Hello Seattle!

Before each of the performances we are put on a princess party. It was the cutest thing cause all the little girls would dress up and then come take pictures and have us sign autographs. (which felt a little weird haha)


Hello, Cupcakes! The yummiest cupcakes I've ever had. In Portland Oregon.
Tacoma Washington Train station.


A FREE PEOPLE STORE! You guys would have died. And of course I didn't have my visa and they were having the biggest sell.

Pikes Place Market.
Just a little modeling in Seattle.

Paris When it Sizzles

So we woke up bright and early Monday morning and decided to take a quick trip across the "chunnel" to Paris. We sometimes do whimsical things like that, which are planned by our fearless leaders. We were quite excited as you can see.

We got to beautiful sunny Paris, and then decided to hop on a coach and go to Chartres to ride the merry go round.

...and eat some deliciousness...

...oh and maybe to see this amazing cathedral and be taught about some of the beauties inside by the world renowned Malcolm Miller. I am positive that anyone reading this is green with jealous rage that I got to do this and you didn't, just wait... it gets better.

We decided to try a real French restaurant for dinner. It was quite a doozy trying to order, but the cute little waiter helped us and I ended up with a warm goat cheese salad. Not too shabby.

Next we went to the EIFFEL TOWER!!! It is so much more amazing in person. It was too late to climb up it though, and unfortunately every other time we tried to go to the top we couldn't. Bummer. The rest of the trip made up for it though.

We're best friends and we visit the Eiffel Tower together.

Then we walked to the Arc de Triomphe (thats Arc of Triumph for you English speakers).
I'm almost positive I walked at least 50 miles on this trip. Such an athlete.

I was giddy. Audrey Hepburn stood at this very spot in my most favorite movie of all time!! Oh how I love her Funny Face.

Casually modeling in Paris... NBD.

The next day we went and visited Marie Antoinette at Versailles. Although there were a million and one tourists, I still loved it. I have never seen a more grand palace in my life.

This is the Hall of Mirrors where the Treaty of Versailles (after WWI) was signed.

Everyone look at Brittany:)

Just a little taste of the grounds...

After Versailles we went to the Musse d'Orsay, my favorite train-station-gone-art-museum ever:) It had some of my favorite paintings. I love art. We ate dinner at this Chinese restaurant... not such a bad view out the window either!

We took a Seine River Tour, one of the most romantic things ever. So glad I had Arrin and Kira to snuggle up next to.

I am not sure if I have ever crashed harder than I did that night. Such a good feeling.

Wednesday may have been one of the best days of my life. We started out with Notre Dame.
Can I share an embarrassing fact? I'm in love with symmetry, naturally... this building is just for me.

We visited Quasimodo in his bell tower, and the Gargoyles who like to take bites of the Eiffel Tower.

Next was Saint Chapelles, with the most glorious stained glass I've ever seen. Pictures cannot do them justice... as with most things we saw.

...more Saint Chapelles...

Next was the Cluny museum, with Kira's most favorite pink doors and the famous Unicorn Tapestries.

We then walked almost all of Paris. It was so fun. We got such good weather while we were there. Everyone needs to visit Mouffetard St. at some point... best crepes, candy, and ice cream in the world. Pinky promise.

We walked even more of Paris, through the Toulerries and Champs Elysses, and then climbed the Arc de Triomphe!!

Booty shot in Paris.

Next was the Louvre!!! Annie may or may not have been jumping for joy.

Kira's favorite!!

My favorite!! (Oh and I may have been giddy here too because this is also featured in Funny Face). It was the perfect ending to a perfect day. Haha.

Our last day was also amazing. At the Orangerie, Kira got to see her favorite Renoir.

...and we saw some of Monet's waterlilies. Which are more breath-taking than being punched in the stomach.

Next was the outdoor Rodin museum, which I have deemed my favorite museum of Paris. I loved it so so much. This is the famous thinker, just a small taste of everything there. I never realized how much I enjoy some good sculpture.

We also went to the catacombs, one of the scariest places in the world. Basically in the 18th century Paris was running out of room in graves. The genius's from back then decided it would be a good idea to dig up whole graveyard and make walls with the femurs and skulls in an old underground stone quarry... and then just throw the rest of the bones over the walls.

The walls seriously went for 2 kilometers underground. It was disgusting but I loved it. It felt like Indiana Jones meets Pirates of the Caribbean, but real life!!

So scaredy....

We ended with this delicious cheese covered sandwich, which I think was quite nice.

SO... after 4 days, three nights, 5,000 miles of walking, 2 eclairs, 2 creme brulees, 7 croissants, 1 piece of chocolate cake, 4 crepes, 2 ice creams, 1 strawberry tarte, 3 visits to the Eiffel tower, 1 boat ride, 3 churches, 1 palace, 5 museums, and 4 sore feet.... we got back to London feeling quite satisfied with our little trip to Paris. Though more time is always required.

THEN try and be my friend!

So I just got back from a three day camping trip where we kayaked and tramped and stuff. Tramping= backpacking/hiking. Therefore I'm the best new tramp around :) So picture this, we arrive at our capsite and it is POURING rain. The whole entire day. Then after we get there and have to set our tents up in the freezing rain we have to put on SWIM SUITS to kayak. NOw let me tell you about Kayaking. Now first of all, these kayaks are sooo easy to flip over. AND, when you flip over, they did not teach us how to flip back over, therefore, you are STUCK upsidedown under freezing water, freaking out and drowing until somoneone runs into your boat with theres and you can use it as leverage to flip yourself over. Yea I know right? Freaky. Now add rapids to the equation, as well as gerk leaders who make you try to do crazy things in the rapids. I've come up with the equation, please learn it now to save yourself from near death experiences later.

