vroom!!

My parents are officially on their way to meet me in Paris. Yay! And... Happy Anniversary to them! 21 years... "Felifessecochon," as my uncle Christophe would say :)

K, I've honestly tried for like two or three nights in a row now to do this big giant post but my computer has decided that it doesn't want to upload pictures to this blog website anymore. Tonight it FINALLY agreed to cooperate.
I've been listening to Primary songs this evening while cleaning up my apartment in honor of my parents' arrival. It's put me in a really good mood! :) (sorry, overload on the smiley faces. but sometimes there are just spots in the conversation where you NEED one, ya know?) Primary memories...
Even when the computer does work for downloading pictures, it's really really slow. I've timed it, and it takes about 4 minutes per picture. 4 minutes doesn't sound like a long time, but it really adds up (and with technology of today, usually things like songs you download only take about 20 seconds, max, and pictures are even faster). So in this entry I've got 13 pictures. Let's see... 13 times 4... 52.  That's about an hour just downloading the pictures. Oh well. I enjoy making this blog anyway.



Hee hee... I think this picture is so funny! Look at Yannick's face (the kid on the left). He's the one that I described in a previous entry like being like that kid in The Other Side of Heaven who gets the lesson on the pearl. Yannick is very enthusiastic, extremely philosophical, and always warm. He also puts passion into whatever he does. That's why I love this picture of him. Whenever he reads a scripture or passage in institute, he always reads slowly and carefully. When he makes a comment, he makes a visible effort to use dignified langauge to get his point across. And whenever he sings a hymn, he sometimes sings off-pitch because he doesn't know these hymns like we (who have grown up with these melodies) do. But he always sings out, putting his heart into it. One time, in FHE, we sang I Am a Child of God. I almost groaned when I found out what the song was. It's the most over-used, worn-through hymn in the LDS Church, I sometimes feel. But this time, I saw why. As I heard Yannick's voice rise over the rest, I imagined how it must be to read these lyrics for the first time in your life. "I am a child of God. He has sent me here."
In this actual picture, Michael had been playing around on the piano. He's pretty good at improvising. Yannick heard him, had him go with a certain chord pattern, and started singing along, improvising himself. I have a video of it on my computer.

Some gents takin' advantage of our YSA foozball.

Notre Dame is just a short walk away from our meetinghouse. This is the pretty sunset as I was leaving FHE that night.

Me and Makou! Medei had brought these Indian-looking hats so we had a photoshoot. He actually isn't in any of these shots cuz he just dropped 'em off and then had to leave. We have yet to have our official photoshoot with him... Makou is wearing her own headdress in this photo, but you can see a bit of one of the hats on top of my head. I think you might be able to see it better in some of the other pictures.

This is Aline, wearing the red hat/headdress thingy. I haven't talked to her a whole lot, but she's really into sewing. She's always got some project. And she always has cute tops.

This is Elisa. She's Algerian, but her father I think loved the French culture or something so he gave her a European name. She likes order and structure. She's passionate about her religion (she's Muslim). You can see my headdress better in this one... She also talks passionately about her father.

This is Mr. Jimmy Oucif. I don't know how he ended up with such an English name... This is a super-cool vintage black-and-white shot, so you can't tell, but he's got his pink sunglasses on. He always has them on. I think that "cool" is a good word for him. Not in the "in-crowd" sense, but in the "chill" sense. As in he's always laid back and low-key. In addition to l'Etape, I see him every Tuesday afternoon when I'm in charge of distributing tickets to cultural activities. He likes to go to plays and movies.

This is Dalilah. I'm not quite sure how her name is spelled. She's also into sewing and crafts and such. The other day she gave me a bunch of beads and some elastic, and she's also going to teach me to make Brazilian bracelets.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Gino. 'Nuff said. Just kidding- He's from Corsica, and he's quite the character. I'm running out of steam... I might have to describe him some other time.

Some lady I've seen a couple times but I don't remember officially meeting her. I don't remember her name. But look at that adorable smile.

This is an ad that they had in the metro for a while. I smiled inside every time I walked by it, because, guess who else is Lady Chacha?

Saturday of last week, there was a Relief Society activity where we were gonna go see the Champs-Elysees and picnic. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure of whether we were meeting at 11 or 11:30 and which exit we were going to be meeting by (I knew the metro station, but for each station there are several accesses). Turns out it was 11. I got there about 10 after, but I didn't find anyone. So after a while of waiting in vain, I walked down the Champs-Elysees by myself, eating another cheese hotdog. (It was number two since I've been in France. So I've had more hotdogs in France in two months than I have in the US in the last like 4 years). After I finished my hotdog, I sat down on a park bench "saying to myself hey isn't this easy-y-y" just kidding. I sat down on park bench, looked at the book my dad lent me for my trip (a Paris tourguide-ish book), found where I was on the map, and kinda just randomly pointed and ended up on Les Invalides. So, I visited a bit of Les Invalides. I only had about an hour and a half before I had to leave to be somewhere, so I didn't actually pay for a ticket, but I went and walked around the free parts, and got some pictures in. this is a far-away picture of the Invalides. It's that building with the gold dome. I learned that it was what one of the King Louis had built for his retired soldiers who were "invalid;" that is, they were too old or too worn down from battle to do anything other than beg/steal.

My beautiful chocolate cake. It's the flourless recipe, so it's pretty much like cooked chocolate mousse. And it's a delectable recipe. Especially when you make it with French chocolate. It was kind of a like a cheese souffle cuz it blew up while it was in the oven and then collapsed a bit when I took it out.