Oh the places I've been...

The other day I had to rearrange my room a bit, and I came across all of my photo albums.  I had been having a "woe is me" sort of day up to that point, but as I sat down and looked through my photo albums, I was quite humbled and was a little awed by all of the marvelous and wonderful things that I have done thus far in my life.  Especially when you consider the fact that I was born in Montana and grew up in a middle of nowhere farm town in Central Oregon.  I have received an innumerable amount of glorious opportunities and blessings from God, and I wanted to take a minute to write some of them down, so if I'm ever having another "woe is me" moment, I can remember what great things the Lord hath done for me.

• I have been in 4 amazing countries, other than my own:  Italy, England, France and Argentina
• I have lived in 6 states (Montana, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Massachusetts and California) and passed through 18 others, whether for vacation or an airport layover on the way to a vacation.
• I have spent considerable amounts of time at 4 highly respected institutions of higher learning (BYU, Harvard, MIT and Stanford), and interviewed at, accepted to or visited a handful of others (Duke, for example)
• I have been inside or on the grounds of 16 of the 136 operating LDS temples
• According to Goodreads I've read 644 books, but knowing me I'm sure there's an extra 1,000 that haven't been accounted for yet
• I've been to 7 major opera houses in 4 foreign countries, and even witnessed an opera in one of them (the Royal Opera House in London) wearing a fancy dress
• I have seen 10 operas, 13 musicals, 8 Shakespeare plays, 7 other plays, 6 choir performances and 9 dance performances, at the very least.  I try to save programs from each performance that I go to, but I might have missed one here or there.
• I've held a baby snow leopard
• I've crochet scarves made from camel's wool from Mongolia
• I've been to 7 major church history sites and 4 major American Revolution cities
• I've been to Boston on the 4th of July, twice
• I've been at a Red Sox--Yankees game in Fenway
• I speak 3 languages (English, Italian and Spanish) and had conversations with natives in 3 other languages (Romanian, German and French).  I know a smattering of words in Japanese and American Sign Language as well. 
• I've been to roughly 17ish National Parks, including Crater Lake, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, etc, but this number could be way off, since I live in Oregon and every 10 feet you walk you enter a new National Park.
• I've flown over the Alps in Europe and the Grand Canyon.
• I've written 5 poems, one of which is translated into 2 other languages and one composed in a foreign language.
• I've learned to play at least one song, if not more, on 4 different instruments (piano, clarinet, violin and guitar)
•  I was at the midnight release of the 7th Harry Potter book, and went to a couple midnight premieres in full on Professor Snape costume.
• I've witnessed a couple surgeries, though never had to have one myself (turns out a skull fracture heals by itself)
• I was a model for my Grandma's department store when I was 5, catwalk and everything.
• I've eaten tomatoes that I grew myself
• I've made a GINORMOUS Hogwarts out of legos with my brother and sister, and it is a glorious creation
• I've worn a real sari from India and a real kimono from Japan
• I celebrated the unbelievable and unforeseen 2004 World Series Red Sox win by spraying sparkling cider over me and my roommate
• I've met and talked with Switchfoot, gotten a Nomar Garciaparra autograph, watched the JoBros play softball and been to numerous Josh Groban concerts
• Merrill J. Bateman said hi to me once on BYU campus
• I've been to numerous world famous museums and monuments, including Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, National Gallery, British Museum, Uffizi, L'Accademia, Vatican, Notre Dame, to name a few
• I've been on various sports teams growing up, playing softball, basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, tennis, and soccer, and I've been with 9 others as an athletic trainer
• I've had a cup of tea in London, eaten gelato in Italy, rode in a gondola in Venice, threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, walked on the Appia Antica, eaten bread and cheese in Paris, devoured many asados in Argentina, strolled through the Boca, hiked the Cinque Terre, and lost my breath at the mosaics in Ravenna

I'm sure that if I sat and pondered more, the list could go on.  I'm so grateful for the countless blessings God has so mercifully given me, and I hope that I never get bogged down in those "woe is me" moments again!

Scarves for Snow Leopards

I have a new hobby of crocheting scarves.  It's my dream to one day make it a business, called Scarves for Snow Leopards.  No, I'm not making scarves for the cats.  I am, however, making scarves that will help save snow leopards.  There is a group called the Snow Leopard Trust (click here to learn more about their AMAZING work!!), which was created to help save snow leopards from the danger of extinction.  This group not only spends a lot of time, money and effort on research, but they have a huge educational program to help inform the people that live in the snow leopard habitat and gain their cooperation in helping to save these magnificent creatures.  The program is really neat!  It's mainly in Mongolia right now, though the Snow Leopard Trust would like to eventually expand the program to other countries.  They make an agreement with the local farmers in Mongolia, that if they will not kill snow leopards, who sometimes prey on some of their livestock, the Snow Leopard Trust will buy crafted products from them to sell on their website and in zoos all over the world.  These handicrafts range from toys to Christmas ornaments to purses to rugs, and they are all wonderful!  They also sell hand spun camel yarn, which is what I have been using to make scarves for the past couple months.  Even though the yarn is a lot more expensive than what you could just buy at Wal-Mart, it's super cool to be able to say that a scarf I crocheted is made out of camel wool from Mongolia, and helped save snow leopards!  Here's a video that explains more about the program in Mongolia:
Snow Leopard Trust Featured on BBC World News!

