Sorry it's been a couple days, folks... our internet has been down since Friday morning and just came up and running yesterday. Can you imagine? 3 1/2 days without internet??? In the United States as soon as there was a problem, you would have been on the phone about 2 seconds after you realize you can't fix the problem yourself with Verizon/Comcast/Optimum Oniline/whoever your internet provider is on their 24/7 customer service line talking to that poor guy who's just out of college and couldn't get a job except the night shift and is really really tired already and has to now listen and deal with you screaming into the phone demanding that the problem be fixed immediately and heaven forbid it take over an hour to fix much less 3 1/2 days!
But such is life here. You don't NEED the internet like you do back in the States. In the US, everyone has to be reachable all the time. People bring their work home with them and work all through the night. Facebook has become the norm for getting in touch with people and spreading the word for events/parties/meetings/etc... And think of how much we rely on the internet for research, maps, looking up a business's phone number or hours of operation, emailing documents and printing them out, and millions of various other daily tasks. Think of how much of your daily life is occupied by the internet. Then have that erased for a period of time. But here in France, it's not a part of life like it is in the United States. You leave work and work stays there. Work NEVER enters the household. It's never even a subject of conversation. You could know a person for years and never know what they do for a living. They care about spending time with each other. Family and friends are the values that are treasured here, and you spend time with them in person, not online. That's why meals are like, 2 hours long; you can just keep talking and talking and talking. That's also why they have siesta and everything closes down during the middle of the day- it's not because they're lazy, it's because you're supposed to be eating lunch and spending time with your family. Work is work and home is home. There's no "weisure" (a mix of work and leisure) like you have in the US, where yes you're at the table with your family but your laptop is open or you're bbm-ing someone or trying to work on a report/project while having kids scream that they want a snack (the one on the very very top shelf of course) or climbing all over your lap while you're trying to type. And it's not like you all sit at the table together but everyone has their own cell phone texting their own friends and you barely speak three words to each other besides the general polite "How was your day?" and "Could you pass the asparagus please?"
The only problem was that most of my "family" here was out all weekend long, so I was still on my own, and without internet.
Now, I've gone much longer than that without internet before, but it was always for a reason (ie training camp or missions trip or something like that) and you had other things to do. But I realized one important thing in these past 3 days. Without the internet, I'm cut off from all of YOU. And yes, of course I miss you, but with the internet it's kind of like I'm not really gone. I can go on facebook and see what you're doing or shoot you an email and tell you something and most of you will respond rather quickly (as we've been trained to to). I can be in France but still be in the know about what's going on in your lives in the United States; I can have my cake and eat it too. But without the internet, you're all gone. And I'm here, without any of you. It really hit me just how far away and separated I am from everyone and everything that I've known for my entire life up until this point. And besides that, right now the internet contains most of my things to do. I was trying to make a to do list for myself of things that needed to be done within the next week like
1) Print out CV (french version of a resume).... need internet for that because it's in an email.
2) Print out headshot for Disney audition.... need internet for that because it's also in an email
3) Find a store in Paris that sells dance clothes because mine are MIA... need internet for that because no one here knows where they sell dance clothes
4) Find out the addresses of various churches to go visit on Sundays..... couldn't do that, again, need to internet to look them up
5) Update my blog.... on the internet
6) Silvia asked me to make a carrot cake and said she had a recipe but couldn't find it. I told her I could use my own recipe... except it's saved in the my recipe box on allrecipes.com...
7) Decided that I'd cook/bake something else and started taking out ingredients and planning on being creative.... except all the measurements are in the metric system and the only thing here to convert them is Google
8) Go through my bank information so that I have it all ready for my appointment with the bank person Tuesday... except I do all my banking online.
9) Try to explore around Paris- except no one here has hard copies... If I wanted to get anywhere, I'd need to find a map/directions online. And it was cold and rainy most of the weekend anyway.
10) Do further research about what papers/forms/options I have/need for my future plans according various governmental laws... except all the information is on the US Embassy/French Consulate of New York websites....
