Demain, une aventure

Tomorrow, I am going to Paris. Let me rephrase that. Tomorrow, I am going to Paris! I can't wait. Paris for one night, Barcelona for three, and the Paris again for two more. All this week and last my four other friends and I have been facebooking our lives away to plan our trip: the trains, the planes, the hostels, the couches. Yes, couches. There is in fact a large, somewhat comical possibility that I will be couchsurfing. Yep, this girl right here.

I say it's only a possibility, because, well, we don't know yet. We haven't nailed down the last two nights of our trip. A little bit scary? Yes, but hey, it'll work out. I think. Word of advice: don't try this at home/European country of choice. Get together with your friends in person and just work out all your lodgings in advance. It will free up the night before to work out your packing situation.

Speaking of, we are flying with a cheap company that only lets you bring one free sac à main (carry-on) of a very small size. For a girl who thinks it's normal to take an-almost-50-pound suitcase for one week of travel, this is a little bit crazy. It's going to be good for me, because the bare essentials are really all I need anyway. Right?
No matter how skeptical I sound, I'm obviously super excited. The Eiffel Tower is only like my favorite manmade thing in the world, and even though I don't know a thing about Barcelona, the pictures on Google look like warm weather.

These random pictures throughout this blog are from the past few weeks. IES took us to Mont St. Michel and St. Malo, a cool little island abbey and beach town. I toured the St. Nicolas Basilica in Nantes, which was beautiful. And we also got some great snow; that's our little snowman named Michel. Can't wait to update about my travels! I'm sure there will be lots of things to say. . .

Un Petit Peu

So I really want to blog right now, but I have homework for Madame de Pous. All I will say is that I went to a French circus today and had a blast baking chocolate melting cake with my homestay sisters (and cousin). Still can't believe I'm in France. Incroyable.

La vie est beau, errr, belle

Well, this is a tad bit in retrospect, but the week before this last week was a little rough. If I gave names to my weeks, I would name it "Yes, the Sign on my Forehead is Correct, I am American." Frankly, it was just the week of mistakes and awkward situations.

One day, I went to three tabacs to attempt to buy a pack of tram tickets, (tabacs are places where you're supposed to be able to buy packs of tram tickets). The first one looked at me like I was crazy, and the second one politely threw in a bonus self-confidence booster with "Oh. You don't speak French, do you?" Oh, that's right, I wasn't trying to speak French. I was actually speaking Portuguese. Oops.

Some of my other mistakes included: 1) running out of tram tickets multiple times; 2) missing my tram and having to wait/walk in the cold for 15 minutes; 3) having to walk in the cold to buy a tram ticket, only to realize I was walking the wrong way; 4) missing my tram stop 5) knocking over an entire box of cereal; 6) accidentally stealing a song pamphlet from my homestay family's church;  7) leaving my gloves on the bus and forcing the driver to run across the street to give them to me [who says French people aren't nice?!!]; 8) accidentally locking my booksack in the IES center over the weekend; 9) showing up way early to Agape and having to stand in the cold for a bit until some nice old people let me into the church. . .


But the cool thing about all this was that for the most part I never really got super stressed. God's given me this comfort of knowing He's in control with everything, even the little things. And that comfort allowed me to enjoy the moment in all its imperfection, finding the bright side of things. Like the night I showed up early to Agape-- I got to meet some really sweet elderly people... Including a couple from Kentucky. Who speak French. With the thickest southern accent I have ever heard. So. Cute.

Now of course there were moments when I did get stressed, moments when I refused to let go of my worries, trying desperately to hold on to control. But God is God, and he holds my sinful, silly self in his hand for some reason; so if I can just take the second to remember that, I realize I can trust him. While being in a foreign country is difficult, and being me in a foreign country is difficult, I can't let this little stuff get in the way of my purpose or ruin my experience. In fact, it's part of the experience. I mean hey-- if I can write a blog about it, it's good, right? :)