And here are the scarves I've made in the past couple months:

Rue Cler, Bastille, Place de Voges

This is the post that describes the rest of what I did on my last day in Paris!  I'm actually going to start by writing about my dinner the night before, since it was a neat experience.  You may remember from earlier posts that I was at the Eiffel Tower during bad weather, after a very long and exhausting day.  While I was on the first level of the tower (I started on the second, then when down one), I considered buying some food and heading straight to the hostel to go to bed, but a part of me felt that it wouldn't quite be the full Parisian experience I wanted, and that I should go find a restaurant that my guide book recommended near the tower.  I was literally about to collapse, and did not want to go anywhere but bed, however the sandwiches at the Eiffel Tower cafe did not look appetizing in the slightest, and so I prayed that the restaurant would be good and that I would have the energy to make it there.  When I got there, it was a cute little place and I happened to be the only customer.  The man spoke a little English with me, and I got a good dinner!  I had duck with yummy potatoes and mushrooms and a salad, and it was divine.  I loved it!  I'm so glad that my day ended so well with the Eiffel Tower and the delicious Parisian dinner. 

The next day started off quite well too, as I went to Rue Cler, a cute Parisian market street, to assemble a good picnic.

I bought 3 different kinds of cheese, some bread, macaroons, chocolate to take home as a souvenir, and a yummy orange jam crepe!  Soooooooo goooooood!!!!!!

I ate the picnic later in the day, after I saw the Opera Garnier, when I was at the Place de Voges, a park next to the Victor Hugo house that I toured.  The Victor Hugo house was nice.  There wasn't anything super spectacular inside, but since he is my favorite author is was nice to give my respects.  There was a photograph, painting and Rodin sculpture of Victor Hugo that I liked.

Also in the area was the Place de Bastille, where the prison used to stand.  All that is there now is a monument, and another opera house!  I didn't go inside, but got a picture of the two together. 

After that I headed back to the train station to head back to London for a night, then to catch my plane the next morning.  I was a little early to the station, but ran into a nice Korean-American couple that I had seen earlier on my trip, that were seasoned tourists and had quite a lovely chat with them.  We talked about traveling, importance of education, and being Christian. 

This trip was quite hard on my body.  I arrived early to the train station because I couldn't do anymore.  I felt so sick and sore, and I mentally and physically could not do anymore.  The combination of sore legs for 6 days, plus my period, plus carrying all of my belongings that last day pretty much put me over the edge.  I think the moral of this traveling story is to always arrive and depart around check-in and check-out times, so I never carry my stuff around.  I want to be smarter with my luggage choice, and stay at nice hotels where I feel secure leaving my things there, and I have my own personal space to be at the end of the day instead of the hostel.  Not that the hostel was a bad experience, but there were always other people around.  I also need to stop doing too much in one day, and plan my vacations with more days than things to do.  This has been such a whirlwind trip.  I'm so glad that I've done it, for sure, but my body/mind can probably never handle a trip like this again. 

I had a headache as I started back to London on the train, and it kept growing worse and worse, and eventually it turned into nausea.  It may have been one of the most miserable I've been.  When I got into London I tried to find motion sickness pills for the plane the next day, but only found pain killers, which did the trick in the end anyway.  Coming into London after being in Paris felt familiar and comfortable.  Again, just when i feel like I am comfortable with the city and know how to maneuver, I'm leaving.  I kept thinking how fun it would be to return to London and Paris one day with Julia.  I hope that someday it will happen!

Opera Garnier

It's decided.  I want to live in the opera house.  Actually, it's probably almost exactly what my mansion in heaven will look like.  It's the most beautiful thing ever!  Words can't describe my joy at being in this place, and no one else would probably understand anyway, if I tried to explain.  So I'll just post the glorious pictures. 

This room in the opera house is called the Salon du Glacier, and is the location of my dream wedding reception.

And because the pictures I got weren't enough, I'll add a few more I found online.

Eiffel Tower

This was one of the loveliest parts of my trip.  As I was walking up, it was still kind of light outside.  As I got closer, the lights on the tower started slowly turning on.  It was so so so so so cool.  I felt as if the Eiffel Tower was the symbol of actually being in Paris, and it made it so much more real.  I was so excited! 

When I reached the base of the tower, I found out they closed the upper lever, the summit, because of rain and fog, so I could only go to levels one and two, which are about halfway up.   The elevator going up was super cool!  While I was up on levels one and two, it was super rainy, foggy and windy, and because it was dark and icky weather you couldn't get a great view of the city, so actually being on the tower wasn't very pleasant.  I did stop at a shop and get a few souvenirs though, so that was nice.  I took the stairs down, and when I got down and was waking away though, the blue lights one the tower which were previously off began to sparkle, and it was the coolest thing ever!  These next two pictures I took, and I love them so very much!!  It was one of my favorite moments in Paris!

The rest of the pictures I found on the internet, since again at this point in the trip my camera battery was low and I wanted to take a few pictures the next day, but I wanted to remember as many different views of the tower as possible!  I tried to find some that looked like it did when I was there, i.e. foggy and dark.