Pictures

We are always on the go and there is not much time for blogging but I want to put up some pictures so you can keep up with us. China is so great. Went on another great run this morning and people just looked at me the whole time, an obvious stare. They have no shame. So I started smiling at people and it was fun, caught them off guard. They just can't believe some one would run for a work out I guess. I can't believe how nice the people are, they let us take pictures of them and their children and they love it. Laura's chinese is very impressive. She can actually communicate with people, I am constantly impressed. I can't get enough of this place. It is so unique and there is so much to see.

SHOPPING

Well Dad, don't feel too bad because you missed a whole entire day of shopping.
The day started out with a workout on the river. I ran as fast as I could to squeeze in a good workout and mom and Laura power walked pretty fast in bright pink matching dry fit tops. Classy, i know. I think people were starring at me as I was panting running on the board walk, but I clearly do not care. We then ventured back through different roads and found real china. The markets are so awesome. There were live animals everywhere being slaughtered. There were fish, frogs, crabs, and anything living in water. It was so cool to see. I will post pictures but I am warning you of our appearance because they are all post run. I am pretty gross. Amidst all the food there is a man with a speaker selling leggings. The crazy part is I have the exact same pair of leggings I bought last winter at TJMAXX. I got three pairs of leggings in great colors for $4. Yes, $4 dollars total for 3 pairs of warm leggings. This is why I love China. We also found some great authentic food a long the way. Street like vendors. Also very good.
We then headed on the subway to the "fake" market. You all know I don't believe in fake things....but there was bound to be something I could buy. A lot of the bags were super cute but had fake logos all over them, I can't do that.....but of course I found some good jewelry. I bought some pearls and a few pairs of cute earrings. Success!!!!!
It is Sunday morning and we need to head off to church so the rest of the day will come later....LOVES!

this is for DAD

me and mom on the river going through shanghai. (the bund) we are on the old side so in the backround you can see the new side.
the apple store. you can not tell but i am doing the peace sign with both hands, got to fit in!!!

We left my dad in the dust. He is at home working and being bishop so we can play for ten days. We really miss him so I am going to try to blog everyday for him. Anyone who followed my paris blog will know that that will be quite the work for me. I am not a good blogger but here it goes.

Our 14 hour plane flight was almost 15 hours. I am not going to say it was awful because we have 5 whole seats all to our self. So for most of the time I laid down like i was on my bed, then in the end I gave mom a few hours of laying down and I caught up on my movies. Because I got about an hour of sleep the night before we left I slept for 7 hours at one point I think. That is a long time. They gave us lots of food and I felt stuffed the whole time. We got to China and I was determined to tak public transportation all the way to the hotel. I had to prove myself, I was really good with public transportation in every other country I have lived in, so I was going to prove that China can't be any different. My mom was skeptical and just wanted to take a taxi but i said no way! So we got on the maglev train. It is one of the fastes trains in the world and it took 7 minutes to go from the airport to the center of the city. As we jumped on the train we met a nice man. I was saying how hot it was and needed a hair tie and he took on of his wrist and gave it to me. nice guy. then i started the conversation, "where are you from?" he did not look chinese and looked kind of latino so i thought i could use my spanish. wrong. he was from iran. so he started lots of chat about where we are going. I told him east nanjing road. he told me i was going to get on the line 2 metro. i already knew that but he sure wanted to help so he carried mom's suitcase to line 2 and bought out metro tickets. we got on the metro and i knew we might have to manuever out of this one.....i thought my mom was being overly trusty of this young man, but then she turned to me and said "we are not taking this man to our hotel!" so luckily we were on the same page. He was getting off a stop after us so when our stop came i jumped up and got my mom's suitcase and mine and he offered to help. I told him i had big muscles and we would be okay. he then asked me how long we were staying. i said 10 days. he then asked for my number and wanted to know if we could travel together next week......OPPS! NO WAY! mom had to point out later that he was cute. i just changed the subject telling him we were going to be traveling with my sister and jumped off the metro with all my bags. I felt kind of bad rejecting him because he was so nice but whatev, i was not about to travel with him. So we wondered around on east nanjing road for a bit, which is like the strip of nanjing. lights and people everywhere. people were obviously starring because we had big suitcases and were wondering. we quickly found out hotel and got to our room to encounter laura. we had a joyous reunion and then hit the town for a bit to see the sites.
What a grand time we will have!

All my love,
the traveling queen (my life is pretty awesome)

ps laura told us it was going to be cold....well she was wrong....it is hot, and i do love it.

