Lost and Found

Can I just explain something to you about weekends? They are supposed to be relaxing, a way for you to kick back after a stressful week of work and school. A time for families to gather 'round the dinner table, share a meal, and watch the Wonderful World of Disney. A time for finishing your homework late Sunday night, because Saturday was too full, either of obligatory yard work, or roasting marshmallows.

Such weekends do not exist in France.

Why, do you ask?

Because my weekend is longer than my week.

Did you not catch that? Let me repeat it.

My weekend is longer than my week.

That's right.

Study abroad is SO INTENSE that they give you FOUR DAYS TO RECOVER.

BUT THAT'S A TERRIBLE IDEA! DO YOU KNOW WHY? Those four days are never spent recovering. No! That's too many days! Who wants to recover for four days? NO ONE! So do you know what those poor souls with four day weekends do with their time?

FIND NEW WAYS TO BECOME EXHAUSTED!

And this, my friends, is how it's done:

Friday:

1 - Wake up at nine am to skype.
2 - Skype.
3 - Shower.
4 - Take the metro to the 14th Arrondissement to hang out with the cool kids at Foyer Didot.
5 - Learn how to play new chords on the guitar and practice worship music with said cool kids.
6 - Meet Terec- The Moroccan Who Hosts Complete Strangers in His Room through Couchsurfing.com
7 - Go to The Canadian Folk Singer's Free Concert in Montmartre
8 - Leave. Because the room only holds about 5... and 47 are crammed in there. And there's that back room with the red light and the black light and the shag-carpeted chairs... which, you know, is what you always assume a back room looks like, but is not necessarily a back room in which you'd like to hang out.
9 - Eat pizza, and then go back to Montparnasse to have a cappuccino in a French Bar. It's so lovely to have a cappuccino at midnight! And they put chocolate on cappuccinos in France!
10 - Stay the night at Didot, because this is going to be a long weekend, and you absolutely should start it off with a slumber party.

Saturday:
One Saturday every year in all of Europe, something magical happens. It's called "La Nuit Blanche," which literally translates to "White Nights." I heard that every store would be open, and art exhibits, museums, films, dances, and concerts take place all over the city. We were all so excited for this night, to be able to ride bikes around for free and take advantage of the Centre Pompidou at midnight.... But guess what happened...

1 - Wake up at 10 to go to the street market in Montparnasse.
2 - Go to the street market and meet Kiera Knightly!!!! I'm like 72% sure it was her! The others are more skeptical but that's because they don't believe in magic. I do. It's totally logical that Kiera Knightly sells olive tapenade and dried apples at street markets in Montparnasse sometimes. She was probably researching for a role. And she spoke with a British accent! I mean, at first she spoke French but then I made an error (I know, shocker) and she was like, "Oh! You're American!" And then I knew. Because she said it in that Kiera Knightly voice and everything. If you don't believe me... Well... You should.
3 - Buy olive tapenade and dried apples (yes, from Kiera)
4 - Go to an amazing Lebanese restaurant for lunch
5 - Return chez toi to get ready for Nuit Blanche!
6 - Go BACK to Didot for dinner at the Laurier
7 - Find non-alchoholic champagne (It exists in France! It's called: Champagne Sans Alcool Pour les Enfants... That is right. Non-alcoholic champagne for children. That's me!)

and then the second half of Saturday begins...

1 - Go to the Eiffel Tower
2 - Drink non-alcoholic champagne with good friends, people you just met, and the beautiful sparkling lights of La Tour Eiffel at midnight. It's absolutely beautiful.
3 - Decide to go to Montparnasse because there is this HUGE beam of light reaching up into the sky... and that makes one curious!
4 - The problem? Metro closes really, really soon... SO we got to the said HUGE beam of light... and it really was massive. Think the Batman Light times 4 thousand. It's really big. And there was this creepy space music playing, too. And lots of people looked like they really enjoyed it, but... It was just a massive big light. With creepy music. I'm sorry I didn't understand it. (It needed the Batman on it. Then it would've been awesome.)
5 - Decide you really need to go back home, because it's 1:30 and the metro closes at 2 so you have to get moving!
6 - Get stuck in the Montparnasse Metro... because you didn't get moving fast enough. (2:00)
7 - The First Mistake of the Night: Decide to take the bus instead of walking home. (2:20)
8 - The Second Mistake of the Night: Get on the wrong bus. (2:45)
9 - The Third Mistake of the Night: Get off the bus, and get on a different wrong bus. (But this time, someone in an official orange vest told us to do it! Not our fault!) (3:15)
10- Admit you are lost, and get off the bus, and ask a different official orange vest man.
11- Realize that the other bus was indeed correct, and get back on it. (3:45)
12- Get to the metro. "But I thought it was closed!" "Well, no, Silly American Girl. Line 14 is never closed." "That should be written down somewhere..." Then the man points to the sign... *sigh* ... (4:15)
13- Take the metro, fend off a tall man trying to steal your purple hat (I know! I was appalled, too!) and walk home.
14- Collapse into bed at the comfortable hour of 5:15 in the morning.

End of the First Half of the Weekend

Sunday:
Thank goodness it's Sunday! Pastor Pete sent me a link for Calvary Chapel of Paris, and my good friend Sean and I checked it out. It wasn't a long metro ride, and we were full from our crepe luncheon, ready to worship and read the Word! We found the building no problem, and walked in, and I instantly smiled.
This is what I have really been missing during my adventures.
The church is so tiny, but everyone is so stoked to be there! I literally met everyone who attends CCParis; there are only 18. Pastor Mike leads worship and gives the message, two of his daughters sing (really well, actually!) at the top of their lungs, and his other two children sit in the back of the very humble, very small room.
I loved that the atmosphere of the service was very open, and honest, and unapolagetically simple. Pastor Mike said alot about what it means to have a relationship with God, something that I've been working on this semester, especially. It was exactly what I was looking for, and Sean and I stayed for about an hour afterward to talk with and lean about the people there. Pastor Mike and his wife are actually from Seattle! All their kids are fluent in French, and his oldest daughter actually corrected my French quite a bit. I liked that, though. It's good to know I'm at about a fourth grade level!
I'm excited to go there again.
That night, Terec cooked a fabulous Morrocan dinner at Foyer Didot, and Sean took me all the way back home... It's a much longer walk than the one I used to complain about, from Goller to Twohy back at GU! My campus is so much bigger now!
I went to sleep on Sunday full of good food and fellowship... and that was amazing.

Monday:

1 - Phone date with the cousin!
2 - Lunch at the Creperie Sarrasin, on my Ile St. Louis.
3 - Shopping around the little island with some of the Foyer Vigie girls... It was lovely to walk around our little island and pretend to be toursits. (Okay, so we were actually tourists... but that's fun, too).
4 - I finally got HAND LOTION! My passion. I absoultely love hand lotion. It's a strange obsession, I know... but I can think of many unhealthier addictions. Like shoe shopping. Which I also have, but let's not go into that...
5 - Dinner
6 - Skype
7 - To bed at 1.

CONCLUSION
Weekends in Paris are brutal!

Sorry for the dramatically long post, but I love and miss you all!

Don't forget to comment!

Bisous!

Alyssa