Church in Paris

So today makes week two of church in Paris and it ended up being quite the event. I was running late again (this is becoming a very bad habit I'm afraid--but I'm just tired allllll the time in the mornings) and so Marissa left before me and I decided to just skip relief society and make it on time to Sunday School. On my way through the metro Joy and Jessie caught up with me so we rode the rest of the way to church. Upon arrival we discovered that Sunday School was already in session because of Stake Conference (they had an extended Sunday School and just skipped RS altogether). So we sat in the back where we couldn't hear the teachers clearly so it was rather boring. It would have been even worse except that Joy and I were very entertained by the people sitting in front of us. A girl was sitting with some guy and it looked like they were together but then one of their friends came in late and he came and sat on the other side of her and she was very touchy with him. I figured they were just close friends. Then another guy comes in and sits on the other side of the first guy and when she greeted him she put her arm around the first guy to reach behind and grasp the last guy's shoulder. And he did the same to her--so just picture them holding each other's shoulders around the back of the middle guy. And they were being all weird PDA, she would stroke and massage his shoulder lightly and he even played with her earring. They stayed this way chatting quietly for a bit then she went back to the first guy who I think she's dating--but it is somewhat of a confusing relationship. And the guy who we assumed was with her turned around and talked a bit to Joy and I. But I think he might have been aware of our amusement so maybe he was just self-concious because he looked back several times. Hahaha. Oh Sunday School. And I thought I would escape this drama. Nope--the Church is the same everywhere.

Anyways, that's just a sidenote. What was particularly exciting about this Sunday was that a girl who was visiting the ward (she's American--her and her husband are traveling around Europe for a few weeks) sat next to me on the end of the row, where we had moved up to the front in order to 1) hear the speakers and 2) get away from the awkward polyadating that was occurring in the back. Well, she and I chatted a bit before the meeting started and I learned that she didn't speak any French and she jokingly asked if I was going to translate for her, to which I said I didn't know if I'd be able to. But when the meeting started I found I understood almost everything so for all of Sacrament Meeting I translated for her (not word for word or anything, I would just lean over every few minutes and summarize what the speaker was talking about). It was really cool and she was impressed. Which she should have been because I'm rather impressed myself haha, just kidding...kind of.

After the meeting we stayed for another hour or so and had a potluck lunch. It was so good. And guess what! I ran into two girls, Eva and Alissa (Alissa was my visiting teacher first semester) from my ward! They are backpacking through Europe for a few weeks and are just in Paris for the day so they stopped by to check out the ward. So we had a nice chat about what we've been up to and I recommended places for them to go and gave them directions to Notre Dame, which made me feel like a local and again I felt pretty cool about myself. But it was doubly cool and weird to run into them because it seemed so out of place. At first I wasn't sure who they were because I wasn't expecting to see anyone from school, but it was great to see them and catch up. The funny thing is this happened to a lot of people. My professor ran into his old mission companion from 1967 today at church who is now a member of the Quorum of the Seventy and was one of our speakers. And Giles (one of the boys in our class) ran into a mission companion from his mission in Mexico(?) at a stake dance last week in Versailles! What are the odds??? Cool though. I guess Europe is a little popular.

After lingering and mingling for a while after eating, which may or may not have been in hopes of both avoiding homework while looking for an opportunity to to speak with the cute Italian missionary who also may or may not be my future husband (I'm just saying, Paris didn't get the name city of romance for nothing right?), we headed home on the metro. Andrea, Meredith and I the studied in the park in Vesinet for about an hour before I had to head back so Marissa could use the text book to finish taking the test. Another side note here, I don't know how I'm going to do well on this test because we definitely did NOT learn these things in this kind of detail either in the book or in class, so I'm not sure what Professor Erickson is expecting of us! Oh well. Ca va. I'm in Paris. Who really cares? (Don't worry Mom and Dad I do still care, I'm just being facetious).

Tomorrow we're having a little group birthday fete (we'll have one every week I think because we're 'celebrating' every person's birthday and non-birthday during the program) before class and then I guess some people are going to Disneyland Paris for Whitney's birthday event. But its 43 euros and I think if I'm in Paris Disneyland isn't really a necessary activity. So I think I'll pass and save my money for more diverting schemes, such as our holiday weekend in London, and paying to get into museums that most people only read about in text books, because I'm in Paris, one of the most amazing cities in the entire world, I am officially convinced.

Now to get to this test...