11) Do further research about what other job opportunities are available/feasible in the event Disney doesn't work out... but they don't have classified ads in the paper here. All that information comes from a Google search.
12) Put some new CDs into my Itunes... except I kept getting a pop up every 2 minutes about how it couldn't connect to the Itunes library and therefore I had to type in all the CD information manually. That I didn't mind so much but the pop ups were really annoying....
13) Respond to emails and stalk people on Facebook. Oh.... wait.......
Friday wasn't so bad because I followed Gilles to his job in Paris and explored the surrounding area and then we went to a concert later that night so I wasn't home anyway to miss using the internet. Plus, they have free wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee in french) in most of the parks so I could at least read my email and check facebook etc... but Saturday and Sunday? Oh la la two very long days. But I'll get to that later. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
Thursday night before we went to bed, Gilles told me that he was going to a christian concert the next night and wanted to know if I wanted to go and had the time (I think it's really funny- everyone here keeps asking me if I have enough time to do this that or the other thing... really people, what else do you think I'm doing???). I said sure, why not, it's better than just lying around the house. He explained that he'd be going straight from work, so just to meet him at such and such a place and great see you tomorrow. Whoa whoa whoa wait a minute. Meet you where??? And just how do I get there? (Once again, I'm really flattered by the fact that these people think I'm so intelligent and knowledgeable that I just automatically know how to get everywhere without ever having gone before and not knowing what trains go where and not having internet to look it up, but it does get embarrassing to then have to admit that I dont). So after gently reminding him that I didn't know how to get there, he started to write down directions. But in the end we both decided that I would just go to work with him early in the morning and could spend the day walking around Paris while he was at work and then I'd meet him when he got out and we'd go to the concert together. I like this option a lot better.
So the next morning, Gilles and I walked together to the RER (train) station. It's good that now I know how to get there, but I think it's better to take the bus; it's a long walk (à mon avis) but maybe I'll get used to it once I've been here a little longer. It'll save me I,70 euros at any rate. Oh, I'm not sure if you know, but here in France, when writing out money, you switch the commas and periods. So you would write a thousand euros and twenty four centimes like this: 1.000,24 euros. It takes a little getting used to but it's okay.
We took the RER A to Gare de Lyon, then took the M line to Saint Paul. It let us off at the Rue de Rivoli, where there's lots of shopping. Gilles, don't you know by now that that's dangerous, especially when I don't have any source of income and I should be saving money for my plane ticket back to the States and all the visa stuff? But I do need dance pants for my audition Wednesday because when I moved all my stuff from college to my parent's place, it kind of went all over so two boxes of clothes are missing, one of them being the box with my dance clothes. Oh well.
We walked to the restaurant Gilles works at so I would know how to get there, and then Gilles told me to meet him at 19h (7pm), wished me "bonne journée," and left me to my own devices. In the middle of Paris. *Insert evil laughter here* Watch out France, I'm still bitter about the cream cheese.
I began to walk around aimlessly, looking for a park or something where I could sit down and people watch and write or reflect for a while. I tried to backtrack the way we came but I turned too soon. Uh oh. Not off to a great start already. But I did pass a bunch of street names I recognized and I knew if I just kept walking straight, I'd eventually reach Rue de Rivoli so I wasn't worried. I have to say though, as I walked down the streets, I felt like I was the opening number of Beauty and the Beast. I'm telling you, almost every person I passed smiled at me and said, "Bonjour", just like in the movie. Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour bonjour bonjour! coming from every direction. It was too cool.
Sure enough, soon the Rue de Rivoli came into eyesight. But as I walked towards it, you'll never guess what I passed! This place called, "An American Diner in Paris!". Now, I've heard that such things exist; Yadira tells me she knows of 3 or 4 of them in Paris- I refused to believe they were actual diners. New Jersey is the only place in the world where REAL diners exist. The rest of the United States hasn't even caught on, you expect me to believe a foreign country like France (who tries to stay as far away from assimilating to American things as possible) has got the idea? Now this I HAD to see.