Brawl

So maybe I am slacking big time at doing this whole blog thing.....

if you want to know what I do EVERYDAY in France check out my France Pal Madeline...

Madsinfrance.blogspot.com

she is the best durn blogger I ever seen. And I am with her most the time. Feel free to leave comments, she will relay them to me.

In the mean time I will try to be better.

Ill give you a quick update while I am typing. I got in a brawl today at Carrefour(grocery store). They would not take my credit card with out a passport....well if you know me I don't take NO for an answer especially not from some stubborn French lady. I shop at this place everyweek and they don't ever need a passport, they just want an ID. My international student card is just fine. Who caries their passport with them at all times??? No one. That is just silly.

So after lots of arguing leaving mad and returning and grabbing all my groceries in hand running away from her register I went to another line and went through with no problems not even an ID check, just swiped the card and left. So everything my teacher told me is true. You got to find the right French person to deal with because they all say different things. And some, have power complexes and want to prove to the Americans that the OWN you. Well guess what Carrefour checker lady, you got OWNED today....don't cross me, My name is Jamie and I don't take NO for an answer.

I believe if you know me you will attest this to be true and now i have proven to myself it works on other continents too.

All my love. xoxo

June 6, 1944

Today we had the opportunity to visit the beaches that US troops invaded on D-day. It was an emotional day to see such important places in the history of the world. I have a stronger appreciation for those that sacrificed their lives for people they did not know. Over 10,000 young men sacrificed their lives on a very carefully planned invasion. I learned many logistic facts about the invasion that were very interesting to me. It was planned on a full moon so the airplanes would be able to see well enough and the soldiers could successfully parachute to ground. Fake parachuters were thrown from airplanes so that some German troops would leave the posts near the beaches. I watched Saving Private Ryan this week because I was told by Allison I had to watch before going. I'm very glad I did to understand how intense and incredible the invasion really was.

These were the most moving head stones. They read, "Here rests in honored glory, A comrade in arms, Know but to God."

The crosses go on farther than the eye can see.

The weather was beautiful. I can not get enough of the sun. The weather in Paris has been over cast for a while. The sun highlighted the beautifully kept grounds.

The flowers amidst the crosses were beautiful.

On the cliff over looking the beach. Can you see all the craters in the back round? The ground in covered in craters where bombs were dropped and mines/grenades were set off. Some were very deep. It was surreal to see it all and imagine the ciaos that happened that morning.

We arrived before sunset and had the opportunity to see the sun rise. Again, a very moving experience. Forever grateful!

We also spent some time down on Omaha beach. We took many acrobatical pictures, I will have to add those soon!

Love you all!

METRO

I am fascinated with public transportation, in Paris that is. I never have to wait longer than 3 minutes for a train. When you get to the platform there is a digital clock like thing that tells you when the next two trains will arrive. I usually find it to be 3 and 7 minutes. I don't know why anyone would wait for the next train unless it is super crowded, but I guess it is nice to know when the next two trains will arrive. Anyways, off point, the metro is fantastic there are over 12 lines that intersect all over the city. Plus, there are underground tunnels so even after you get off the metro you can walk underground for .5 miles till the appropriate exit of connecting train. It is crazy because they have moving walkways and they go on forEVER. It is crazy to see. Nonetheless, the metro is so convenient not even having to wait for a train, they always seem to arrive just as i get to the platform. I am still amazed at how many people are in this city. The metro always seems pretty packed and the streets too. Do these people work? apparently not. They just ride the metro all day and walk the streets.

Me enjoying public transportation. This is on the bus, but everytime we take the bus we get incredibly lost late at night.....so this is probably the only bus picture i will have. We are taking a fast from buses.

Here is the metro mid day. So again.....these people don't work but just take metros all day to keep them crowded.

"Us" on the metro. Squished together of course, always crowded.

Chandeliers

so not a chandelier but the blogger puts my images up backwards, this was suppose to be at the end, I just wanted to show everyone and especially Mom that great marble, I think you would enjoy it!

the ceilings are pretty fantastic too!

and now the chandeliers.....

i could not tell if the candles were suppose to look like they were falling, but i liked the flowers

this is where the queen gave birth in public so there would be no question as to the royalty of her children

hall or mirrors, lots of chandeliers

above: hall of mirrors (treaty of versailles signed)

ceiling cool too

Paris has lots of chandeliers. I have a new obsession with them so I wanted to share some of them with you. Most of these, probably all, come from Versailles.

