Paris Day 2

June 23, 2007

So I would consider today Day 1 in Paris. It was a great day we saw two very beautiful homes. The first was Fountainebleau. This is was surrounded by great forest and was were the Kings and their accomplices would go hunting and so they built this home for their vacation spot during hunting season.

It had a great interior which was different than any of the places we saw in London. Here is the great hall.

There was such ornate flooring. Unlike any other I have yet seen.

Also a different kind of ceiling. They had not yet designed coffered ceilings and this is the first for of that they had come up with. Again very ornate.

There was great use of window to let light in.

Also there were so many beautiful chandeliers. It was neat to be able to walk right under them.

I loved some of the upholstery. Such as in this room with all the matching green floral print. I thought it was just lovely, the vibrant green.

Also this great orange stripe.

This was also the place that Napolean made his speech before heading out to war. Here is a picture of Kaite and I at his exit.

After walking through the interior we just took a few minutes to stroll through the outside. There were some great ponds. One with a cute little gazzibo that you could only get to on a boat.

From Founainebleau we traveled to Vaux le Vicomte.

This is the home of the Kings and Queens of France for the past seven generations. I was really not that impressed with it’s interior but the exterior was by far my most favorite on the entire trip thus far.

There was amazing hedge work.

And the ponds actually had fish.

There were many places for some fun photo opportunities.

It was beautiful because there was a stream that ran through the middle of the property. It was wild on either side but in the middle they had made it part of the landscaping.

We couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather!

We walked around the property and to the other side of the stream and had a great view.

We kept walking up the hill side and the view only got better.

As Mikell and I were walking through the forest I came across this huge bright orange slug. It was bigger than my finger.

It was so nice because Mikell and I had taken our time walking through the forest by the time we made it back to the gardens there was really no one else out there.

There was also no one on the backside of the house. This is one the back steps.

The palace even had a real life mote around it. Isn’t that the coolest thing ever?

As it gets dark candles are lite around the property and in the house to keep things well lit. It was beautiful.

And to go along with the man made lighting. There was a beautiful sunset where there was just enough break in the clouds to let a few rays of sun light through.

Paris Day 1

June 22, 2007

Today I did not do a single thing. We woke up in the morning and headed out of London. We hauled our luggage through 2 tub station on to the train station and onto the chunnel. I was freaking out completely because we were going to be traveling under thousands of gallons of water and I could not take that. So the girl next to me gave me some drugs which completely knocked me out. The next thing I knew I was waking up in Paris! Next we waited outside the train station in Paris for 4 hours waiting for our bus to come pick us up and take us to our hotel. This had to be the worst first impression of Paris. Our group kept moving over because of cigarette smokers smoking right next to us. I was thinking GET OVER IT!!! Everyone here is going to smoke. Sheltered Utahins… But whatever makes you more comfortable. The thing that shocked me the most was this group of girls probably ages 13 to 30 that were walking around the side walk and even into the streets to stopped cars begging for money. I could only imagine the things they were doing or money and at such a young age. Finally we rented some vans got to our hotel, which isn’t half bad and then went to eat. We went to an Italian Restaurant because most of wanted to be able to order something we would understand… Pizza. Finally home to bed.

Last Chance London

June 21, 2007

Last Chance London.

So today is my last day in London. So I woke up early for a nice morning walk, then I came home and did some laundry and caught up on my blogging. After the morning me and a few of the girls went around London trying to finish one of our assignments. We had to go to three retail shops done by famous designers. So we walked around for hours searching for these addresses that we had no clue where they were. We found one out of three places. It is this Stella McCartney store.

I was dressed so scrubby and felt very out of place walking into all these designer shops. But it was nice to be in the upper class part of town.

After we met up with a bunch of the other girls and went out for our last dinner. We went to a restaurant named Wagamamas. It is like a Japanese restaurant and very delicious! The best was the dessert. It was a chocolate cake with wasabi and chocolate mousse filling. It was so great.

After all that I just went home and packed and went to bed. I had a fabulous time in London and already cannot wait for my next opportunity to come back. It is a very chic city that seems to be so full of style in fashion, art, and architecture. If there is a next time I hope that it will be more focused on the modern forms of art and design. I love the fashion there and wish I could have simply gone on an amazing shopping spree.

London Day 15

June 20, 2007

Today we went to the Syon House. This place was an abbey. It was very boring to walk through. No pictures were allowed inside but I did not feel like there would have been much to take pictures of anyway. The best thing about the property was the conservatory, which we did not even go in just saw the outside.

We also went and saw the Musical Wicked later in the evening and it was AMAZING!!! I had such a good time. I was not originally going to go but all my room mates were and at the last minute when they were in line for tickets I jumped in an bought one. I am so glad that I did because it was a great show.

London Day 14

June 19, 2007

Okay, so today we went to Chatsworth and this is now my new favorite day. The gardens here were so great and fun. The house of course was very nice but after a while all the palaces begin to blend together and seem the same. There was this beautiful hallway. and I thought this was interesting as a chandelier. I liked the china collection. It made me want to start collecting plates. Here are many pictures of me and some of the girls playing through out the garden.This was a really cool lion statue that was huge. I really liked this romantic freize.

There was a maze which a few of us girls did and that was fun. You can see the maze behind me. and me at a dead end:( It took us a little while but we did finally make it to the center!

Also this cool path heading up the mountain with a large tree in the middle. I caught a cute little frog in the middle of the path.

After we got back from Chatsworth Mikell and I went out to dinner at a place called YO. It’s a sushi restaurant and o course it was so good. It was neat the way it was set up. They color coded all the plates according to different prices and the plates just go around on a conveyor belt and you take what you like as they go around and then at the end they add up the plates. It was a lot of fun.