Wow! What an eventful and extremely fun weekend it has been!! I went to Paris this weekend, and had the most wonderful weekend of my life (well, next to working the NBA all star weekend of course haha)
First of all, Happy Valentines Day! I don’t view this day as a negative thing because I am single- its quite the opposite actually!! I feel so loved by my friends and family on this day, and I love it! (love, get it haha). But most importantly, it’s a good reminder of how much my Lord and Savior Jesus loves me! Sounds corny I know, but Jesus has been my date on valentines day for the last 20 years of my life and every single one of them have been incredible! This one has been fun so far… but more about that to come!
Back to Paris- lets start with Wednesday night/ Thursday:
Wednesday night started off well!! A group of 5 of us ate dinner with our teachers in their flat… and it was amazing!! The meal was awesome and the company and fellowship was even better!! (and they had cool-aid… I have never tasted something so good haha) After dinner, the adventure really began! Well, our group got cheaper tickets to take the train to London if we left at 10:30 pm rather than at 3 am, so we left the house earlier than originally planned. This, however, resulted in us sleeping like homeless people in the train station at st pancreas in the 20 degree weather until our train for Paris left at 7:20 the next morning. This was such a funny and interesting experience that I’m so glad I had, but never want to have ever again (seriously, EVER haha). I have never been so cold in my life. And I got no sleep, NO sleep. But its all ok, cause I was going to Paris!! Anyway, I also have a new appreciation for homeless people, and I am seriously so thankful for the fact that I have a warm place to sleep every night, because I could not imagine sleeping like that every night! Anyway, we got on the eurostar train to Paris at 7:15 am. Let me just say, I am so glad that we took the train!!! It was beautiful looking out the window (when I wasn’t sleeping) at the beautiful countryside, and I loved being on a train instead of a plane for once. We got to Paris around 11 ish, and it was a completely different world the moment I stepped off the train. I never realized how hard it is to communicate with people who don’t speak the same language as I do. And we almost got conned by teenage gypsies asking for money. But don’t worry, we pretended we only spoke German and couldn’t understand what they were asking us haha. We then got tickets on the underground and headed off to find our hostel!! Ok, now when we booked our hostel, we didn’t really look at the reviews or anything until later, and we discovered that it really was not the best hostel to be staying at. The friends hostel was not in the friendliest part of town haha. We had so many inside jokes about it going in, but I would be lying if I said that we were not a little anxious about staying there. It turned out to be fine (TONS and TONS of stories that happened) and we survived!! But anyway, after we checked out our hostel, we then attempted to meet up with the other two guys that were in our group. This turned out to be one big fail, for our directions were completely wrong, and they got us lost for a couple of hours! And we got a little lost on the metro system, but after a while we figured it out and we didn’t get lost the rest of the weekend!! Haha but seriously, by this point we hadn’t seen any of Paris but the bad part and we were all tired and hungry, so we were not the happiest people on the face of the planet. But we met up with the guys finally and headed out to eat! Things were starting to look up. We ate at this little café near St. Chapelle church, and I had a delicious omelet! Even for a person for me who does not like eggs all that much, this omelet was awesome!! After this, we walked around Paris a little bit and saw some of the city! Now this was the Paris I was expecting: wow! After taking lots of people and wobbling on the bridge (video to be on facebook soon), we went to the Museum Dorsay (spelling, sorry!). This was such a cool museum! The best part was probably taking a 30 min nap on this octopus looking couch up on the 5th floor though haha! After this, we headed to the Eiffel tower. I can’t describe what it felt like to be standing under the Eiffel tower! After reading about it and seeing pictures for so long, it was surreal to be actually standing under it! The top was frosted over so we couldn’t go all the way up (I’m telling you, it was COLD!), but we did go up to the 2nd floor. It was absolutely breathtaking to see all of Paris lit up at night. And to see all this with my friends made it even better!! It was cold up there, but the view was beautiful and something that I will never forget! After this, we headed back to our hostel to dethaw our frozen limbs and go to sleep! We were all so tired that we practically passed out as soon as we got back. One more word about staying in a hotel: you get to know your friends even better than you thought you would when you are all in a small room and sharing 1 bathroom….. good times!! We definitely had 8 people brushing their teeth at one time… it was a thing of beauty!
