I can't believe its the end!

I cannot believe that the time has come for us to go home. As I write this Hannah, Bridget, Tim, Claire, and Karen are on their way to the airport to start their journey home. It was so hard saying goodbye today as the navette was being filled with their bags. Alexia leaves tomorrow morning and then I leave Monday morning. Its definately a bittersweet ending; its going to be so good to be home but at the same time I'm really going to miss this palce, and some of the people that were on this trip as well.

The Open House

So today was the open house for the building. It started after church and went til about 5, there was a really good turn-out. There were probably around 50 people that came and had some "refreshments" and snacks before going on a tour of the living area of the building. It was really cool to be taking people on the tour and having them tell us what things used to be. This monastary used to be a boarding school so many of the townsmen had gone to school here at one point. It was great to see their reaction to the changes. I think that everyone really enjoyed themselves. As always it was a test for us, being able to communicate to people who dont really speak english which can be quite the task when our French, while getting better, still isnt wonderful. And of course the 7 of made sure there was no left-over champagne :) It made for a very nice day. I love seeing everyone so excited to see us and talk to us. One thing I have definately realized in comparison to Paris is people are so personable. Don't get me wrong but Parisiens were not the nicest people, its a busy city full of tourists;people "put up with you" but its not nearly as nice as it is here. Here, even if someone doesn't speak english they try really hard to help you. Its definately a great place to be!

Au revoir!

Easter in Ambialet

praha

Praha so far....

Prague has been absolutly amazing! Whoever thought there was nothing to see here was soo wrong. We have seen so many things here in a short period of time. Although we did not have exact plans of where to go and when, we knew some places and decided to just start by wandering around to get our bearings. It turned out that that is what we ended up doing for all the days we have been here, and its also how we have found most of the major landmarks. For me this trip has been quite relaxing. The city of Prague is beautiful and very walkable, we have walked everywhere we have gone. We have seen so many places so far, I'm really enjoying this city.



I think that my favorite things that we have seen would have to be the day that we walked along the Hunger Wall and ended up at the Petrin Tower. It was a good hike up the mountain but the view was definately worth it. When we got to the very top we went through this doorway that took you to the other side of the mountain. There was a little garden that was so cool, it really looked like the Secret Garden. In the garden there was this tree, it had a seat carved out of it. It was just a really cool place.

So I just realized that I’ve only written 2 blogs since I got here. Oops! Time has really flown by, we have gotten to see most of the big stuff to see and the other are on the list to be done. Rather than writing about everything in the past 3 weeks I’m just going to start with this weekend.
This weekend we ventured off to London! During the planning for the trip I really didn’t think that we were going to make it anywhere, we all were getting frustrated with each other and it just wasn’t going too smooth. But we did eventually get it all worked out, our plane ticket and our hostel. We left Friday, the 1st, early in the morning to catch our plane. That was the first time any of us had stayed in a hostel but it really wasn’t bad at all. When we finally made it to the hostel (we got a little lost trying to find the street) we took our bags up to our room, locked our bags up and decided to go for a little walk and figure out where we wanted to go that night. We walked down the street, bought a map and sat in a little café and got some drinks. Oh yea…I fell right before we got inside…yay me! Anyways…after looking at the map we decided that nothing was really within walking distance so we decided to give Karen’s brother a call and see about meeting up with him. We ended up going to see the Tower Bridge and London Bridge which was fun. It was all lit up when we got there so we took pictures and then walked down the sidewalk beside the river, it was really cold outside but it was really pretty with all the lights and the water and boats and everything. Then Bernie, that’s Karen’s brother, took us to this pub that he and some co-workers were hanging out at. We didn’t hang out too long bc like Paris, the underground closes at midnight and we were pretty tired anyways. On our second day on London Bernie offered to show us around a little, which was awesome because we got to see all the big stuff and didn’t have to figure out where to go ourselves. That night Bernie took us to this pub called Waxy O’Conner’s it was a really cool place that had 4 or 5 floors and was absolutely huge not to mention the bar tender was awesome. For the entire weekend we really didn’t eat anything, other than the bread and tangerines that we all took, because we were trying not to spend money which is hard in a country whose exchange rate is so much higher than ours. So needless to say when we got back home to Fontenay-aux-Roses we were STARVING!!! I mean we were looking for anything to eat and there was nothing in the house to eat! But Bridget came with the idea to have peanut butter and jelly minus the bread…aka…off a spoon. After seeing us so hungry the night before, Tim, the program director went out and got lots of bread and fruit and croissants for us Monday morning, after joking that he was afraid we were going to eat the furniture! Hahahah Over all our trip to London was a lot of fun, I think we all spent a little more money than we were expecting but at the same time I think we all had a lot of fun. Now we just have to plan our Spring Break trip…that should be fun….

Bonne nuit!

this was a video by the tower bridge when bridget, claire, and alexia were freezing. i think they thought if they thought about the desert they wouldnt be cold.

Saturday night we went to the Latin quarter to hang out and while we didnt stay too long we did stop and got some wonderful crepes with Nutella, which in my opinion, is the absolute best kind of crepe there is. After we got our crepes we kept walking and came across these guys dancing on the street, they were pretty cool. I wish i could do some of the stuff they did!

Until next time....