I go inside and it's quite full, although it's quite small as well. Actually, REALLY small, like, maximum capacity is about 30 people. But, such are things here in Paris- everything is petite and compact. I sat down the the only open booth, with red leather seats, and the waitress (she was the only server for the whole diner) came right over to me and asked, "Vous êtes combien?" (How many in your party?) I respond that there's only me and she asks me if I want something to drink and I asked for water.
She came back rather quickly with a glass and a carafe of water and brought me a menu as well. The menu was in english with a french translation underneath each option. Ok, I admit, I'm impressed France. I took pictures of the inside of the menu but I'm not sure if you can tell what it says. Their selection, although small, was pretty true to the typical American Diner. There were eggs, homefries, and toast (with bacon or sausage); ham, steak, and eggs; 6 different types of omelets; a breakfast burrito; various types of pancakes (including the day's special: Raspberry and Dark Chocolate pancakes); French toast; bagels (the family I lived with actually asked me what a bagel was then I first came- they've never seen one); English muffins, regular muffins; cereal; and yogurt.
They also offered lunch and dinner: Chicken Wings; Chicken Nuggets; Nachos; Super Chicken Nachos; Super Chili Nachos; Homemade Chili Fries; cheese fries; chili cheese fries; tortilla chips and salsa; 12 different types of burgers (including the "Super Sunny Burger"- a bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg on it); Cape Cod fish filet; BLT; Hot dog and fries; various types of wraps, melts, and sandwiches; Grilled Cheese; and 3 different salads. They also had a student and "others" (although there was no explanation as to who the "others" were) special as well. On the back, they had a list of wines (because what living breathing Frenchman wouldn't want a nice glass of Cabernet Sauvignon with their pancakes?) as well as desserts including NY style cheesecake, various kinds of cookies, chocolate mousse, different kinds of ice creams and milkshakes, and various cakes. Ok, ok France. Not bad. But how does your food taste???
The waitress came over and asked for my order (2 scrambled eggs, homefries, and toast), in english. .I guess I must have had a pretty terrible accent, but it turns out she's American too. As soon as she took my order, a group of 4 people walked in and she asked me if I wouldn't mind moving to a stool at the island set up in the middle of the diner because there was no other room in the restaurant. I said I wouldn't mind at all and moved over. That place must be pretty popular- it was around 11:30am and practically the whole time I was there, there were people waiting outside the door for seats to open up.
She brought out my toast first. Well, actually, she brought out two pieces of bread with a packet of butter and strawberry jam. There were pop-up toasters ovens on every table, so you could make your own toast as light or as dark as you want it. The rest of my food came out rather quickly too- I'd say it took less than 10 minutes to complete my entire order. I was impressed again. Ok, it didn't taste like real grease-dripping New Jersey diner food, but it was still very good. Actually really really tasty.There were onions and peppers in my homefries, which I've never had in the US, but it definitely gave it more flavor. It tasted like the french version of American food- use your imagination to figure out what I mean by that. What was cool though was that I noticed the server yelled all the orders through the windows to the cooks, in English.
While I was eating, there were two French girls sitting on my right. They both ordered the "Triple Play"- 3 pancakes, 3 slices of bacon, 3 eggs, AND they both got a bagel on the side as well, which they smothered with french cheese. I saw on Amazon the other day that there's a book out there called, "French Women Don't Get Fat"; if they can eat like that and stay skinny, I'd like to know their secret. If not, I have a bone to pick with the author.
On my left was a middle aged American man and a young Middle Eastern man. They were talking about business stuff but my ears perked up when I heard the American man say, "You know, there's a TGIFridays in *insert name of city that I didn't recognize here*." The Middle Eastern guy was like, "Oh yeah?" and the American responded, "Yeah, but oh man, they have the WORST burgers in the entire world. They taste like crap. It's a shame, that business must really be going down the drain. There's barely any of them left in the United States." I had to laugh to myself, because I was a server at a TGIFridays in the United States and I happen to know very well that they are plentiful throughout the country and they (well, at least the Quakertown one) are quite successful as far as restaurants go. Clearly this man has not been back to the United States recently.
