And now I get to marinate myself in the retelling...

I think I meant bask, but marinate sounds more delicious, and is more indicative of this weekend because there was a lot more good eating than sunshine. However, it was not freezing (quite balmy at times actually), was only really badly windy in the metro, never rained, and I think there was an eensy bit of sunshine at one point. :)

Friday I successfully got to the train station right after class without any lateness. I got to Paris fine

*brief interlude because I hear a question about what the TGV is like*

You don't really realize how fast you're going--if you think about it, sure, you can't really see the poles close to you, they're whipping by so fast, but it doesn't have a roller-coaster speeding feel because that would be highly uncomfortable. The only time that I really thought, "That's weird--we're moving fast!" was when I saw a car that appeared to be going backwards, and then I realized it was parked.

So I got to Paris fine (sat in the wrong seat, but I was in the window and the lady I was sitting with didn't want to get up again to let me switch, so [I assume this because] she arranged to just have me switch seats with whoever came up being all like, "you're in the wrong spot!" It worked out nicely) and then came the part that I knew was coming: How to find Alena and Rachel. Fortunately, Holy-Spirit radar worked well (after a false attempt at wandering around the main part of the station) and Alena was a little ...concerned looking when I walked up but that got me the best hug EVER and we were well on our way. We dropped off our stuff at the hotel and chatted a bit while they browsed guidebooks and stuff. I'm kind of a "Let's just go and figure it out as we go along" kind of traveler, but the browsing paid off because we went to a restaurant we would've never gone into right down the street from the hotel. For one thing, it was surrounded by construction, for another thing, the guidebook said that it opened at 7 but this is France so when we got there at 7:10ish they said they were opening in 10/15 mins but we could come sit down, and for a third thing, it was therefore all dark and small and sketch looking but really really cool on the inside--very awesome. They gave us the menu, which was 14 E for a true French 3 course dinner: entree (entry, appetizer), plat (entree), and dessert (no translation necessary). They also gave us English menus and then gave us a piece of paper to write our orders down on, which worked out pretty well. I enjoy knowing the language that I'm traveling in!

I got carrottes rapées with a vinaigrette dressing for my appetizer, see photo when I upload it, (grated carrots), and then ordered brochette a poulet Thai because I didn't know what brochette meant but I did recognize "chicken" and "Thai"--the first meaning that brochette was probably not a gross meat and Thai that it might be spicy. Brochette apparently means shishkabobs, and Thai means curry. I added some of the ridiculous mustard for an extra kick, and got "spaghetti" for my side, which meant spaghetti noodles that looked 100% plain but had garlic and butter. They balanced the sweet and slightly spicy but not at all salty chicken and I was quite happy with my choices. For dessert, Rachel and I got EXCELLENT coffee ice cream and Alena splurged on the most amazing crème brûlée she will ever eat in her life. We mostly talked about France/Italy and the differences and similarities and our experiences to this point. It was cool to be with people who actually share background with me--at least Kent State with Rachel and all of freshman year and LT with Alena. We actually talked about LT a lot and I think our conversation mostly convinced me that I'll be happier working mornings at Bob Evans than ...breaking the bank? making bank? heading to the bank? what's that phrase? every night working at Carraba's. I think sometimes I'm too quick to tell myself what I'll like or not.

Afterwards, it was 10:15, which was just too early to go to bed, and the Eiffel Tower looked so close that we just started walking to see if Google Maps' 40 minute walking estimation was correct. It was, but we didn't go all the way (just to the peace monument at the other end of the "mall", as Rachel called it, because it was a big grassy space between monuments), and in between we saw the Invalids and Unesco and some SDFs (homeless people).

Note on French eating patterns: We got there, the first people there, to the restaurant at 7:15. When we left, the place was JAMMED. While we were walking around, there was next to no one in the streets for it being PARIS. And there were only several other groups in the vicinity when we "got to" the Eiffel Tower--several meaning countable. Then, on our way back, in the 11:00 hour, the traffic picked up, because as Alena pointed out, they were all going home from dinner!

