Then we had a wonderful Relief Society lesson on Charity. After church, we took a brief trip to Loch Lomond before heading to Glasgow, which is where I am now. And I'm sad to say that this concludes the British Isles portion of my adventure. Tomorrow we all fly out--most of us to the US, but four of us to Paris. I'm excited (and a little bit nervous) about the rest of this trip, but I have to say that I am going to miss this place, and especially the people I've seen it with. I'm sad to leave it behind, but I'm also really excited to come home. And to go to Disneyland. :)

This is me, signing out from GB for the last time, guys! It's been amazing.

I Completely Disregard My Common Sense About Germs

I would like to take this moment to say that I have reached a milestone in my existance: I got my picture taken while frolicking through a field of heather. Words can't express how happy this made me.

We had a lovely, rural day in the Highlands of Scotland. We went to Culloden Battlefield and walked around where the Jacobites tried to fight for their freedom and failed miserably. The ground was spongy and covered with heather. I can imagine how hard it must have been to try to run across that terrain while carrying heavy weapons.

After the battlefield, we went into a national park where we got out and hiked up a mountain and through even more fields of heather. We got up pretty high and had some beautiful views. I haven't seen Brave yet, but I imagine that what we saw was similar to what they put in that movie. The whole hhike helped me to realize what I think Scotland reminds me of : Yellowstone. We drove along curving roads that were lined with evergreens or winding through giant hills. I even saw some elk-like animals with huge horns! At the top of our hike, we stopped at a crystal clear, bubbling stream. We took lots of pictures, and then I did something I would NEVER do, EVER. I drank the water.

I shudder just thinking about it. I don't know what got into me. But it tasted good. :)

We finished off the day by watching a real-life shepherd show us how he trains his little sheep dog puppies. He had seven or eight dogs running around herding sheep, and we found out later that he had six even younger puppies too! It was really interesting. He talked about how he and his family were one of only two left in the area who knew how to herd sheep when there used to be sixty. Since they supply the meat for most of Britain, this is a real problem. He works all day, every day, with his wife and three kids to run his farm. All of the animals are incredibly docile--the sheep came running up to us, hoping to get petted or fed. So part two of my germ-ridden day was that I actually petted a lamb for a little bit. I felt really gross afterwards and sanitized my hands twice before I got home, where I washed them too. I'm not big on the "let's pet farm animals" thing, but that little lamb was awfully cute. One thing that was interesting about the whole thing was that this shepherd was anti-environmentalist. It was an interesting change from the norm.

It was a beautiful day! We leave Inverness tomorrow for the penultimate stop on our British tour: Edinburgh.

I Distract Myself From A Crisis By Talking About Ridiculous Things

Said crisis is why I didn't blog last night. It is also impossible for me to do anything more about it until 9:00 this morning (it is 7:32 right now), so I will fill the time with a little blogging.

We drove for nine hours yesterday. But we made several fun stops in the middle, so it wasn't terrible. Plus we watched How To Train Your Dragon for the first two hours, which is a solid start to any road trip, but especially to one through Scotland.

Scotland is beautiful. I've said that about every place I've been, but I think I really love Scotland the most. It's a lot of stone and deep hues like evergreen and navy and black. What a drive! There was always something to look at, so we were never bored. I had fun watching the plants and trying to figure out which ones were heather. I still don't know! I should probably look it up.

Now for the ridiculous things! The second one is really cool, but the first is not: I had to pay to use a bathroom yesterday. Europe is big on conservation and maybe they really do need to conserve water and paper with how little space they have for so many people, but come on. You can't help having to go to the bathroom. It's cruel and unusual to force someone to hold it just because they don't have any spare change on them. I wonder if they'd prefer it if people did what they do in Paris and just go to the bathroom wherever they like, such as in the metro, simply because they don't want to pay. I'm told that Paris smells really bad.

But that's my personal feeling on the matter. On to the other cool thing: we were at the head of Loch Ness at the time! We drove all the way around Loch Ness and got out of the coach in a couple of places to take pictures. No sign of Nessie, but supposedly it has to be hot and sunny for her to show up. I got to touch the water in one spot and it's really cold.

Have some facts about Loch Ness that our coach driver told us:
It's the biggest lake in Great Britain. It's not very wide, but it's about 23 miles long and really deep. All the other lakes in GB could fit inside of it. After about five meters, the water turns pitch black because of all the silt that comes in from the seven rivers that empty into it, so you can't see anything below those five meters. Very recently they discovered a huge cavern underneath Loch Ness that runs the entire length of the Loch. (Convenient, no? This is where they think whatever's down there has been hiding.) For the size of the loch and the volume of the water it holds, the number of fish that live in  it is ssignificantly lower than it should be. I don't know if that's related to the level of silt in the water or if it means something's eating all the fish (which is what the locals want you to believe). And finally, they have a series of gates in one of the rivers that allow them to get boats into and out of the loch by controlling the level of the water between each gate. in 1967, the gate closest to Loch Ness was damaged by something underwater overnight.  


They think that whatever is down there is around 100 meters long, but they've never gotten a clear look at it, so there's no real way of knowing. What do I think? Well, I know one theory is that they found a colony of giant squid living in Loch Ness a few years back. On hot days they come up to the surface and sometimes even break it with their tentacles, looking suspiciously like the head and neck of a large underwater dinosaur. But considering our lack of knowledge when it comes to what lives in the deepest parts of the ocean, I would like to think that there could be something there that we don't know about yet. Still, there's no doubt that most of the hype has been just that: hype, made up by people who want to believe.  Or get attention. 


Anyway, Loch Ness was amazing! I had a lot of fun and took lots of pictures.