Now in French restaurants, you have to ask for the check; the server will never bring it to the table (it's taken as they're trying to rush the guests out then). I wasn't sure if this rule still applied because it was an "American Diner in Paris" but the two guys on my left asked for their check so I figured I'd ask for mine too. I felt a little bad though, because the waitress was running around so much. Imagine having to handle 30 peoples' orders at once! The most I've ever handled was 16 at a time, and I just barely got through it alive. Kudos to this girl, plus, she was really really nice. Another difference in France is that you don't tip as much as in America. In the US, I got paid $2.83 an hour and relied on tips for the majority of my money. Here, servers get paid the same rate as everyone else, so you only leave like, a 5% tip. Some servers really like it when Americans come into their restaurants because they get HUGE tips, others actually get offended because you gave them too much. Again, here I wasn't sure what to do, because it is France, but at the bottom of the menu it said, "Your tips are appreciated." So I left her a nice tip and hoped that she would be blessed.
My only complaint was the price. My 2 eggs, homefries, and toast cost 6,95 euros!!! That's over $9.50!!! I'm used to going to Sunday's on the corner of Broad St and Hellertown Ave with Jess on Sundays after church and getting the exact same meal (and the exact same portion size, mind you) for $2.25!!! Oh France. Well, it's no Greasy Spoon (for all you non-NJ people, that's the Colonial Diner in Rutherford... and trust me there was nothing greasy about this place) and for all you PA people it was no John's Plain and Fancy either. But aside from that price, it really wasn't a bad try. I wouldn't go there every week because I'd be poor, but it'll be good once in a while if I'm feeling nostalgic or really really missing the US (but come on, let's be real people, when does that happen?) For once, I tip my hat to you, France (well, I would if I was wearing one...). And I left thinking, "Actually I'd kind of like to work here for a side job or something... it would be really nice and right up my ally, what I'm used to."
When I left the diner, I still had 7 hours to kill before I had to meet Gilles. I started walking down the Rue de Rivoli and one of the first stores I saw had kitchen gadgets in it, so I decided to go in. The store is called, "13 à table" and oh la la it's one of the coolest stores I've ever been in. It's three floors and each floor had a store employee greet you with a friendly bonjour and ask if there was something you were looking for. They were so nice and had wonderful smiles. The first floor had really interesting trucs (a french way of saying thingamabobbers) like that thing that you put eggs in so that you can make them in the microwave 5 different ways, a cotton candy maker, and a machine that carbonates liquids so you can make your own soda or seltzer or whatever drink you want "du gaz". This floor also housed all your baking needs, including a lot of silicone baking pans with very intricate designs so you can make cakes/cupcakes in the shape of roses or swirly designs and I even saw a mold so that the cake bakes with the the shape of the words "Bon Anniversaire" (Happy Birthday) on top. Plus, they had a little girls section with special baking utensils and kits and recipe books in French for little girls. I almost died it was too cute. It reminded me of the cookbooks L'ani and I used to have when we were little, except in French. There were also pans to make Madelaines, a type of cookie (ish, because cookies don't really exist here) with a scalloped design.
On the "1st" floor (because in France, what we call the 1st floor is the rez-de-chaussée or, ground floor, then when you go up the stairs to what we call the 2nd floor they call the 1st floor) was all the cooking needs like pots, pans, strainers, utensils, etc... On this floor I remarked the "silicone gourmet steamer", silicone oven mitts, silicone pot holders (can you sense a trend here? I'd say over 1/8 of the products in the store were silicone) and also an Avocado slicer, a "whipper" for making your own whipped creams, and a beater/mixer with 4 different attachments for either Chantilly/whipped creams, mayonnaise, milkshake smoothies and potage, and meat/fish. I also noticed a type of cookware called "Evergreen" which reminded me of the Greenpans they sell at Target that are ceramic instead of teflon so they're environmentally friendly and better for your food to be cooked in. They made me think of Jen Bara, who taught me to be healthier and more environmentally conscious =). De toute façon, if I end up settling down in France, those are the pans I want for my kitchen. As a matter of fact, the whole time I was in the store I couldn't help but think, "If I end up getting married here, I'm totally getting registered at this store." I literally wanted to buy one of almost everything.