I was about ready to crash when we got back to the hotel, so I did.

Then next morning we got breakfast at "de gâteau et du pain," which if I remember correctly was too fancy for capitals. I might be making that up, but it was pretty fancy--all black with spotlights on the food--not dark, just black interior design. I got two little raisin ...not baguettes, they weren't long--they were the size of hot dog buns, and a long pain au chocolat to share. =D We took the metro to the Charles de Gaulle Etoile, which conveniently has you come out looking straight up at the Arc de Triomphe, with your back to the Champs d'Elysées, which reminded me of the first time we went to NYC and stepped out of the metro straight into Times Square. I reached into my bag for Eddie's picture and realized--he was back at the hotel! Whoops! (Don't worry, we mostly made up for it Sunday, in quantity even if not quality. He'll forgive me in a couple weeks). Andrea had told me that she prefers the view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe to the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower, so I suggested that and we managed it, despite 284 stairs. The view WAS really cool: it's called the Etoile because it's the intersection of 12 streets, forming a massive roundabout which is the most epic pinwheel of death ever. The French generally prefer roundabouts to exits anyway, but this one was ridiculous. But there was some cool monument at the end of almost all the streets, which made for good pictures and Alena got some really cute ones of us. =)

After the Arc de Triomphe, we fell into the stream of tourists and went to the Eiffel Tower.

OK, here are my thoughts on the Eiffel Tower:

Why did I never realize that it is REALLY BIG?? Like really now...Pictures shrink everything so much that you look at it in real life and go, oh my gosh that's HUGE. It sparkles for like 5 minutes every hour when it's dark out, and actually that was the first thing I saw coming out of the train station! Alena thought it was tacky at first but warmed up to it in the end. =)

I quite enjoyed a bit of people watching at the Eiffel Tower and we took our pictures and stuff. There were African guys like every 6 feet selling a blanketful of figurines and key chains that got progressively cheaper the closer you got. I wanna know where they make all of them. Probably China. ;) No one's come up with an emoticon who has its tongue in its cheek yet. =P

After the Eiffel Tower, we headed to the island that holds Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle and the Palais de Justice. Coming out of the metro, you could see Saint Chapelle, but you could also see the line of people waiting to get in when it reopened at 2:15. (It was 1:45 and we were thinking about food). This is the part that gets fuzzy because I wasn't entirely sure what we were doing because none of us were. We did a lap of the Palais de Justice, expecting to see the rest of Saint Chapelle at some point, but no, the PdJ ate it. Then we found Notre Dame, which as Rachel pointed out later is one of the most commercialized cathedrals we've all ever been in (I compare boulangeries by the price of croissants and churches by the price of candles to light: 2 euro? Really?) It was free to get in but you had to pay to do anything else in it, like go into the different wings or the belltower, but Alena and I had an interesting conversation about how we always wonder if we'll see the people who worshipped in these places in heaven or not. Like, by then, was religion just religion or was there still some Jesus-following in there too?

After Notre Dame, I think is when we got lost. NO, we ate first. (And don't worry, we were never really lost. I'm telling you because you looked a little nervous. OK, concerned). I had an excellent omelette that came with fries, a salad, and baguettes, and provided Alena and Rachel the opportunity to try French ketchup, which they agreed was sweeter than the US's and less vinaigretty than Italy's.

