"monday morrrrning, so gooood to meeee!"

[you think that's the angel moroni on top of that pillar too? oh good, so it's not just me. except i guess he is missing his trumpet....darn.]

so basically the only people who will understand the title are my sisters and maybe brothers too.

or did we have any other fellow jazztecs out there? 

yeah, didn't think so.

[awww man, i wanted the kitty-cat mug! we thought this was pretty adorable. and it was tiff's first day of school so what the hey, we took a picture. also, i'm lovin' on her outfit.]

anyways, wooo hooo first day of school! well, for basically everybody else in the program. luckily, my classes didn't start til' tuesday. since i wasn't doing anything all day and neither was my friend hailey, we decided to meet up and walk around to do some more sight-seeing. because you really can never do enough in this maze of a city.

we walked through the luxembourg garden:

[reminds me of maryland. how picture-esque is this?]

[ohhh golly gosh, i just love the fall. this picture makes my heart happy.]

we moved up the street and ran into the pantheon, which was another one of those overwhelming buildings.

[it's just one of those things that you can't just walk past, or glance at. you've got to snap a million pictures and sit on the steps and just melt.]

we walk a couple steps more and come across this random beautiful cathedral.

while we were walking, we passed a couple of kids that were walking to school, and i couldn't help but be a little jealous. okay, majorly jealous. okay, so maybe i started walking with them to school...nahh kidding. kinda. i just really wish that i could've spent some of my childhood in a place that has some mad culture like paris. i love arizona and all, but everything is the same. that place's culture could fit into a soda can. really though, you go a couple miles away from where you live and get the same shopping center with the same store layout as the one right next to your house [and i'm dead serious on that one]. culture gives you a different perspective on life, and i can't help but wonder what i'd be like had i been able to grow up somewhere else.

anyways, back to life. we finally made it over to hotel de ville...

[i guess this is just a city hall type of place? hailey laughed at me for thinking it was really a hotel....even though it's called hotel de ville.....anybody else think i'm justified for thinking that? it's incredible, either way. i remember when i was looking into going on the paris study abroad and i googled paris and got basically this picture and just died. i guess you could say this is what did it for me.]

we headed over to the pompidou area and found a market and boulangerie and grabbed some snacks for lunch.

[mine and hailey's lunch. okay, mostly my lunch. whatevs, i walked many miles before this, okay? seriously though, these kinds of lunches are my favorite. fresh french bread, FUJI apple, raw almonds, and crème fraîche, which is basically like cream cheese but better because it's france, duh.]

hailey had to be at the institute at 1 for her religion class, and basically everyone else was in that class too, so for the next couple of hours, i sat outside and read "the ladies' paradise" for my french history class, which, long story short, is not my paradise. we'll spare you all and leave it at that.

since it was ally bally's 21st birthday [wooohooooo!], we all decided to go out after for some rockin' greek food. we wandered around trying to find the places that henry, the director's son, recommended us, and eventually we ended up just asking the locals [où est le cuisine grec?], and they pointed us to the blue-tented happiness.

exhibit a:

[sorry for the major food porn to those of you who are trying to eat healthy aka scarlett and jit. this, my friends, is called the "extra pita". places like these are all over in this little area...called saint paul, i wanna say? it's chicken, not lamb, and those are french fries, not veggies, but freak yeah it is good. and you better believe i downed that baby, especially after all the physical and mental sweat i worked up before. just looking at this picture makes my mouth water. if only it wasn't almost 2 in the morning here....]

[ally-->the birthday girl in the flesh, anna, morning, and kelly. aren't they the cutest things you've ever seen? also, that orangina at the bottom is not mine. blechhh.]

the men working there were super hilarious too, singing to us and stuff. they reminded me of the main old guys on "return to me". love it.

after that, we all headed over back to the lds institute for family home evening. pretty much, we made up the entire group, besides a couple other people here and there. the lesson was all in french, so of course i only picked up some verbs and nouns here and there. but then after, we decided to play a game with the missionaries. there's one missionary named elder dick [yup, for real.] who's "a bit cheeky" and suggest we play "do you love your neighbor?". basically was the funnest game ever, especially because everyone playing spoke either french, english, or chinese so it was all just a little bit crazy. we did make some cute friends though named pei ya and pei wen [who i ummm, accidently keep calling "pei wei"], who we're gonna hangout with later, so double yay.

all in all, it was a pretty crazy day and i basically was two seconds from burning the boots i was wearing even though they're my favorite, but they suck. but in a good way...? fun hurts. okay, now i'm just ramblin'. off to bed before i embarrass myself anymore!