The 2nd floor (which we could call the 3rd floor, of course) was all wine glasses and things for alcoholic beverages. Of course. There was a book featured on every display called, "Pourquoi le vin est-il rouge? (Why is wine red? 100 questions answered about wine)". I was sad I had to leave this cute store but I wasn't going to buy anything because like I said, I'm not really in a position to be spending money. Besides, I don't need any of those things and there's no room in the house for any of it anyway. Oh well. À l'avenir, je suppose.
I walked all the way down the Rue de Rivoli looking for somewhere where I'd be able to get dance pants, but the only place I found remotely close was an Adidas store and it only had track pants. Oh well. I next set out to find a park. I walked past métro station after métro station, stopped at an exhibit about Charles de Gaulle, then turned down the Rue Beauborg because I saw the Centre Pompidou, which is a huge modern art building which houses a huge library, France's largest Modern art museum, and also a center for music and art research.
Last year when I was visiting this family, Yadira and I went to a park near there. I also thought I may be close to La Defense (another place where there's a lot of Modern Art stuff) but I didn't find it. I turned again when I saw a métro sign for "Arts et Métiers" (Art and Jobs) because I thought, well, I'm an artist and I'm looking for a job, so maybe I'll stumble upon something. I didn't though, so much for that thought. It ended up being sort of like a chinatown area- it wasn't decorated like NY but the stores started having more oriental names and there were asians EVERYWHERE. I did, however, find a park where I finally got to sit down and ended up journaling for almost 4 and a half hours. The park, Square du Temple, was in the shape of an oval with the outside being a sand/gravel path lined with benches and the inside being all grass for happy little french children to play in. At the far left end, there was a playground also. I found it quite amusing, though, that most people would just come and lie down and take a little nap in the grass- including businessmen fully decked out in suits, vest, and tie and would use their briefcase as a pillow and old french men who snored loudly enough for me to hear them on the bench when they were asleep and seemed to be worse than the women when it came to gossiping when they were awake. I have to say, my biggest form of entertainment, however, were the two pigeons who were going at it in front of my bench for a decent amount of time that I spent in the park. One had a deformed foot with no claws/talons, the other barely even looked like a pigeon because its neck feathers were ruffled up so much they looked like a thick black lion's mane, and his throat was so puffed out it looked like a bullfrog's. Silvia says the pigeons here are more like chickens than pigeons because they're so fat and huge.
After about 4 hrs of journaling, I figured it was time to start trying to find my way back to Gilles's restaurant, even though I still had about 2 hours until we agreed to meet. I had just kind of been aimlessly roaming around Paris so I didn't want to risk taking too long to get my bearings. And rather than backtrack the way I came, I decided to test out how trustworthy my born-and-raised-Jersey-Girl sense of direction is. I am proud to say that I found my wa right back to the Rue de Rivoli. Score 1 for Gina. This did mean, however, that by the time I got to the street to get to Gilles's restaurant, I still had an hour and 40 mins or so to kill. I noticed across the street there was a Franprix supermarket, and I had previously read online that they carried some American brands, so I decided to check it out. When I got to the entrance, there was a big official looking man in a navy suit with some kind of tag on his jacket and a walkie talkie on his waist standing right there. Remembering my incident at the bank about having to flash identification to prove that I'm not a bank robber and me being the non-confrontational person I am and not wanting to interact with this man and chance having him bombard me with a thousand questions about who I was and why I was there and what business I had in his store when I'm not exactly quite sure how to say, "I'm just looking for some evidence of reasonable food selection (unlike other supermarkets in France thus far) whilst trying to kill time waiting for a friend" in French. So I went around the block to see if there was another entrance but there wasn't, so I came back. Bad move #1. Majorly sketch. I go in the store and go over to the right and Monsieur Securité comes and follows me, but keeps a reasonable distance. Sigh. And the section I walked right into was all the wine and alcohol. Oops. Mistake #2. So I walk around, pretending to casually browse through all these kinds of wines and such, and then move on to look at the other products in the store. Every couple of feet, though, I'd look back and sure enough Monsieur Securité was still following me. Mistake #3, because the fact that I kept looking back at him probably made me look even more sketch. Then I started weaving in and out of aisles to try and lose him because it was getting really annoying- like when someone's trying to read a book over your shoulder. Oops. I'm sure this man was convinced I was going to try and steal something. Eventually, I gave up and just either started picking things up and looking at them and eventually left. I didn't see many American brands besides things like Pringles and Oreos and Pepperidge Farm cookies.