Friday:
Ok, so we forgot the time difference and overslept a tad, so we were off to a bit of a late start, but it was all good! Friday morning we headed to Versailles. The train ride there was a blast and so many memories were made! When we arrived at Versailles, our first priority was to eat! Me and a couple of friends found this tea room that was owned by two sweet French ladies. This meal ended up being the biggest blessing in my life. I’m not going to lie, I was a little worried all weekend about being able to find things that I could eat that didn’t have gluten in them, but God completely took care of me, for I was full and happy the whole weekend! At this restaurant, the ladies made everything from scratch, and they assured me that there was no gluten in ANY of the dishes (insert hallelujah chorus here!). So I had salad and a traditional French dish: duck and mashed potatoes. One word: amazing. This was the best meal I have eaten yet! And to top it off, the chocolate cake they made had no flour or anything in it either- so I got to have cake!!!!! YAYAYAYAYA! After my very exciting and satisfying meal, we headed to the palace of Versailles. Now, this had to be one of the highlights of the weekend! It was absolutely beautiful. After studying it for so long in school, it was so nice to actually be there!! And to top it off, I saw a fire truck when I was leaving, so I was very happy! From here we headed to the Louvre, and because we were students, we got in FOR FREE!! It was great. Finally got to see The Mona Lisa! It is so big that I didn’t get to see even a fourth of it, but I enjoyed every bit that I did get to see! After this, me and three other guys decided we wanted to go out to dinner. We sat down and had a nice dinner, and everyone else headed back to the hostel. This diner was wonderful, and I really enjoyed spending some quality time with three amazing guys! Then we went back to the hostel and went to bed (many more funny stories happened here- ask me about them later if you want to hear).
Saturday:
We woke up a little early on Saturday so that we could go and see St. Chapelle, the largest stain glass cathedral in the world. This was definitely not a disappointment… it was amazingly beautiful!! Then we went to do the fat tire bike tour. This was absolutely the best decision we made the entire weekend! The tour started and ended at the Eiffel tower, so we got to see it during the day too! There is something magical (call me a girl if you want) about riding in the streets of Paris on a bike with your friends!! At one point you could even hear a man playing a violin in the streets… I felt like I was in a movie! This tour was very informational and extremely fun, and although it was only like 20 degrees outside and I couldn’t feel my body the whole time, it was totally worth it! After this, we got discounted tickets for a boat tour that night on the Sims river, so we went to the grocery store to by cheese and grapes and stuff to eat on the boat. And we are in France, so yes, we did stop at a bakery and get baguettes (well, everyone but me…although I did have one bite! I was in France, I had to!! Haha). Then we wondered around the city a little more and sat down at a little café for coffee before heading out to the boat. Ok, I know I liked everything so far about the trip, but this part literally was the best moment of the whole weekend! I felt like I was in a movie (again)…. Eating and hanging out with my friends on the top of the boat as we passed the Eiffel tower and such while sailing on the Sims river!!! Ah, it was freaking awesome. Freaking awesome. After this, we all headed back for our last night (Praise the Lord!) at the Friends hostel.
Sunday:
We got up super early to pack up our things and head to Notre Dame Cathedral for 8:30 am mass. This service was incredible!! The entire thing was in French so I didn’t understand a word, but it didn’t even matter! The building was beautiful, and I enjoyed listening to God talking to me in a different language!! I wish I could go back every week, for I learned so much in that service even though I couldn’t understand a single word anyone was saying. After this, we ate at subway and headed back to the train station! We headed back to London, and then back to Oxford and got back to the house around 7pm. Boy, it was so nice to be home!! Then, despite the homework we had, a bunch of us sat in the kitchen (naturally) and talked and laughed about all of our different experiences that weekend as we sipped on several cups of tea. This was absolutely the most amazing weekend of my life. The stories and memories I made with my friends will last a lifetime!!
Monday:
It was hard to have to wake up early to write an English paper, but Paris was totally worth it. It was a pretty uneventful day. I was in the group that planned and lead our community worship that night, and that was a great experience!! I love our community here. It is so hard to put into writing how much I value the people here.. what amazing people God has placed in my life!
Tuesday:
Today! Its Valentine’s day!! Yay!! It has just been a day full of classes and laughing as usual. I watched some replays of the past couple of Mavs games and did some laundry. Cameron fit himself into one of the dryers in the laundry room, and that was pretty funny! Other than that, I have been doing homework and volunteering tonight! Its been a pretty uneventful day, but I’m ok with that. I feel the love from all my friends here for sure!!
There is so much more I could say about the past week!! Unfortunately, it is past 1 am here and I am super tired. But thanks for all the prayers for me about this weekend!! It was such a great trip!! Until next time, my final quote:
“Never underestimate the power of late night conversations in the kitchen” -CS Lewis………boy is he right about this one!!
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