We decided not to go to Erasmus on Thursday night, which was a good idea since we have been doing things nonstop all weekend! Friday there was school again in the morning, followed by a long and much needed three course meal (mussels, duck, and crème brûlée) and a trip to the Pantheon and a little vintage store shopping, where I tried on this fantastic Three Musketeers leather jacket.
That night Sydnie and I were going to go rollerblading in this giant rollerblading parade that happens every Friday night. After doing some research and discovering it was an 18 mile ride over cobblestones, though, we decided to just go watch them leave and then walk around the Latin Quarter and get crepes.
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| Best sneaky picture I could get of the boy wearing the alligator costume |
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| The French love rollerblading! |
Saturday morning was the Marché aux Puces: gigantically huge flea market. Sydnie, Ariel, and I spent a good four or five hours there and got some fantastic stuff before we decided we were completely tired and headed home.
That night after dinner we met up again and went to the Centre Pompidou since it was la nuit des musées, and all the museums were open all night for free. Pompidou is another modern art museum. My favorite was this one. It's a piano placed in a room that has the walls covered with rolls of sound-absorbing felt.
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| "She was a piano in a place where everyone had their hands cut off." |
We went to church yesterday, and it was amazing, of course. I had been a little burned out, I guess you could say, with school and walking all over the city. Church was just what I needed, though. The subject was "testimony" and even though I didn't understand every word (Especially since one girl spoke in Chinese for a minute. I have a hard enough time with French, thank you!), I definitely felt better afterward.
These last couple of days, though, have been some difficult ones. I didn't expect that a simple, month-long study abroad in Paris would be hard, but sometimes it is.
After church, Sydnie and I went to walk around in the Luxembourg Gardens, where we got stuck under a tree and our parapluies (umbrellas) while it poured rain around us. Our feet got soaked (I was wearing Toms... again, not the most practical shoes. But they're still my favorite!) as we walked over to the Latin Quarter for more cheap crepes and then on to meet our group to go to a Molière play. We were about ten minutes late because we went to the wrong theatre, but we still got in... and I have no idea what happened for the next two hours. I did not understand anything in that whole play, and I was super discouraged. I've been studying French for over seven years now, and for what? I was ready to throw in the towel.
We went home for dinner, and then Sydnie, Ariel, and I decided to make it a girls' night since we have all been a little bit homesick lately. We went up to Montmartre, the home of Sacre Cœur and also known as one of the most romantic places in Paris because of the grassy hill that couples like to sit on and overlook the city. Just the thing to cheer us up, right?
As soon as we got there, it started to rain. Hard. We went into the cathedral and listened in on the service that was going on for a few minutes, and then walked around the square that usually has the street artists and vendors and lots of cafés. The artists were there, but everything was pretty subdued because of the rain and many of the restaurants were closing. By this point we were soaked, so we stopped to get some ice cream and hot chocolate and called it a night.
Today, I woke up with a new and more optimistic attitude because it was Disneyland day! Sydnie and I bought tickets last week and we were super excited. The weather said it was supposed to rain, but from our experience so far, rain doesn't last long in Paris. And we already bought the tickets. So we hopped on the train to Disney!
The rain started before we even made it halfway to the park, and I'm not completely sure as to whether it has stopped yet or not. It poured all day. We were soaked and freezing by the first ride. Of course it was still fun, and the lines were very short so that was a plus! I guess it just wasn't what I was really hoping for. And Disneyland Paris does not have a single giant pickle. What is Disneyland without those? That's the real question.
So we came home early: drenched, frigid, and a tad dispirited. You know what the funny thing about this is, though? The last ride we went on was It's a Small World. And that stupid ride with its annoying song actually made me realize that its true. I might be 5000 miles away from almost everyone I know, but is it really that far? I am in Paris, France, having one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I was letting a little rain and a little loneliness get me down. There are only two weeks left and then who knows how long it will be until I get to come back?
So I'm making a list of things I am thankful for, and then I am going to go out there and give it everything I have.
- My amazing family (extended family included!). Without them I would never have this opportunity.
- My friends. Who always text me back or Facebook chat me when I'm missing them and who (hopefully) won't forget me by the time I'm home!
- Growing up in the circumstances that I did, where I have the chance to go to school and learn a beautiful (if difficult) language like French.
- Rain. Without rain, the Earth would not be the gorgeous green place that it is. Also, it helps us appreciate the sunshine a little bit more.
- Of course, these glorious four weeks that I have to spend in France and learn things about myself and the world that I could never learn in a classroom. There honestly is nothing more I could ask for.
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