La vie normale, je pensait.

Alors, this update will be slightly different than the last. Back to "normal" life. Whatever that is. I have seriously fallen in love with this city. I always liked it before, but lately I've just been enjoying everything about it. Like I said earlier, it feels like home now.

Earlier this week I went for the second (oh la la) run of the semester thus far. I ran down to the river Erdre and finished my run along the bank, which was of course very nice and wonderful in itself (as well as embarrassingly difficult). But then I doubled back to a spot I had seen earlier, a little stone wall overlooking the water, and just sat. It was so nice. After a weekend full of doing-- a museum, the opera, a cafe, a garden, church, and a picnic, I really enjoyed just being in Nantes for a bit. The slow moving water reminded me of the bayou (awwww), and I could barely hear any cars or trams; I got to think and just feel the cool air on my face. Little things like this are important, I think. Just thought I'd share.

I should really elaborate on the garden I went to, because I feel I have a duty to its awesomeness. The Jardin des plantes, however unoriginal in name, is highly spectacular in reality. Everything is really neat and groomed, and while I usually like the rough, natural kind of nature, I guess there is tea-party-kind-of-girl in me that adores this park! There were flowers and trees from all over the world, or so I hear, and walking through the furs and spruces smelled si wonderfully. We also saw the very spot where my friend Éowyn got engaged! He picked a good place, I'm telling you. There's also a petting zoo with goats.

A little blip about my teaching internship-- I taught the song "Louisiana Saturday Night" to my CM2 class (5th grade), and they loved it. It's really cute to hear them sing it, and even the boys were dancing and really getting into it. Brought some Louisiana to France, I did. Ooh, another fun fact: the French eat boudin. Maybe I'll finally be a really Louisianian and try some, ironically not in Louisiana.

I just finished a truly wonderful book. I know I've already used that word too many times in this post, but it's really true here. This book, Kisses from Katie, is about an American teenager who let herself be driven by the love of Jesus to truly and radically live out her faith in Uganda, as a mother to 14 adopted young girls. It sounds crazy hearing it from me, but reading the book, I have no doubt she is doing what we should all do: hearing God, believing Him, and following Him. She also has a blog kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com .

This book makes me want to do big things for God. It makes me want to help people. It makes me want to share some of my comfortable, clean life with those who live in dirt, in disease, in captivity, in pain, in slavery, in hunger. I know these people are everywhere. They're in Nantes, they're in northeast Louisiana for goodness sake. I'm praying this book doesn't add to my list of conviction without action, emotions and halfway broken hearts that don't help anyone unless change results.

I put "normal" in quotation marks earlier for two reasons. One is that my life is anything but normal here, speaking a language different than the one I've known for almost 20 years, running for trams, eating sandwiches made with freshly-baked croissants, it's completely different and exciting and great. But two is that life should never be normal, even in Funroe, and I don't desire it to be. It should be a struggle, a pursuit, a roller coaster, a heartache, a joy. I want my life to be as not-normal as possible if that means Jesus is pleased, if his people know his love.

These are my desires when I'm sitting at home, reading good books and thinking about God, but when I go out into the real world, I know those desires get skewed. May each day make my way a little bit straighter.

Paris et Bar-ce-LO-na

Ok, so I'm back in Nantes after a week of Winter Vacation. With three wonderful girls from IES, I traveled to Paris and Barcelona, and then back to Paris. It was crazy, tiring, amazing, challenging, and wonderful all at the same time. I got to know my friends better, got to see amazing things, meet some really cool people, and experience travelling in a foreign country where I don't know the language, at all. 

Paris first. After arriving via the TGV, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower, not realizing that we would arrive just in time for the hourly twinkling lights. AND it was midnight. Call me sappy and cliché if you want, but in my opinion, it was pretty darn magical.

The next day, after visiting the Sacré Coeur and the open-air market, we took off for Barcelona. Well, "took off" is probably a bit romanticized, considering we used RyanAir and had to take a hour-long bus ride to a city outside of Paris for the Paris-Beauvais airport. I'm not complaining though; it's insanely cheap. Favorite quote from that experience: "Please turn off your cellphones and other electronic devices, and for those who smoke ... please quit."

Some highlights from Barcelona include happening upon a late-night party in the street, seeing a demonstration complete with cardboard guillotine, and hearing a man rap about Jesus. Well I guess those are more like oddities than highlights...

We walked everywhere, and took tons of pictures. Gaudi, a famous architect, lived in B-Town and designed a ton of amazing stuff, including the Sangrada Familia. I loved the uniqueness of this cathedral; it's so different from the Gothic architecture all over France. The front wall recounts the events leading up to Jesus' crucifixion with abstract sculptures, and I found it really interesting to experience the story in that way. Hopefully my pictures can do it justice.

Paris will always have my heart, but if you took away the history, the language, the food, and the Eiffel Tower, I think Barcelona would definitely win. I loved the weather, the architecture, and the ambiance of this port city. The people of Barcelona were also strikingly warm and friendly. Half the time we had no idea what they were saying, but they were super kind and patient. Me gusta Barcelona!


If you ever need a pick-me-up while learning a language in a foreign country, just go away to another foreign country where you know zero percent of the language, and then come back. Seriously, after being almost completely deaf and mute to the Spanish for 3 days, speaking and understanding French was cake in comparison. It made me appreciate how much I actually do know--even if I do still get weird looks and "huh?" expressions. I love this language.

So returning to Paris was great, because words actually sounded like words and not like a mixture of rolled r's and I-don't-know-what-else. But it was also weird, because some words sounded like English. Because they were English. I heard so much English there it was crazy. Tourists--everywhere. And the storekeepers in the tourists section, too; they know English so they're going to speak it to you if they know you're American. The few people who didn't--who actually respected our attempts--have no idea how wonderful they are. I wish I could send them flowers or chocolates or a new car or something. On the reals. They're the best.

My four favorite things in Paris ...

- Nutella crepes. Obsessed. In love. A little scary.

- le Musée d'Orsay. My favorite part of the entire trip. I always had a hunch, but I've now decided Monet is my favorite impressionist.  His paintings are beautiful. And seeing real Edgar Degas ballet paintings was like a dream come true.


- buying an amazing water-color painting in the artist square at Montmartre. The woman who painted it was so sweet, and I'm so excited to hang it on my wall at home. A little piece of Paris.

- getting told I "don't have a heart" because I didn't want to give money to help feed insanely fat, stray cats in a Parisian cemetery. Definitely a first in my life.

I think this week taught all four of us how stressful travelling can be, but I'd say we managed pretty well, and even came out on top. Just navigating the Paris metro system in itself will give you about 10 years of life experience. Needless to say, I'm extremely happy to be back--it feels like home now compared to the big city. I had a wonderful time, but I'm ready to get back to exploring my Nantes!!

                                                               (Nantes -->)