**Ok, folks, here's the rest of our weekend in Paris.**On Saturday, we went to Disneyland Paris! A friend from the Pires' stake works for Disney so he was able to get 3 of us in for free. We split the cost of the one ticket we had to buy so we were each able to do Disney Paris for 12,50€. It was awesome. The Pires had never been to any Disney parks so it was extra fun with them.
The park is similar but different to Disneyland. It had most of the same rides/themes but with a new twist. And the general feel is much more European. Go figure!
Space Mountain starts outside. You get shot into the mountain and the ride has an inverted loop and a corkscrew. I screamed a lot. It rocked.
Small world is brighter and was a little different inside, I hear it's like the one at Disney World. We liked it better than the one in Anaheim. It's more colory (I know that's not a real word but in my family, it is thanks to some cute nieces creating it) and the inside is better.
Pirates has a different order to the scenes and there are no characters from the movie, which was nice. Anaheim is over-Johnny'd and it makes me nuts. They did however, have the BEST Cap'n Jack impersonator I've ever seen. He was spot on.
The castle was cool. I love Sleeping Beauty so it was one of my favorite parts. The stained glass windows were really pretty. We also liked how you could explore a little inside of it instead of just walk through it to get to Fantasyland.
We had a Disneytastic time! To top it all off, there were some illegal vendors trying to sell their wares on our way to the Metro. I thought these little guys were funny.
Saturday night, they drove us around their neighborhood a bit and we went grocery shopping at Hyper U. Think Carrefour, but cheaper, for those of you other internationals that read this and know what that is. It's kind of like a mall where it's all inside one building but there are shops inside the building. There was the main grocery center and some clothes shops and a Kinko's kind of place and a few other shops. It was interesting. Our favorite parts were the digital price tags and the prepackaged escargot. Gross!
For dinner on Saturday night, I helped Cris cook while the boys looked at Brent's mission photo album that we brought with us. Fernando was so excited to see the pictures. It was really sweet how he got emotional remembering all those good times.
I had fun helping Cris. By this point, I had been hearing pretty much nothing but Portuguese and French for a few days so I was starting to understand quite a bit. Cris would say something to me in Portuguese and if I didn't understand, she'd try it in French. I could usually get it after that, especially since she is a very animated person and uses a lot of facial and body expression when she talks. I would respond in English or the few Portuguese phrases/words I know. We had a great time. We laughed a lot. And the boys laughed at us.
Cris is fantastic! She is so excited about everything and loves everything and everyone. Brent explained to me that's how most Brasilians are. I could get used to that. She was very excited to have people from the Americas in her home because we are naturally more expressive than Europeans. She said the French are VERY reserved and quiet and just don't laugh much. We laughed all weekend. Boisterously.
She is also a fantastic cook. And she's learned a lot since moving to France. The French pride themselves on presentation so that mixed with her Brasilian cooking? Perfection. I like to think I'm a pretty good cook but compared to her, my meals are dorm cafeteria food. We spent a lot of time cooking and eating.
Sunday, we went to church. Their ward is in Melun, a town about 30 minutes south(?) of where they live. The drive was beautiful. We passed lots of fields full of flowers and grass and lots of little country cottages. Church was...interesting. Their ward is small and about half of them weren't there. I think there were 40-50 people, counting the kids. Maybe. And they all spoke French. Luckily, it was fast sunday so with the short testimonies and with the aide of the Spirit, we were able to get enough to feel edified. In sunday school, Fernando translated for Brent and I listened in on as much as I could. Fernando explained to us that the lesson wasn't really sticking to the topic though so we just read our scriptures and went through the manual ourselves. The Pires' are both in the Youth Program so for Relief Society and Priesthood, Brent and I were on our own. Brent came across someone who volunteered to translate for him. I was asked to give the opening prayer and afterward someone who speaks English came and sat by me and translated for me. It's nice to know that the church is the same everywhere and in every language. It was the same lesson we would have had in England or in LA and similar types of comments were made and we all felt the Spirit. After church, we drove through Melun a little and stopped along the river to take a few pictures.
