Day 84

So much is going on in these last few days. It is going to be so hard to keep up, but some of the best moments are also happening. I guess I will just start with the day. I got ready and had breakfast. I realized that I don't really take pictures of the normal things in my life so I tried to do a day in the life of Brittany by just capturing the little things, but I forgot about half way through the day.

For breakfast we have cereal and pain au lait which are just little roll things. I usually have one with nutella and one with honey. I have started to favor the nutella, but at he beginning I was all about the honey. 

Madame Deverane sets out breakfast every night before bed, so we come down to this every morning.

One honey and one Nutella!

Next we head off to the metro. We leave our house and walk to the Jean Jaures Metro station on line 10. We have several options at this pint we can get off at La Motte-Piquet and take the 8 to Concord and then the 1 to Hotel de Ville OR we can take the 10 to Odeon and then the 4 to Chatalet. So many options. 

This is the point that I stopped taking pictures of my "day in the life" so I guess I will just go on with the post : ) Okay so I went to the institute and was ready for my last final of the semseter. So funny because our religion teacher who is French, showed up a half hour late. that is so typical hehe So we took the final. I did fine and I was free! So that was wonderful.

After I went down and we practiced a musical number that we were doing for our last devotional. Michael was around the whole time, so I was constantly having random small conversations with him. I will miss that a ton! I went to this amazing pasta place for lunch! So good. I had spinach ravioli and pesto. This place is on the same block as the church and I just discovered it yesterday. I am sad! 

We had our last devotional and it was a musical devotional. Kind of cliche, but we do have a lot of talented singers and piano players in our group. We had a solo, a duet, a small group number and a big group number. In between all we had little scriptures or spiritual thoughts. 

Right in the middle of one girl telling a story, Michael signaled me to come outside from the window. This was weird, because we normally don't bother each other while we are living our separately lives here. If our paths cross then we talk, but if not we just see each other later. And Michael is always so patient so it was weird that he wanted me to come out. I was kind of worried, but I just went outside to see him.

I asked him waht was wrong and he said nothing. He asked me if Mom and Dad had sent out his address to everyone to send Christmas cards. I said they had and then he asked me if I could tell them to send another one telling people to just send it to the mission home. I asked why and he told me that the Mission President had just talked to him and asked him to be an AP(Assistant to the President), and he is moving out to there next Wednesday. I was so happy for him. That is such an honor, especially since he is such a young missionary. He will be great at it! He was overwhelmed, but he will be great.

Of course I cried about al of this, because I am leaving and he is leaving and our time together is gone and our lives are moving on once again. I had been holding back the tears for days on everything. I had told myself that after finals, I could have a breakdown and cry, but noth until then. So hearing all this from Michael triggered it.

I went back into devotional and Spence and Berit sang a beautiful duet to "I Need Thee Every Hour." It brought more tears to my eyes for so many more reasons. Then we came to the closing hymn and of course some one that it would be a good idea to sing "God Be With You Til We Meet Again." I don't know who that was, but that is just a bad call. We were singing it is french, which makes it even more sad because it was the last hymn we would get to sing in French, and I love that. I did not sing one word of that song. I started crying throught the intro and then as the song started, it was a silent, shaking sob. Ally had gone to play the piano so I was just siting by myself. Shae scooted over and I just tucked my head into her shoulder and cried. It was nice to get all of that out! After that we broke and decided to meet back in and hour and a half.

There is a 15 year old girl whose dad is the dean of French studies at BYU, who was visiting for a few days. She is on her way home from an student exchange and spent a few days in Paris. She wanted to see the Latin quarter, so Ally and I went over there with her. It was fun to just be roaming around Paris, enjoying all the places I know so well!

We went back to the Institute and we all were going to go to Chateau de Vincenne, but it was dark and we wanted to go when it was light outside, so we decided to just go to Champs-Elyesse. It is freezing here and I was not in the mood to be out in the cold forever, so I ditched. I was talking to Taylor as we had walked to the metro station, so we just decided we would go on a date! We went shopping for all of my last minute souvenirs and gifts and we went to Star-bucks!!! It was so warm! We just sat and talked and it was really fun to get to know him better, even though I know him pretty well already : )

I got home just in time for dinner with our host family. We had a really good curry, fish, and vegetable mixture (not quite sure how else to describe it), but it was good. After that we prepared for the coldest night in Paris! 

Spencer is going home in the morning, so it is our last night all together. As a group we climbed the Eiffel Tower at night. Before we left, Ally and I decided that we would not be cold, so we put on all the clothes we possibly could. I wore an undershirt, a tank top, a short sleeve short, a long sleeve shirt, a hoodie, a wool coat, and my trench-coat. I have a scarf and two hats. I wore long undies, my jeans and two pairs of knee high socks with my tennis. I put my gloves on and I was set. I have to say, I was hardly cold the whole night.

Ally and I took the bus and got there around 9:30. The plan was to meet at the top so up we went. We realized we had forgot our tickets at home, so we had to buy new ones. That was slightly annoying but more just funny. We took the elevator all the way up and for the most part everyone was getting up there at the same time. We all just took pictures and laughed and smiled and hugged and all that stuff. We really love each other so much! We wanted to have a dance party, so Spencehad his little Ipod that plays music, but we could barely hear it. That did not stop us. We heard about the first five seconds of "Dynamite" and then we sang it from there! We are crazy ad we have so much fun!

Best part was when Berit wanted to record a video of us for some creative thing she is doing. She started taping and we were suppose to say, "Paris 2010." As soon as all of us had shouted it, the Eiffel Tower began to twinkle. It was exactly 11:00pm and on the hour it starts to sparkle! So awesome! As you can imagine, we were all quite enthused and we jumped and yelled. What a fun memory.

Then the Eiffel Tower people herded us down to the bottom. We took a picture of the whole group at the bottom of the Effiel Tower. We all said our good-byes and we parted ways, the Paris people and le Vesinet people. The six girls that live out where we live went back to spot across the Seine fromt he Effiel Tower and took pictures of the places where we ad to spen the night in October one night while we waited for the metro to open. We missed the last one home that night. So many fun memories here!

Random picture, but this is a moving company and this is how people get stuff in and out of their apartments if they move.

At devotional

Me outside Notre Dame with a Christmas Tree up!

Center of Paris, right outside Notre Dame

I'm going to miss you!

Ready to go to the Eiffel Tower! Could I look any larger?

The group! Oh how I will miss us!

Me and Madame

Spence and me

Taylor and Me

Me and Al

My last picture with the Eiffel Tower, with all of my layers!