I stopped in 2 more parks before I finally met Gilles and then, we were off!
Gilles said we had some time to kill because it was an hour before the concert started and it was really close. He tried to amuse me by taking me to different buildings and pretending they were historical monuments with interesting stories, but I was tired and didn't really feel like walking around. I was hungry though, but Gilles said there was going to be a dinner at the place before the concert started. Here's where our adventure began. We got on the first train to head over to the place where the concert was, got on the train, but the train didn't move. We literally stood there for 15 mins and the train didn't go anywhere. Finally, Gilles said we had to get off and try another train because clearly this one wasn't going anywhere. So we head to the RER station and get on the RER. Same thing happens. They announced something over the loudspeaker but neither I nor Gilles could understand what they said. Gilles finally said that we'd need to just take a bus because we were late already, and we'd have to miss the dinner but we'd at least get there in time for the concert. My stomach was not happy about this. Nor were my feet, but, as this is a common occurrence in France, on we trudge.......
We walked around and found the bus station, and on the ride over there, Gilles quizzed me on my Spanish. Yup Spanish. In France. That's what I get for living with a Venezuelan family. Usually by the end of the day my head is spinning because there are just too many languages going in at once. While talking to my friend Chas I thought up the term "Spafrenglish" and that's the best way I can describe it. The other night I said something along the lines of "ouvrez (open) les ventanas" and Yadira's jaw dropped and she was like, "I'm sure I didn't just hear that!" Oh well. I pretty much knew everything he said and was able to translate from spanish to french, which I thought was pretty cool (although we didn't go very far beyond numbers up to 100, hola, que hora es, como te llamas, etc...). At any rate, it helped pass the time until we got to the place.
The concert was held in a Korean church, a very (VERY) small building in Paris. "Dinner" turned out to be about 8 boxes of hawaiaan pizza and grapes, cherries, and WATERMELON set out on plates. The pizza was almost all gone by the time we got there, but I was only interested in the watermelon anyway. I'm happy to say that even though I've only been here 11 days, I've had watermelon 5 times. That's almost every other day! =) Especially in France where watermelon isn't usually popular/plentiful- I'm very happy. Anyway, there was about 15 minutes until the concert started, so we got to eat and meet some new people. There were two people from Gilles's church there that I knew, and then I met two french guys, Pierre and Michel. When Pierre asked me my name and I told him, he said, "You have a very slight accent but I can't quite place it," and I told him I was American. Very slight accent? I'll take that as a compliment, especially if he couldn't tell I was American. At least I'm not butchering the language! I also met the drummer, who is from Sicily (unfortunately, I dont remember his name =X) but he asked me where I learned to speak french so well. I told him I really don't speak that well and he said I at least sounded like I was fluent. I still have a lot of improving to do though!
We went inside the room and Gilles's friend, Marc, began to sing. He sang mostly English songs, surprisingly. Oh la la. Now, to his defense, first of all I have to say I admire this kid's heart. He's really got a heart for Jesus and is extremely passionate about serving his Savior at any cost; truly a life fully handed over to God and that's really awesome. In fact, instead of going to college, he's moving to Nigeria next year to teach people French and serve as a missionary there, and he's only 19 years old! It's really great to see someone so young have such a heart to serve the Lord. BUT....... it was kind of hard to sit through the concert because he didn't pronounce a lot of words right and he didn't really have a sense of musicality (didn't always stay on beat with the music). He kept staying "orir" instead of "open", "stir" instead of "still" and "lir" instead of "live", and "wass" instead of "walk". But the worst was when we were singing "God of Wonders" and he kept calling God the "Lard of heaven and earth". But, like I said, I'm sure I make some of those same mistakes in French so I could at least tolerate it.