OK, after THAT was when we took the wrong direction on the metro. Twice. But that was good because it gave us some time (with food in our tummies) to assess our time and stuff. We had been planning on going to the Musée d'Orsay, but we would've only had an hour before going on our tour of the city by bus and by Seine (boat) (no, Seine doesn't mean "boat" in French). So we reevaluated and naively rescheduled the Musée d'Orsay to after the Louvre on Sunday. Instead, we went to the Louvre because it was close to the place where we were starting on our Tour --OK, I'm leaving it this time. I capitalized tour last time too and I reached for it this time. Wow. Funny. But we just took pictures and then ATE BANANA NUTELLA CREPES!!! I really hope that's not the only time we do that .Ohhhhh I remember what took so long here--we went the wrong way out of the metro stop and ended up in front of the Nationale Academie de Musique, where there was a demonstration (involving Egyptian flags) that I was quite OK with getting away from after last time. But there were like 3 chocolatiers on the street and it really made me want chocolate which made the nutella/banana crepe PERFECT. Then we did a little tourist shopping and Alena got a cute scarf. Then it was time to go! There was a bit of a foule (crowd/multitude) outside the bus and a grumpy man came to my attention. Texas accent (as close as I can tell): "I've been waiting for a long time here and I want a good place!" We ended up with good places ...right behind him and his grumpy wife. This totally demonstrated the value of contentment in life: "*grumpy grumble growl* This is *insert negative adjective that an older person would use, I would say crazy but he wouldn't...* Italy was nice. We could go back to Italy. Switzerland was nice too--Switzerland and Italy, we could go back, but France and London *grumpy grumble growl*" OK usually when someone's traveled that much, I think, wow, cool person, I'd like to meet them. But they just seemed so unhappy! I heard him trying to justify the tour to his wife and then quelling her complaints about the headphones and she was basically acting like a 5 year old and snapped at him pretty good once. Or twice. It was just a very ungrateful attitude, all in all, going on in the front of the bus.

But the tour itself was sweet--we'd walked past half this stuff all day without really knowing what some of it was or even if we did it was cool to hear more of the history and anecdotes behind stuff-like, did you know that one of Mona Lisa's guards fell in love with her and hid her under his matress for 3 years? And that Napoleon hung her in his room but J...osephine? made him take it down? And I didn't realize Quasimodo was a real person. But Victor Hugo's novel basically saved Notre Dame. And some random guy saved Paris because it was up to him to blow it up or not during one of the world wars. And Australian teenagers are loud.

After the tour we headed basically straight home because Alena's guidebook said that the Louvre opened at 7:30 and we wanted to get there early and still sleep. We left half an hour later than planned (at 8), ate another delicious brekkers from the same place (I got pain au noix this time--a huge chunk/small loaf of bread with nuts inside--like whole pecans and I think walnuts). One of the metro lines was closed which delayed us an eensy bit but we approached from a different angle on foot which was cool. There was already a line which we felt was weird, before we decided that it opened at 9 (we got there right at 9, at which time the line started moving), and it was SO GOOD that we got there that early because the line was super super long by the time we got in. We weren't sure if this was normal, but I feel that it was because of it being free the first Sunday of the month. We saw the Mona Lisa straight away, which was exactly as big as I imagined it because I knew it would be smaller than the pictures. You don't analyze the Mona Lisa AT the Louvre, you take your picture and move on. I'm pretty sure she was in a bullet proof case and she had 5 guards. I also saw SEVERAL paintings that we just studied in art history, which was awesome. We took a seat at the end of Mona Lisa's room and planned our trajectory.

The Louvre is really cool because not only is it filled with tons of art, it IS a piece of art! In one rotunda after a few minutes I was like, "OH!, PS, ceiling!" and Alena and Rachel were like, "You're just now noticing the ceiling?!?" It was cool to go through the Louvre with people who have had to take a bunch of art history and can also appreciate the architecture.

Highlights:

Mona Lisa

Stele of Hammurabi

Scribe sculpture in the Ancient Egypt section that I actually legitimately remember a good bit about from art history

Venus de Milo

A couple little Baal statuettes that I was like, "Oh my gosh, the Bible talks about these ALL THE TIME and how you shouldn't worship them!!"

Napoleon III's apartments

Jewelry of all sorts (Y)

Anything I recognized from art history, including those lion/human things that guarded some mesopotamian palace and through which you could walk--but beware, they had little signs posted (only in French though!) saying that the interior of the little passage was guarded by an alarm!

Oh it was also here that there was an adorable, like, 18 month year old surrounded by Mom, Dad, and a couple other relatives. You could so tell it was their first kid. He wanted to crawl all over everything and kept making security guards lean forward uneasily but the parents just laughed and pulled him back and were obviously just enjoying watching him be adorable.