Arizona

Steve is quite the tour guide. I was able to spend a few days in AZ before I headed to Boston and France. He drove me around the whole valley and showed me everywhere he grew up, where he rode his bike, and many childhood stories. He also took me to Mill ave and ASU campus, the temple grounds, showed me the trailer parks and the big mansions, took me to all the "hot spot" restaurants, and one of my favorite places (i don't have pictures of) was Pro Rancho Market. Basically it is stepping into mexico. The whole grocery store is full of mexican foods and pastries. We indulged in some fresh and real mexican food with real juices. We got watermellon and some flower juice I had never heard of. We also loaded up on pastries. It was a dream come true, I felt like I was with my people. I got to speak some spanish and more exciting they had fruit from Brasil. I thought they only existed in Brasil but low and behold they they were sitting in the USA. I bought some and made Steve try them, he was not quite impressed but pretending for my sake I think. It reminded me of Brasil and the good days back on the member's ranches where they would let us pick fresh fruit of the trees and eat it! O so good.

I really like cactus. They are really big and everywhere. I also enjoyed the palm trees, they make me smile.

On Monday night we went to south mountain right as the sun was setting. So we checked out the whole entire valley while the sun set. It was a good view, you could see everything!

Steve took me to a fancy resort in Scottsdale. I loved it. So we decided to sit and take in the lovely atmosphere when some friends came close. There were ducks and other such animals just chillin' inside the resort. They were very friendly, but soon left after the realized we had no food for them.

Enjoying the resort.

Steve took me on a drive through north mesa where all the really big houses are. Interesting to me they are all surrounded by citrus trees, it may have been sunday, but I just had to try one of those citrus fruits, I was so curious to its flavor. So maybe I stole on the Sabbath, Steve tried to stop me, but I mad him take a picture instead. And, it was a pretty citrus-ey orange!

Of course we had to see the temple grounds. It is a pretty temple, I really enjoyed the tropical atmosphere, I can't get enough of those palm trees and cactus!!!

On Saturday Steve showed me the nature side of Arizona. You might think the desert to be ugly but I really enjoyed our drive. We ate at an old mining restaurant and saw lots of cactus. Steve taught me about the different kinds. His favorite are the jumping cactus. They "jump" off the main root. We went to a little town called tortilla flat. It reminded me of Grand Lake but on a smaller scale. We walked on the board walk and saw some interesting things. All the old people drive around in their expensive convertibles and there are some biker gangs which are entertaining to watch.

This is a look out over the Lake. I forgot the name. But, look how green it was! Who knew the desert was so pretty.

For you MOM

I found the antique market today and wished my mom was with me! It was fantastic to see all the old stuff. Too bad only my mom knows what is really old and valuable. We had a great time walking around, and Allison bought an old Romeo and Juliet book in French. Mom, come pick me up so you can shop the antiques!!!!! Love you!!!

this was cool anatomy stuff so i took a picture for me

updates

me in front of the king's chateua in Versailles, huge and amazing.

the whole group

me at a really good bakery

in the hall of mirrors but facing the windows out to the gardens. the lump on the left begin my bag and coat. didn't think to remove it.

I realize you are all probably missing me a lot. Also wondering where are all my Paris updates. Lets just say I am not very good at this blog thing but want to be better so I am going to work on it for everyone else's sake.
I have A LOT to catch up on. After leaving Provo I went to CO for less than 24 hours, made a pit stop in Mesa, Arizona and Boston before arriving in Paris. I have so many pictures and stories I want to tell you. First I should clear up some confusion from my last post. My family was very much apart of Christmas but I did not get my camera until Christmas day and did not open it till after because I thought I might exchange it. So all of the pictures involving more of the fam are on my mom's camera. So it might take a while for ME to get the pictures. None the less, Christmas was fabulous and we all enjoyed Steve being around to celebrate.
I guess I could start with some Paris updates because it will involve less thinking because that is where I am. Today we went ice skating outdoors in front of Hotel de Ville, it was fabulous, and there was music playing so I just jammed along. I only feel twice and the first one I jazzed up. As I fell I landed in a perfect plank position so just to keep the style alive I threw in a push up. Yeah, I know I am such a dork, but I miss having anatomy classes. The French Revolution is quite interesting and all....but sometimes I need someone who speaks my language (I am not refering to english or spanish) I mean anatomy language. It's okay though, I do it in my head all the time. Well, how about some pictures to keep you all content.