Until a point. After about 4 songs, Marc told us to get up and take away all the chairs. He said from that point on he was going to teach us choreography for each dance because he wanted us to be excited about praising God. Excited, I can be. But not like this kid. Oh la la. "Choreography" often meant that you'd take your right hand and hit the person in front of you on their shoulder, then repeating it on the left, then actually punching the person on the right and then the left, then actually smacking their cheeks, then patting them on the top of the head.... you get the picture. AND THE SCREAMING. He screamed and screamed wayyyyyyyyyyy too much. Then he'd tell us to improv or copy his own improv, which generally meant just throwing and flailing your arms and legs in any random direction. I was sure he was going to get hurt or hurt someone else because there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to what he was doing. And he was one of those people who called out the audience (which was a lot of middle aged korean/chinese/french people) because they weren't doing the same and wouldn't move onto the next song until you were loud/active enough. Practically the whole time I was there I just kept thinking, "C'est la folie! (this is just craziness!)" I'm telling you, the kid must have drank 15 red bulls and at least 8 of those 5 hour energy drinks before coming to this concert because he was just bouncing off the walls and really loud and all over the place.
This went on for almost 4 hours. I was ready to go after about 45 minutes. It was a loooooooooooooooooooong night and I was tired and didn't want to be forced to sing and dance like that. Now I'm all for worshiping the Lord really actively and singing and dancing, and I fully believe that He deserves all that glory (and more) but when 1) you're forcing everyone to do it and 2) There's no order to what's being done and 3) It actually involves hitting other people, well, it loses a lot. But I didn't say anything to Gilles because he actually looked like he was enjoying himself. But I was DEFINITELY ready to leave when it was over. Thankfully, our friend Yada drove us home so we didn't have to take public transportation (although we did take the RER to get to where Yada parked his car)... but de toute façon....
To all my friends who are in various bands- thank you for not screaming too much and making me hit people. Trust me, I really REALLY am grateful.
Because the weather was nice, we decided to walk to the Metro Station instead of taking the bus like we had before. The church was actually just on the other side of the Luxembourg Gardens from the métro, so we walked through instead of going around it like the bus had taken us. Oh it was too perfect! The weather was warm and sunny, there was a perfect breeze, we were in (in my opinion) the most beautiful garden in all of Paris, and in good company. Here are some pictures I took last year when I went. There were tons of happy little french children with smiling french parents running all over the place, and even pony rides for the kids (and what struck me was that even the guy who was leading the horses was smiling and making conversation with parents. You'd never see that in the US- usually it's a bunch of people being paid minimum wage to work with smelly horses and deal with screaming children and they don't smile, they just want to do their job and leave). And what's the nicest part, was that there was a small pavilion with a grand piano set up and there was a small Chopin concert! Turns out JC loves Chopin, another thing you wouldn't expect from him because he comes off as being more of a jock, athletic, manly man type person hah. So we went over and sat until it was over. Oh it was just beautiful. Especially when the week is so busy and you're going going going... and then to have Sunday be a day where you can go to church and then rest, relax, and enjoy the people around you- it's just wonderful. 
and way better than anything I could have ever asked for! I mean, I didn't ask for the armoire either, but they decided to get one for me anyway. And then they all worked super hard to get it nice and clean and put together for me- I felt bad because they moved it from Pastor Ngyuen's house to our house and cleaned it and put it together almost all before I came home, so I didn't really help out, even though I'm the one using it, but they didn't seem to mind. This family is just too much, I'm so blessed to be able to live with them! It's all well worth hot soup on a hot day (and the soup tasted really really good anyway!)
