everything is illuminated

I've been meaning to write this post for a while:

A Collection of Stained Glass Windows from Cathedrals in Europe.

Downham, England

York Minister, York, England and the town hall of Dundee, Scotland

Les Jacobins Monastery, Toulouse, France

St. Maire Eglise, Normandy, France

Amboise, France

St. Etienne Cathedral, Toulouse, France

The crown jewel of all stained glass windows, in my opinion: St. Chapelle. 

It's a tiny cathedral not far from Notre Dame in Paris. You walk upstairs and into the chapel, and it's like being inside of a kaleidoscope. Every wall in the entire cathedral looks like the photo, telling a ton of Old Testament stories, panel by panel, and then something about the relics of the chapel (?).  It is awe inspiring. So beautiful!

3 castles in 14 hours

getting really lazy with the pictures here.
My mom and I took a bus tour down to the Loire Valley where we saw Amboise (bottom 3 photos), Chenonceau (middle photo), and Chambord (top). Amboise is where Leonardo DaVinci is buried. It's an adorable little town. We ate lunch at a cafe, sitting facing the street French style to enjoy the people watching. Chambord has this awesome double staircase where if you go up one side of it, you'll be able to see your friend going up the other periodically in little windows, but you'll never meet until you get to the top or bottom. It was a fun little adventure.

a day in which science and art collide

So Marie Curie is my hero.

Because she was a girl and a chemist. 

And she won the Nobel Prize twice and discovered two elements (radium and polonium) and did a ton of stuff with x-rays (and then died because of it).

She is buried in the Pantheon in Paris.

I got to go there.

And pay my respects.

Thanks Marie, for all your inspiration.

Her husband Pierre, also a scientist, is in the tomb underneath hers.

After the Pantheon, my mom and I went to the Rodin Museum. I loved, loved, loved it. It's really small, in the house where he lived (more like a mansion, big for a house, small for a museum), and then in the gardens behind the house as well. All of his sculptures looked like pieces I would actually want to display, because they were beautiful. They looked so alive! I loved all of the ones of hands, like The Cathedral (below) or The Secret (right). I also really liked any of the ones that looked unfinished, like they just emerged from the stone. And of course, the Thinker was great. I even bought a little Thinker eraser (like it's a man thinking...and you can erase pencil with it...bwahaha). 

a day in which we see water lillies and get a surprise!

We finally made it to the Musee de L'Orangerie, where Monet's water lilly paintings are and a bunch of other impressionists. It's quite small, so it only took us maybe 45 minutes to go through the entire thing. The lilly paintings were beautiful. There are maybe 8 (?) of them in the museum, all at different times of day (my favorites were the night ones). They're huge! We loved this museum...

except for the naked fat ladies.

So a few days before this when we were walking through Notre Dame, someone comes up behind me and grabs my shoulders. Wouldn't you know but it's our neighbor Brother Wilkes who was in France with his wife Sister Wilkes. It was the BYU Blackpool 2010 jacket I was wearing that caught their attention. Then, the same day we were at the Orangerie we went across the river to the Musee d'Orsay and happened to run into them again! We spent the rest of the afternoon with them getting gelato and then hanging out in the park in front of the Louvre (pretty much the only grass in Paris you can actually sit on. All of the lawns have signs saying "pelouse interdite" or "grass forbidden"). What are the odds?

joyous reunion!

a day in which we saw 6 million dead Parisians.

(sidenote: I am uber behind, as we left Paris yesterday, and I'm currently in Toulouse. I still have so much to stay about Paris!)

And not just their graves, but their actual dead skeleton bodies.

Welcome to the catacombs-aka tunnels under the city that used to be used as mining tunnels, but after it was decided that the dead bodies in the cemeteries were still carrying disease, they dug them all up (6 million of them, as stated in the title of this post) and carted them down into the tunnels. Now people can walk through for a few euros (8? 10? whatever it was, it was worth it). It was really cool. You walk through dark tunnels of nothing for like 15-20 minutes and then you get to this entry way that warns, "Arrete! C'est ici l'empire de la mort!" or "Stop! This is the empire of death!" and then you see stacks and stacks and stacks of bones for another 20ish minutes.

Sweeeeeeeeet.

(no flash photos allowed in empire of death, so please pardon the blurry bones)

a day in which we saw many works of art, from 1000 bc to 2010

Dear Monmartre,

We love you. We love your break dancers, child yo yo prodigies, Asian caricature painters, "Italian" restaurants, Avatar: The Last Airbender posters, and Amelie cafes.

Even when it rains.

