The Hardmans

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Paris, part 3

The Picasso Museum

Musee d'Orsay:

Van Gogh

Van Gogh's self-portrait

Whislter's Mother (and Than)

A snazzy shirt that I tried on

Little outdoor restaurants

Nathaniel eating Greek food in Paris

A Greek Salad

Nathaniel's review: Our final day in Paris we actually went outside the city to Versailles.
From the moment the palace came into view, I was astounded at the opulence of the place.
The golden gates around the football-field-sized courtyard in front of the three-winged palace,
decked out sculpture and gilding all over – it was outrageous. When we went inside, that
feeling intensified. There was room after room of fifteen-foot ceilings covered in
murals of wealth and power, with walls covered in portraits and mirrors, everything gilded,
everything ornate. We walked into a hall with a thirty-foot, arched ceiling, hung with
crystal chandeliers every few feet for a good sixty feet or so. We walked down a hallway
lined with at least a dozen larger-than-life sculptures of French Nobility posing in
positions of power and intelligence. We saw the royal bedrooms with beds abnormally
high (someone explained to me that they didn’t want anyone to look down on them,
even to wake them up). We saw the private chapel, three levels high, and big enough
for a congregation of a hundred, and all that wealth and sumptuousness built into
a feeling of…I don’t know. Disgust? Lina’s dad asked what I thought, and I said I
thought it was kind of sickening. He said the word that kept coming to mind was
“immoral.” I think that sums it up pretty well.

The Gardens at Versailles:

Size: 800 hectacres

Number of fountains: 50

Sudden rain. It was bright and sunny and while we were checking our map it clouded
over and started POURING. Then it stopped after a few minutes and the sun came out quickly.

Number of trees: 200,000

The Palace:

The War Hall, or something. It had huge murals of past French wars.

Napoleon

Lots of chandeliers.

An enormous bed.

Check out the ceilings.

What we call the "Blue Room." There was a wing of rooms similar to this, but each was a
different color and had different paintings or furniture.

I think this was the chapel.

The gate made of gold, really. I waited several minutes for no one to be getting their picture
taken in front of the gate, but it didn't happen. So I don't know these people.

One of the fountains. If you look to the right of the fountain near the top of the picture,
you can see (sort of) how far the gardens extend even from this point. And that is just one side!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Paris

If you eat Onion Soup in France, is it French Onion Soup?

We found a fun little cafe to eat lunch. Nathaniel can totally pull off that hat!

This area (Sacre Couer) was one of my favorite places in Paris. It rained all 3 days
we were in Paris, but it didn't make things too crazy.

The Eiffle Tower

Notre Dame

Notre Dame wasn't really what I expected, but it was neat. I guess I thought it would be bigger
and have more rooms or something. It amazes me that people could build such a structure
without the tools and technology we have now. It took over 200 years to build.

The Mona Lisa

There she is... It actually wasn't too hard to get up close to this painting.
There were A LOT of people around, but I'm glad it didn't take long. :)

The "Chunnel" train from Paris to London

Most of the ride is through beautiful Paris countryside. We passed little town after
town, each with its own cool church. The train took about 2hrs 15 mins to get to London,
with only about 7-10 minutes under the English Channel.

Sacre Couer

This was one of my favorite cathedrals from the outside.

With my sister at the Eiffle Tower

All 4 of us: Lina, Than, Emily & Dad

The first week of the trip was just the 4 of us pictured above.
Later we joined up with more of my family.

Here are some of Nathaniel's thoughts about Paris (more eloquent & detailed):
We arrived in Paris in the early afternoon, struggled a little to figure out which was
the train that would take us closest to our hotel, finally got on a train (whether the right one
or not, I still am not sure), and came out into downtown Paris. We weren’t too far from
the hotel, but we didn’t have our bearings, and we did have all of our luggage, so we got
a taxi to take us. When we handed him the address of the hotel, he laughed,
said something in French, and made little walking motions with his fingers.
Then he shrugged and took us a few blocks to the hotel.
Upon arriving at the Holiday Inn in Paris, we found we had only booked a room
for one person, and they didn’t have a room big enough for four people. They were very nice,
though, and gave us two rooms right next to each other for almost no additional charge.
We stowed our bags, filled our water bottles, and headed out.
That first day in Paris, we saw Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the Louvre,
and we took a cruise up the River Seine. Notre Dame struck me as very spacious
and beautiful. When I read the Hunchback, I hadn’t pictured that huge, vaulted central
chasm of the cathedral proper; I had pictured kind of a maze of rooms and corridors,
story after story. I didn’t picture those huge, intricate stained-glass windows. I certainly
wasn’t expecting all the people worshipping in there. I guess because it’s so old and historic,
I thought it would be a museum rather than an active place of worship. We walked by the
confessional booth, heard some of Vespers, and saw people praying in the chapel there.
Despite the throngs of people, it felt like a sacred place, in a way, and I really enjoyed it.
The Eiffel Tower was just how it looks in all the pictures, but it was a lot bigger than I
thought. It’s enormous! That first arch of the legs is probably taller than the Logan Temple.
There wasn’t much to do there other than oggle, so we didn’t spend much time there.
The Louvre was amazing. For one thing, I’ve never seen such a large building. That is,
not tall, but SPRAWLING. It just kept going, and going, and going. We walked through
some paintings first; I had heard that the Mona Lisa is always thronged with people and not that
impressive, so I wasn’t going to see it, but we ended up walking by anyway. I saw it from a
distance, and the rest of the party went in for a closer look. I really enjoyed the paintings,
though after a while they seemed to all be pretty similar. I guess that’s the effect of a huge
museum that groups paintings by era and nationality; you do get lots of similar paintings all
together. Then we went to the sculptures. I really liked some of the sculptures; my favorites
were one of a lion attacking a man, and one of Prometheus chained to a rock. There was also
a cool action sculpture of Hercules fighting Cerburus. Lina was very tired by this point, so she
kept sitting down and falling asleep. The Seine River cruise was peaceful and beautiful.
It’s a very scenic river, with 18th century buildings all up and down the river, as well as
some much older buildings (Notre Dame). The banks are built up with rocks, and there
is a pleasant little walking path along the river. That was a good thing to end the day with,
because we were very tired.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Home Sweet Home

The John Denver song came to mind today, "Hey it's good to be back home again."
Not that any of you would know that song. Don't get me wrong, the trip was
spectacular, but it was time to be done.

Our plane landed just before midnight last night. It was a looong day of travel -
about 29 hours with little sleep on a bus and plane. Unfortunately the last leg of
the trip home was by far the most miserable because I was sooo tired but couldn't
sleep, and I threw up 3x. The last time was just as we were landing in SLC when you
aren't supposed to take your seat belt off or get out of your seat, but I made a mad
dash to the toilet.

We'll be blogging about the trip sometime, but...

It was nice to come back to our little apartment that is MUCH bigger than the room we
shared with my dad & sister, 4 huge suitcases and 4 beds.

It is much easier to do laundry in a washing machine instead of a sink.

It was fun to see our garden growing - thanks to the Bakers, Merkets and the rain.

Our apartment and house plants were well taken care of by the Bennetts.

We get to sleep in our own bed tonight, and on Sunday we get to go to our own ward!