a warm day in Paris

Me with my new beret on the way to the Eiffel Tower

2/3 of the way up the Eiffel Tower...we chickened out & didn't go to the third level...very windy...and the loads of people on it just didn't feel all that safe...did I mention this native Whitefish mountain girl is a bit afraid of heights!

in Parc Monceau...I told my mom as I was dancing, "I'm glad we're not back in Montana yet...I love Paris!"

crystal staircase along the Champs-Elysees

& we saw more breakdancers below the Eiffel Tower...they are so cool.  & I ate two crepes today, tomorrow I'm going for three.  we walked from the 17th arrondisement to the 8th to the 1st to the 7th & now I'm settling in for some French tele, my stuffed animals, some french bread & chocolat...ah, c'est bon!

Crepes, fondue, ballet, & breakdancing

Breakdancer on the way to the ballet in Paris tonight

My mom and I are in Paris!  We both liked the other places we've been in the last 10 days, but realized today that this is all we really wanted to do.  So it feels good to finally be in this cool, beautiful city.

Tonight we got dressed up and took the metro to the Paris opera house (Palais Garnier) to watch a ballet.  When we came out of the metro right in front of the opera house were these three guys dancing like....well like I've never seen before.  Watch the video from above that my mom took of one of them & I think you'll see what I mean (the video is sideways because my mom doesn't know how to fix that yet).

Then we had a little time before the ballet began, so we went to a cafe nearby that we had gone to two years ago--and I had chocolat fondue with fruits & cakes to dip into it & my mom had a crepe avec sucre (with sugar) and the tiniest coffee I've ever seen it made me laugh.

Here's a picture of us in our seats at the Palais Garnier:

& the view from our seats before the ballet began:

Then we took the metro home & found a crepe stand near our hotel & bought two more crepes for a late night snack....mmmmm!

More soon.  Love, Naya

Spring vacation

I'm officially on vacation with my maman!  She is trying to get me to do 2 hours of homework each day...but that sometimes involves painting on a bridge in Venice.  Here are some of my spring break photos so far.  Today we went to Eurodisney.  It's about 20 miles outside of Paris & when you see a sign for Snow White it will say instead Blanche Neige.   I went on my first upside down rollercoaster today...on accident!  The Paris version of Space Mountain is a bit more extreme than the US version...yikes!  Not going to do that again, ever.

 Now, we're lounging in our hotel watching some tv shows (they are in English, French, and German) &  I hope my mom has the energy to take me to the pool downstairs after she posts these pictures---it has a waterslide where you fly out of a dragon's mouth!  Oh, and everyone speaks French here...so after practicing German and Italian this last week on our travels now we'll be speaking French for about three weeks.  But I do still have a few British quirks according to my maman.

Gondola ride through the canals of Venice

a mask I bought made in Venice--this year we are going to skip our Annual Clue party and go instead for a masquerade ball at Halloween.

Me in a square in Venice while my mom meets with her favorite art history professor from Whitefish...they are talking about art and looking at ceilings in churches and I'm much more interested in the birds that will eat out of my hand...see below.

a sparrow who also likes a pain au chocolat (croissant with chunks of chocolate in it)

me, today, on my first ride, "It's a small world"

Me and Mickey

Below the Sleeping Beauty castle

Running through the maze of Alice's Wonderland

Around and about England

on a street in Oxford

at "the North Pole" in the hundred aker wood (from Pooh)

looking for Piglet in the hundred aker wood (Sussex area, south from London)

going into Shakespeare's house

me at the biggest, coolest candy store ever.

surely there's a golden ticket in here somewhere, oxford.

hanging with wilbur at a farm near brighton, england

me feeding a lamb whose mama perhaps had triplets or quads and couldn't feed it

feeding some expectant mamas, one in the background actually pushed her baby out while we were there.  so cool.  she was so calm and strong at the same time.  we got to watch her then eat all of the sac and blood off of the baby and see it go from looking like it wasn't going to make it to sitting up looking around.

my favorite ever book-poem

this is Shel Silverstein reading 'the giving tree.' Hope you enjoy this book. Love, Naya

(click on the words above)

Just a few more days in Oxford before we go for a month to Europe

Me, Freya, and Imo

My mum READING, reading, reading

some sheep near our house, if you click on this photo to blow it up and look really close you can see some babies--black and white lambs

having fun with curlers and the camera

a bridge i saw in Bath

in Bath

the fountain inside Christ Church

my mom's pigeonhole for her mail at Christ Church

the Bodleian library & Hertford college behind

mom's feet at Christ Church

cool shoes in a cool shoe store.  i took a really funny video of the shoes in this store but we can't figure out how to post it on the blog yet.

my mom's foot & my foot on a street in Oxford

This week, after my neck got better, I got to have my mom come to my school and give a presentation for science week on the Rocky Mountains and all the animals there and what it was like to be a backcountry ranger in Glacier.  It made me miss Montana and Ladybug & it made me feel smart because I know a lot about bears and wolves and that feels cool.

Then the next day I got to go to London without my mom with my whole class to a big science museum all day.  

I only have three days left now at New Hinksey-my school here.  Today my mom is picking me up early from school and we are going to see a play by Shakespeare in the town he was born and lived--Stratford-upon-Avon.  The play is Romeo & Juliet--my mom's favorite one.  My favorite one is A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I'm excited to go see Anne Hathaway's house, Shakespeare's wife.

Last night we ate for the last time in the Harry Potter dining hall.  We will both miss that a lot.  It was really really cool to go there every night the last three months.  I have learned quite a lot about manners.  (& not all the Oxford students have them!)

Next week my mom and I are going to go visit a sheep farm that is in lambing time.  That means lambs are being born every day and they let kids pet them and help them with bottle feeding.  We are also going to go visit the 100 acre wood, the woods that the Pooh stories were invented from.  So check back for some new photos from these adventures.  And send me some emails soon telling me about your life:  naya.ladybug@yahoo.co.uk

Bye!

Lord of the Dance & learning to sew

Here is a video of a cute old man singing a song that we are practicing at New Hinksey right now for Easter:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pRfNLW_K6Q

Also I learned how to sew and embroider yesterday from Helen, a nice friend we made in Oxford.  She is friends with Kirk and Harriet from the Unitarian church.  I know how to do the back stitch now, and also how to make little dresses out of felt for a wooden doll Helen gave me.

I am almost done in Oxford.  Soon we are going to Eurodisney and other places in Europe.  And then soon I'll get to see all of you again in Montana!

Love, Naya