Love always,

The Andrus foursome

Dear Louvre,

Becky and Jeff did not particularly enjoy you (quote from Becky's postcard to Sadie, "Isn't Mona the worst?"), but I did. Thanks for letting me see Miss Mona, Winged Victory, the French Revolution painting that is now the cover for Coldplay's album, Napoleon crowning Josephine (also in Versailles, does anyone know if Jean Louis David just painted two enormous paintings of the exact same thing?), Venus de Milo, and a bunch of Egyptian stuff. Also, thanks to the textile/design museum next door for the awesome look at vintage Chanel and Yves St. Laurent (Bec liked that, no more "fat naked ladies"). 

Love always,

Kat

rick steves is my new best friend

Versailles!

The chateau enorme that Louis XIV built to glorify himself was quite the fun day trip for us. We took the train out to the city of Versailles and explored a teeny tiny fraction of the castle first (you can only go through the chapel, king and queen's chambers, the Hall of Mirrors and a few other rooms). The extravagance in that place is overwhelming. I just kept thinking, "No wonder the French people stage a revolution..." The entire court of the king used to live in this place, and it is huge huge huge. I tried to take a picture of the entire thing, and I couldn't fit it all in, even a hundred yards back from the gate. Afterward we rented bikes and biked all over the grounds. Somehow we missed the place leading to the Grand and Petit Trianons and Marie Antoinette's little hamlet, so we biked forever around all the canals. Eventually we did stumble upon the hamlet and had so much fun pretending to be cute French peasants ourselves. Afterward, at the recommendation of Mr. Rick Steves and his guidebook, we ate at this delightful little creperie. Twas delish. And we're now sick of crepes.

Today was filled with open air marketing, Louvre-ing, and Monmartre-ing.
Becky got a caricature.
I got to see Les Deux Moulins, the cafe where Amelie works.
We both got a photo in front of a poster for Le Dernier Maitre de L'Air!!!!! aka Avatar: The Last Airbender!!!! It comes out on July 28th in France, and you can bet that I will be watching it that very night.

Bon soir, mes amis!

la vie en rose

Once upon a time, three kids and a mom went to Paris.

They were highly indecisive about where to go their first morning, but after seeing the hour long wait at the Musee (can't find the num lock, pardon my not using any accents) de l'Orangerie finally settled on going to the Musee de l'Armee (basically a huge museum that covers all wars in French history).

They then walked in the rain over to Les Invalides, or Napoleon's tomb, which, for such a short person, is huge-seven caskets huge (compare the height of the people in the background to the height of the casket).

They then happened upon the Centre Pompidou, the national modern art museum. Some pieces were a little sketch (video of naked lady swinging barbed wire hoola hoop around her waist, anyone?), BUT, there was some sweet art in that place. Also, the building looks like it's inside out.

 

And after having their fill of modern art (approximately 20 minutes worth), they were indecisive some more about which crepe stand to eat at, finally deciding to return to the little creperie near the hotel a short metro ride away.

And the next day they woke up early and went to Versailles and took a million photos that the author of this story does not feel like sorting through right now to do that place justice. Also, she feels like killing her siblings, because they are so obnoxious. And she woke up early. And is therefore rather cranky.

But here's a sneak preview of that ode to Louis XIV's opulence:

That would be Jeff, posing like the liberal hippie he is with his Amnesty International bracelet (sick sick sick) in Marie Antoinette's petit hameau (the peasant village she built for herself so she could escape the harsh reality* of being queen of France and play pretend).

*you know, playing cards with people waiting on you hand and foot, dancing, eating the best food in France, man it sucked.

city of light

just a brief overview of our first day in paris:

bateaux mouches!

(boat sightseeing tour on the seine)

sleep!

(until 12:40 the next day)

and that is all i really have to say about that.

p.s. my condolences to the french soccer team. maybe they lost so bad because you have zero world cup spirit unlike england who is packed full of it.

p.p.s. notice the fact that i am wearing cute clothes again now that i am free of tour clothing. also notice that i still have yet to do my hair since i got to europe.

bienvenue! and creepy old statues.

 

 

Yesterday was our last day in England. We performed in South Port, near Liverpool on Tuesday night (I danced the theater arts routine for Allie who had to leave for Miss Utah! So fun! So scary!), after having toured the Beatles Museum that morning. Wednesday I flew in France. I'll post more photos and things about all this later. 

But first, let me explain the above photos. There's this tomb of some guy high up in the Anglican church in the York Minster. The angel babies are supposed to be crying over his death. But we decided that it was really an ode to a pedophile with him lying in this somewhat provocative pose and children turning away crying. 

Funny thing is, that's the exact pose the boys in the cha cha started out in in our show Saturday night (we get bored doing the same show night after night after night, so sometimes we..uh...change...things slightly).

Anyway. Today we shall explore Paris, the city of light! Woo!!!