When we got home, we started making dinner and then the Pires' friend, Conde, and his girlfriend, Solena came over to share our feast with us. Conde is a Muslim from Guinea and Solena is from Paris. It truly was a multicultural feast. We laughed, we shared, we talked, and Cris spent about an hour taking to Solena about the church while the boys did the dishes. Between the 6 of us, we went between English, Portuguese and French for hours so that we were all included. It was beautiful. What an Easter!
After dinner, we Skyped with Brent's family because they were online. It was fun for them to meet Fernando because they have known about him since Brent's mission. Since we were speaking English, Cris didn't totally understand everything but she made signs for Brent's family. They had hearts and a few English words she knows like, "Welcome!" and "Kisses!". Sharing our family with our dear friends was wonderful. As Brent's dad put it, with the Pires ' we were experiencing a little slice of heaven. I get emotional just thinking about it. For me, I hope that's what heaven is. Laughing and talking and just being with the people we love. That's all I need.
On Monday, we all slept in then had a nice breakfast and talked some more. We didn't see a whole lot of Paris this trip but I couldn't care less. We saw a few things and spent most of the time reconnecting with the Pires and that's why we went anyway. I could have been content to be holed up in their apartment the entire weekend.
Fernando took Brent and I on a little drive around Brie Comte Robert, the town where they live. There are some castle ruins and a beautiful little town centre. It felt like a movie lot. It was so perfect. There was even a swan and about 50 little ducklings with their respective duck parents .
Unfortunately Brent's eye was acting up, it was all watery and itchy, which explains the crazy eyes in that one picture. Sorry dear! I wish I had some of the pictures Fernando took because he got an awesome one of Brent. It's hilarious.
Here's a typical French village for you. Beautiful.
We got home from our drive to find Cris had been cooking. Hooray! She made a delicious last meal for us. If you've never had rice cooked by a Brasilian, you haven't lived. She shared her secret with me so I'll cook it for anyone that comes to visit!
After lunch, we loaded up in the car and headed to Paris. We walked around outside the Louvre for an hour and then went to the train station and headed home.
Oh right, if you're still wondering what the whole J. Reubes title idea is about, here we go. Brent and I met at the J. Reuben Clark Law Building working late night custodial. We also worked with Cami and Brent's cousin Jared and several other people we still love dearly. Anyway, one night, after we were engaged, Cami found this little tiny doll while she was cleaning. She gave it to us as a joke that it was our baby. We named her J. Reubes . We went to Fresno for Thanksgiving that year and when we got there, we told my mom we had an announcement to make. We wanted to introduce her to her new grandbaby. My poor mother looked like she was going to have a heart attack, then we pulled out J. Reubes . So now, she is a running joke. We still have her and she's always around somewhere. Sometimes B or I will hide her for the other to find at unexpected times. It's funny, I promise. He once put her in my ponytail and I didn't notice for 2 or 3 hours. We took her to Paris to show her around a bit. These pictures are mostly for those of you who already know about her but maybe the rest of you will get a kick out of them too. I think they're pretty hilarious. My fave is J. on top of the Louvre...
We had a great time in Paris, mostly because of the company. The city itself is beautiful and full of history but it is really dirty (I was sure I was going to catch something horrible riding on the Metro) and the people are kind of pushy and cold. If you speak french, they are a little nicer but getting off the train in London, we were so happy to be home. We missed it. We felt really out of place not speaking the language in France. At one point walking through the station in London, we just stopped to hear all the English accents. We were looking at a map and someone stopped to ask us if we needed help. How nice!
Next time we go to Paris we'll do some more touristy stuff. Maybe we'll actually go inside something! I'm thinking Versailles.
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Here is the link to the online album that houses most of the good pics from our trip, if you are interested in seeing the rest of them. Let's just say I'm a little trigger happy. A "shutterbug" if you will. And I
LOVE my camera. I narrowed down the 612 we took to 224 and then only posted about 1/3 of those. I had wanted to do some fun editing on pictures before I posted them but that would have taken me even longer. So yeah, enjoy the raw footage.