We quickly realized that there was no way we were getting to the Musée d'Orsay, which was fine because Rachel's not super into impressionism, Alena was willing to scratch it for more time at the Louvre, and it gives me an EXCELLENT reason to go back! =) Not just an excuse now, a reason!

By 12:30/1, we had reached Ancient Egypt after traversing Ancient Greece/Rome/Mesopotamia and Napoleon III's apartments. It was getting CRAZY. I don't know if it was the timing or the fact that people just love ancient Egypt, but it was a little packed and getting hard to see things--I still saw the most sarcophaguy I've ever seen in one place and Ramses, whom I remembered a bit from art history.

We needed to get back to the hotel (where we had left our stuff after checking out that morning) and back up to the Etoile with enough time for Alena and Rachel to ride a metro one more stop and catch a bus to the airport at 2:55. So we left the Louvre at 1 I think and ate a PERFECT lunch down the street--it was sit down but without waitresses so you could just order and eat as fast or as slowly as you wanted. I still had quite a bit of nutbread in me because I had munched a lot in line for fear that they would be strict about food and drinks. They weren't. But, so I just had a yummy peach yogurt and a fruit salad and managed to successfully call M, the leader of the church in Paris. He said someone could meet me at the metro at 2:45 for church at 3! =) And it was off of the Etoile, too, so that worked out.

Then it got a little tense if we were going to get Alena and Rachel there on time--I haven't talked to them but I hope so. I was an eensy bit late for church but not really. JL (Chinese girl) came to meet me at the metro and walk me around the corner to church.

I missed these people so much. I don't even know what to call them. The brothers and sisters, the network--these are good options. They're the same group as Priska and Ke and ChangYong and it was so good to sing some of the same songs (in French and all, but whatevs) and to just be around the same way of worship. There were 10-12 of us there, with only one French girl in the mix. M is English, his wife D is German, and I suppose that their daughter H is French? because the church is 3 years old and she just turned 2. Her mom speaks to her in German, her dad speaks to her in English, and she speaks French at school (or with her assistant or something? Gist-bubble!) But they speak German at home, which meant that some German came out and I still understand it! =D =D =D They are just such generous people who love and pursue Jesus and are so passionate about him and people. Dude. It just makes me want to sit there and marinate in it because the results are so tasty--both literally and figuratively! There were two American girls (counting me, P is from Louisiana and said I can stay with her if I return to Paris...when ;), the French girl, a quiet girl I didn't talk to, a Spanish-speaking guy I didn't talk to and thus don't know where exactly he's from, a Ukranian guy came during the meal and a Nordic chick was there during the meeting. I don't know what nationality but that's based on the incomprehensible langue her Bible was in (language. Another slip of the fingers that I prefer to leave). I really really want to and am planning on visiting them again. Hopefully twice. And already--bahahaha...they're telling me about the conference in the spring, which I already knew about. It's well on my radar. It's in New York, and as far as I know, I'm going. I'm not sure how yet, but it's at the end of May on the same continent on which I live, so I'm going. Would it be inappropriate to do a small comparison/analogy here? For all intents and appearances, GCM is far more "successful." Lives get touched and changed and transformed and then go out and touch more lives--and lots of them. This may sound like I think GCM's shallow or something--I don't, it's just an analogy and this is a positive thing--but GCM is kind of a post-industrial revolution church: very productive and efficient and effective. But there's a depth to this Network of people that I've "stumbled across" that reminds me of pre-industrial revolution artistry. You make a lot fewer "products" and it takes longer and sometimes it looks a little off but it's oh-so-undeniably genuine.

So I hung out with all of them until the very end of any kind of cleaning up at 7, and then headed back to the Champs-d'Elysées. I wanted to find someplace to sit and journal for a bit where I felt like there were enough people but not too many people, and just sit and people watch and appreciate the fact that I was in Paris. So I established myself on a bench just as some parade was ending and journaled and speculated about people's origins and relationships and it was lovely. I'm getting pretty good, in my own far-too-elevated opinion, but Z agreed with me this morning that a random guy in our book was Japanese. Tee hee. It's so true though--I couldn't even hear what language they were speaking but I spotted a group of Americans by how LOUDLY THEY WERE TALKING.

