Stuff and Nonsense (Brain Dump)

Although LBH is the co-director of this program, I'm here in no particular official capacity. I'm a cling-on. I'm grateful that BYU is different from other universities in a number of terrific ways, not the least of which is that it is willing to exponentiate its costs by sending a director's family along with him or her (they got a bargain with us -- some of these LDS families are huge!). It would be a real drag to be separated for months, and it must be said that I'm not cut out for single parenthood.

Despite really enjoying my cling-on status, I can't escape myself even on "vacation" and -- I'm a worker. Having no work to do will send me insane. The Lord has always blessed me in my paid work -- keeping me employed, offering me unusually great opportunities, providing a life rather than just a job -- and I really enjoy other forms of work, as well. Especially when I get to choose them. Which is what I've done here, in assigning myself the job of Camp Counselor. My motto is: If you've got issues, I'm your man. Any non-academic problem or difficulty is my domain. If they need a confidante, I'm a great choice. I've helped a couple students already and hope to be able to help many more. At (mostly) 19, they still need a Mommy. And if they don't need a Mommy, they need a friend or a mentor or an advisor or an Other Mommy -- you know, all the "it takes a village" adults who every parent counts on to guide and direct their child when they're not able. A Village Person -- that's me.

I've been surprised by some of our students -- mostly pleasantly. I haven't really known 19 year-old girls in... about 20 years. Nearly all the student employees at Broadcasting are guys and in their early to mid-20s. Our babysitters are girls but they're teenagers. There's been this 19 year-old girl vacuum in my life that I'd heretofore never really noticed. I like them all, and have been impressed by or have a soft spot in my heart for a few of them. Some seem to be working through indeterminate (to me) difficulties, which I can relate to and feel for. Others seem to be strong and independent-minded. All have a decade of struggle before them, and it makes me feel simultaneously sad and hopeful that they don't yet know it. They are more courageous than they think, and will need it more than they can guess. The twenties are agony.

(There's also a nice but semi-obnoxious sub-group of students who seem to have come for the sole purpose of shopping their way through Europe -- they sit on benches outside the museums and talk about fashion and drink designer water. "Donnez moi une break.")

Right now we're a couple days into a two week tour throughout France, Belgium and The Netherlands. Our bus driver, Peter, is Dutch and very amiable. He drives whoever pays him, of course, but he said he's been volunteering for the "Mormon jobs" for years because we're such a delightful people. He's quit drinking and smoking and swearing because of the example of other BYU groups. He likes that we're a fashionable but faithful people. His daughter is a pop star and he's played some of her songs for us -- she's very, very good!

A comment about paid toilets: I'm willing to pay (a lot!) for a well-kept, clean, private restroom, but I resent paying for a dirty bathroom with wet floors and no toilet seats. And when my children need to go, I shouldn't be charged twice just to assist (charged by the head to visit the head, if you will). Frogs!

Being homeless is a strange sensation. The girls have been amazing -- even better than I could have anticipated, and I knew they were total pro travelers, even Peter the bus driver commented that they're the best behaved children he's ever driven -- but it's really an odd exercise to be always on the move and know that nothing's permanent. The girls are rolling with the punches and I hope it lasts!

Everywhere we go, we meet Australians (or hear them, rather). The Australians are everywhere! I bet there were forty times in Paris that we passed someone and said to each other, "Australians!" The girls made friends with a little girl here in Amboise tonight and she's Australian. It must be that they never really had a recession like the rest of the world and are the only ones who can afford to travel. The Aussies are out and about, I can tell you that much. It just occurred to me that Mitch & Lisa are in Paris right now (came the day we left) and will meet up with us in ten days in London. Yep, everywhere.

Some of the students were talking about how much they wanted to live in the Renaissance or name-a-time-period. They like the buildings and the dresses. But I'm not 19. Always the realist, I said, "No way, man!" I'll take right now for being a woman over any time period in the history of the world. It's not perfect, but 2012 beats 1512 for womanhood any day of the year. Who's with me? No contest.

There's so much more to say. Sadly, this bourgeois life of leisure leaves me very tired and really rather lazy. (Also a brief but accurate summation of 16th Century nobility, no?)

Carousel-crawling through Paris

It was our last full day in Paris, and nothing would please the girls more than to hit as many playgrounds and carousels as we could.  They had been real troupers, following us through the museums and galleries, mostly without complaint, and riding the Metro with caution and aplomb beyond their years.  So we went carousel crawling for the whole day as a way of saying "Thanks for being such great travellers, girls!"  Couldn't have been more fun.  (Just so it's clear, we only consider riding those carousels that ooze vintage charm.  If they have Disney characters, electronic beeping sounds, lightning bolts, or some such other ridiculania on them, we give a wide berth.)

But the day started with the biggest, most delicious mango we have ever seen.  Sure it cost $15, but it was worth it.  And it really was as big a child's head!

... then we went to the best playground in the world, at the Jardins du Luxembourg.

 

More of a climbing ramp than a climbing wall, but E got the hang of it right away

Middle-aged men should never try the zip line at a kid's playground.  It's unbecoming.

C struck up a conversation with two other girls at the playground (so brave, my sweet girl!) and found out they were sisters from Australia.

I thought this was funny and poignant--an old carousel horse daring to peek out from behind the covers while the carousel was closed.

I would never have guessed that our super-cautious C could brave the zip line on her own.  It took several attempts, but she did it! 

It was on this very truck 6 years ago that C struck up a conversation with a little French girl.  We felt like we had come full circle by returning to this playground and revisiting the joy.