Kayaking+Rapids= death

Pretty much. And I especially hate it because I am absolutely HORRIBLE at it. NZ has been a great humbling experience for me. I have successfully discovered about 134 things I am bad at. UGH! I hate being bad at things. I mean i'm not horrible at everything, but I just wish i was amazing at it. Kayaking, surfing, rock climbing, listening (haha, but I'm not sure if it counts because we all already know that), etc.

Something else i have discovered about myself is my love of food. Yea yea we already knew I loved food, but out here, when people think of me, they either think about my insane hair (my hair is pretty dang sweet and crazy out here) or they think about how much I talk about food. When all 5 of us are together, I think I've realized that 50% of our conversation is about US (haha duh), 45% is about food, the other 5% is random stuff (like sometimes boys or sleeping out in the family room haha). So becasue of this, I have continued that out here and I guess its not a normal thing to talk about food!!! WHY? I dont know! It is super frustrating that i can't even talk about the food I am eating or the meal I am craving without someon telling em I talk too muc about food or I should be a food critic. Sheesh people. Seriously. Who knew?

But back to my 3 day trip. I survived! We eventually built a fire that provided warmth and made it fun. Yes it is true, somehow i enjoyed those 3 rainy and cold days. I'm learning a lot about myself out here. I have realized a new issue that has entered my life. Everything out here in NZ is so beautiful, that nowadays Ihardly even realize how beautiful my surroundins are! The river we kayaked down was AMAZING! Surrounded by rainforesty looking botony with huge misty mountains, and it took me all the way until the 3rd day to notice. I'm just spoiled by beuaty these days :)

OK I think I'm done rambling. This blog entry is pretty random. I didnt plan what I was going to write it just kinda all fell out of my mouth...... change of subject. Sometimes I force the people around em to say things so I can feel like I'm with you 4. Like this whole kayaking trip I taught everyone "THEN try to be my friend"! Ha ha it was hilariopus. Everyone at camp started saying it not even knowing where it came from. Made me smile. I mss you guys! Love all of you! peace

My Home...

In 46 days, and COUNTING.

-Jack

A Quick Little Welsh Adventure

So Thursday morning we woke up bright and early at 5:30 and drove to Wales, because in Europe it IS possible to drive just a few hours and enter a whole new playground with a new language, new customs, and new history. First we went to Tinturn Abbey, which William Wordsworth wrote his famous poem about. Our assignment was to create a copycat, and it was actually really enjoyable to come up with our subject matter. Once we've written our poems/stories, maybe we'll post them for critiquing.

The abbey was of course in ruins, with lovely King Henry VIII to thank for that.

Next we went to a coal mine named the "Big Pit". You may wonder why a coal mine would be important enough to go to, as we all did, and the answer Dr. MacFarlane gave us was "Well, none of your ancestors were royalty like all of the other places we have been visiting, so we thought we'd give you a taste of how their lives ACTUALLY were". Hahaha. I thought that was hilarious.

The mine was horrifying. It was really REALLY hard to ignore the fact that we were 90 meters underground, with no light except the ones on our heads, walking in areas where even I had to bend over (though I failed at least five times and bumped my head... luckily I had the handy dandy notebook, I mean helmet). While we were down there we experienced "total obscurity", where there is absolutely no light whatsoever. Our tour guide told us that we would never experience this again, which is a complete lie. Let me tell you a little story to prove that he was, in fact, lying:

Thursday night we stayed in a hotel in Cardiff, with random room mates from the group. Mine was a cute girl named Mary. In order to have electricity in your hotel room you must put your key in a slot in the wall and keep it there until you leave. After going out on the town I came back and got in the shower, while Mary wrote in her journal on the bed. Mary decided to leave. She took the key with her. I was in total obscurity alone, in the middle of my shower, in an unfamiliar hotel room, completely naked and wet (as implied by the shower part). I had no idea what to do. I waited at least ten minutes for her to come back and she never did. Finally I summoned my courage and turned the shower off, somehow got out of the shower, grabbed a towel, got out of the actual bathroom, and had to fumble around the room trying to remember where I left my wallet with the key in it. It was, perhaps, the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. I can't even imagine what would have gone down if Kira had been in my situation.

SO the man is a liar and a theif, and I'm going to be bold enough to change the term "total obscurity" to "total OBLITERATION", because it is much more fitting.

After the mine we went to the Outdoor Museum of Welsh life, which had these beautiful gardens on one side, and actual old Welsh buildings on the other side. This side was my favorite for obvious reasons (though one of the houses had something quite nice to offer as well, the hottest Welsh boy in all the land. We may or may not have lingered and talked to him for most of the time. It's all up in the air at this point. We have to get Kira a kiss somehow!)

The first tulips of the season! I can't wait to find more!!

On Friday we started by going to Caerphilly castle, which has the best defensive qualities any castle could want (including a real moat!). Boys, eat your hearts out.

The civil ladies of the court...

...who sometimes tend to drink too much... diet coke of course...

Either it was a really windy day or Kira is the wicked witch of the west.

I found you Miss New Booty!!

Next we went on a mini church history tour, showing us many of the prominent places of the second mission of the church in the UK. We hiked up this lovely hill, which Brigham Young had done before us, and had the most amazing view of the whole land surrounding us. It was, however, the most windy place I have ever been, we could actually lay on the wind and it held us up. So fun.

Bus ride fun! Yes mom... my cheeks are back... no I don't have anything hiding in them...

The sunset outside the first church meeting house ending out perfect little trip.

I miss you all!! Our London extravaganza is already half-way over.... I'm so sad... I want to stay forever. I love this place. But I guess maybe I love my home more... it's all up in the air at this point. --Britt