Well, by then the sun was properly down (with a little eyelash of a moon still up) and I was getting cold but still had an hour to kill so I went to Brioche Dorée (which I'm pretty sure means Golden Soufflé) and got the most delicious hot chocolate (in competition with last weekend's...) and continued to people watch from the second story window. Some ladies arrived just as I was leaving and were trying to figure out where to sit--I heard them speaking English and offered them my table for four, but then this other lady came over from the other direction and set her stuff down and said, "Merci," so I seamlessly (in my own far-too-elevated opinion) switched to French and said, "Oh no they were going to sit here" and they switched to French too and said, "Nous sommes ensembles" --"We're together." Oh good. It just struck me as funny that we were all anglo/francophones. :)

I got to the train station far too fast--this probably fourteen year old probably Italian kid with his mom and little sisters was definitely checking me out on the metro --bahahahahahaha. Checking me out is probably far too strong of phrasing--we kept making eye contact because I had nothing to look at but the four of them. I could tell by watching that he was talking about me at one point with the mom--it's all in the eyes, no one points with hands but with eyes. I smiled at the mom when she followed his pointing and I have no idea what they were saying but it made me laugh inside. The son looked back that one more time after they got off the train, which made me laugh again. I hope I didn't cause him to stumble--not my fault, he should've been watching his feet! Just kidding. Bahahahahaha.

Anyway, I took one last look at the Eiffel Tower and plunged far too early into the train station and figured out which train was mine and then chilled in the waiting room for awhile with Gideon and thought about how pastors are either like, "Don't be wimpy and unbelieving like Gideon!" or "It's OK if you're wimpy, God never yells at him" and I think it's a balance between the two--go in the strength that you have and if you have enough strength, stop making excuses, but if you don't, God's cool with giving you a bunch of miraculous signs to prove that you're on the right track.

The guy across from me on the TGV home was probably equestrian because he had the boots and sweet jeans and a sweater with leather elbow pads and a courderoy jacket that just all added up to equestrian. Trip was uneventful--another note on the TGV: with it all dark outside I totally forgot 99% of the time that I was riding backwards. I made it to the little shuttle, which was sort of packed, and *drumroll please for epic conversation*

The guy sitting catacorner to me had a book called something like, "1001 searchers talk about the future" and my little inner poke-er person sometimes known as the Holy Spirit was like, "Ask him about his book." So I was like, whatever, sure, this ride is like 5 minutes I'm not going to get into some horribly long and awkward discussion. He let me leaf through it--a bunch of people from all walks of life said a little phrase about the future and got their picture taken. He had just talked to the artist that day, who had given him the book to look at. He explained that after I asked if he considered himself a searcher--I guess seeker would be a better translation. *drumroll for best part please*

*gist bubble alert*

Him: "Excuse me for asking, but I detect a slight accent, are you from the"

and then he said "west" right as I was saying "the United States, yeah."

Him: "so very far west, yeah! You speak French very well."

Me: "Merci!"

I explained how I was studying at the institute and I'm from Ohio, and he said he's been to NY and CA (everyone's been to NY and CA...) but not Ohio. I also explained that not many have. haha. The girl sitting at the other catacorner to me chimed in and asked if I was staying with a host family and said that her family's done that for years for students at the Institute, so it's highly likely that I just talked to someone who knows someone I know. But the best part of that was that he thought I was from someplace West, not the US. It must've been really loud on that shuttle.

When I got home everyone had gone to bed and I followed mostly quickly except that I was on fb just a leetle beet too long--there was just so much new and interesting stuff in three days!

I think today deserves its own post. Or I might just go to bed. Man, it's not quite late enough yet but Paris is exhausting and I don't want to get sick!

I really hope this is long enough that PSs are unnecessary! Pretty sure I may not be rereading this one, so deal. ;) Thanks for reading, congrats on making it to the end! haha! :)