T-Minus...

ONE WEEK?? Well, technically one week and 4 days until I leave Europe, but I leave France one week from today! It is absolutely crazy how fast time has flown. There is so much left to do and not nearly enough time to do it. The past 2 weeks have most definitely gone the fastest. Easter weekend was such fun. Even though France is a neutral country (religiously), Easter is clearly a big holiday. Everyone gets monday off work, and many Parisians leave town. I chose to spend the day with Laurel. We started off the fresh, sunny morning with homemade crepes (made by yours truly), then headed to Chatelet-Les Halles to go to mass at St Eustache. While this church is a bit more off the grid than a church such as Notre Dame, it is certainly not understated. Probably the size of one and a half Notre Dames, it is an early gothic church built around 1200. The service was lovely. Not very touristy and filled with mostly locals, it was such an interesting experience to attend. The catholic Easter tradition is very different from that of the Protestant, yet equally as moving. The music was spectacular and the ambiance was joyful and calm at the same time. Surprisingly enough, I understood close to 90% of the service which I was not expecting, in part because the priest spoke rather slowly.
On Tuesday night, Helene returned home from her town of Vosges, so I made dinner for the three of us. Sonia supplied the desserts. Originally intending to make lavender roast chicken, that plan was foiled when I realized I only know how to use our broiler and not our oven. Instead I turned to a staple of my mother's: Korean marinated milanese steaks and arugula salad with grilled bread and spring onions. While I maintain it was not my best meal, Helene and Sonia were kind enough to gush over it. This weeks family dinners have been bittersweet because we know the end is coming. Helene has truly been the best host mother I could have asked for and was an incredible blessing considering my past host family experiences. After she left on Saturday, I came home to find a giant chocolate rooster and basket sitting on my bedside table with an Easter note. I cannot wait to come back to Paris and visit her.
Knowing that we only have one week left has also made preparing for finals that much more difficult. I don't want to stay in my room and study when I could be checking off my bucket list?? Who do they think we are...students?? I just think it would be much more practical to have finals a week before we leave, not the week of.
A wonderful thing happened this week as well. I had the chance to meet up with a good friend whom I had not seen for 12 years! (it made me feel quite old). Adrian Merrick moved away when we were 9 and I have not seen her since. Coincidentally we are both study in Paris and decided to meet up at a cafe for coffee. Coffee turned into 5 hours of catching up on all we had missed. 12 years later and we are still the same little girls with a love for old movies and tea. Fantastic and surreal, it felt like nothing had changed.

Spring Break

After three months of classes and a wonderful visit from the parents, spring break finally came and is now coming to a close. Originally, Laurel and I considered visiting the UK for our free week, however the gloomy Paris weather drove us, instead, to the Cote d'Azur in the south. A week of Nice and Monaco were indeed the perfect tonic to what had been a very long winter. I hadn't realized how much I missed the beach until I smelled the salt and felt the breeze. The last time I visited the Mediterranean Sea I was only 2, so essentially this was my first time. While absolutely gorgeous, blue water, calm waves, it is very different than the Pacific Ocean beaches I am used to. The beach is not sand, but instead made up of lots of fist sized rocks. These are perfectly fine to sit and lay on, but they make getting in and out of the ocean very difficult and hard on the feet. The culture is also very different. Umbrellas are hard to come by and there are equal numbers of young people and old people baking in the sun. There appears to be far less concern for sun damage. After soaking up some much needed vitamin D, we decided to venture onto Monaco, land-of-plenty, for a day. If one were to combine Disneyland and Las Vegas, add some european flare and a beach, you would come up with Monaco. The palace where the prince still lives today, looks like It's a Small World. There are more yachts in the three harbors than I have ever seen in one place at a time and photos of Grace Kelly line the streets. It really is a beautiful place, it just had a bit of a fake feel. The most fun part for me was getting to visit the Musee Oceanographique where Jacques Cousteau was the director for 32 years. The amazing building sits built into a cliffside over looking the ocean. The entire interior was designed for the aquarium, down to the staircase banisters which are decorated with conch shell sculptures.
It was wonderful to come home to a sunny Paris and it seems that the weather is to remain sunny for the rest of our time here. Wonderful news indeed. It is really crazy that the semester is coming to a close. In total, we have 7 days left of class, 3 days of finals and 2 weekends. Time really flew by. I was walking along the Seine last night on my way home, the moon was full, I could see Notre Dame to my left and the Eiffel Tower to my right. I realized that while I will be happy to go home, I really will miss this place so much. Though the culture may be odd (ex it was 70 degrees this weekend and I got weird looks for wearing shorts) and the cost of living expensive as hell, Paris is a wonderful combination of history and modernity. Traditional is so many ways and cutting edge at others, it is truly awe inspiring.