... and then to our favorite gelato establishment, Amorino.  They're all over Paris (and Europe, apparently), but this one was never crowded, and its interior was especially inviting.

Why would you even try to resist a gelato store like this?

Back to the Tuilleries carousel, where C hands out some sisterly advice.

Trocadero

A carousel with a hot-air balloon (so cute!), near the Trocadero.  Of course the girls had a turn on this one, upstairs this time.

Then back to the carousel by the Eiffel Tower.

We finished the day with a river cruise, just to see the city from a different angle.

Really?  Designer Coke?  We saw in the store yesterday that the "Jean-Paul Gaultier" Coke bottles are "dressed" in pink fishnet corsets.  Doesn't change the fact that Coke Light is the least palatable of all the Coke beverages.

Ah, the macarons.  We tried them all, from the ultra-famous Laduree, from the wonderful but expensive Liebeaux near the Champs Elysees and several other renowned purveyors of deliciousness, but in the end decided that the macaron au chocolat from the local Monoprix was as good as any of them.  These are nothing like macaroons in the  US, by the way.  Much more rich and substantial, like a cross between a brownie and merignue.  Mmmm.

RIP Esther Williams

No, not the famous Hollywood swimming star.  Esther Williams was our pet goldfish who, we were just informed, has moved on to that great Fish Pond in the Sky.  CQH took the news rather hard.  She gasped audibly, then burst into tears straight away.  It was her first experience with real grief for a pet she cared about and loved.  And despite all our attempts to prepare her for the possibility that at least one of the pets might die while we're on Study Abroad, the reality was always going to be more harsh than our discussions in the abstract.  I (LBH) grieved as well, right along with C.  We hugged and cried together.  EBH didn't cry even though she later admitted that she was sad.  She just didn't think crying would help anyone feel better.  But the moment C burst into tears, E went over to the sofa, got C's favorite ted (Granddaddy Q Bear) and brought it over to her.  It was a tender moment for all of us.  Not much fun, but teaching a child about the reality of death is never fun.

After we'd cried for several minutes, E broke the pattern of muffle sobs by announcing, "Does anyone have any good news?"  We smiled through our tears.

Given the feelings of the moment, I decided to take some pictures of the plants and flowers we bought to brighten our Paris apartment.  The florists here are wonderful, the flowers are magnificent, and quite inexpensive, too.  These roses lasted nearly two weeks, and the little solanum that we put on the window sill added some color to the room, while giving us something to water every day.  (Nothing makes a place feel more like home than having a plant to take care of.)  And the girls decided that HDH needed some more roses, so we moved the pink ones to the kitchen window-sill and put the orange ones in the middle of the dining table.

In the afternoon I took myself off for a solo walk through Paris.  As I was walking past Notre Dame, it appeared that some nuns and the Monsignor were giving a guided tour to a group of Mennonites.  How ecumenical!

Sacre Coeur.  I went by myself, since HDH had seen it before and the girls were pretty much "churched" out by this stage of our stay.  (I've seen Sacre Coeur a few times before, as well, but the walk up the stairs is a good workout, and since this was the afternoon of the announcement of Esther Williams's demise I decided lighting a candle in a church might be a nice thing to do.  Of course, we've lit candles in every church we visited in Paris, but this one had more meaning for me.)

From the sublime to the not-quite-ridiculous-but-certainly-rather-silly

LBH on duty with the blog, still.  Saturday morning we took the girls to one of the oldest marionette shows in Paris.  This darling little theatre, which hasn't changed much at all since it was built in 1933, does twice-weekly marionette shows that are something of a staple entertainment for Parisian children.  We saw "Les trois petits cochons" ("The Three Little Pigs"), which had some unexpected plot twists--the Big Bad Wolf it turns out wasn't hungry at all, only lonely and sad.  And it all worked out happy in the end.  This was closely followed by the Amorino gelato that has become de rigeur any time we leave the apartment.  Mercifully for us, the portions are small.

Statuary and flowers at the Jardins du Luxembourg.  I never tire of beauty.

The Pantheon.  Formerly a church, now a monument to the Great People of France.  And a majestic monument it is.

EBH leaps up the stairs of the Pantheon.  She has more energy than the rest of us because she rides in the stroller most of the time.

C'est magnifique.  The interior of the Pantheon.

A functioning Foucault's Pendulum that actually keeps pretty good time.  (We were there around 1:30pm)

In one of the side chapels there was a cut-away model of the Pantheon that seemed almost as large as the real thing.

The Crypt.  (Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa.)

Rousseau's tomb, in the crypt.

Voltaire's tomb.

Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas are buried in the same room.  That would be an interesting conversation come resurrection morning.

Some architectural detail on the front porch of the Pantheon.

Stopping for crepes after a long walk.  (File under "Things We Never Get Tired Of")

A street performer at the Pompidou Center, doing a marvelous impersonation of a tree moving in the breeze.  We're not sure why.  But sometimes it's just safer to chalk things up to "Art" when you're around the Pompidou Center.

CQH was temporarily diverted from a Victor Vasarely that matched her outfit rather well.

If it's modern art that you're invited to crawl into and pretend it's a cave, EBH is all over it.

Because Notre Dame is fairly orthodox Catholic, the Sunday services officially start on Saturday night.  We attended the 6:30pm Mass, which began with a lovely organ prelude before the priest walked down the aisle with his helpers and the incense.  We stayed for about half the service, before E got impatient and the incense started to give us a headache.  On the way out we saw these statues by the door, and wondered what that poor bishop had done to deserve losing his head.  After the Pompidou Center, we just chalked it up to "Art" and moved on.