Wednesday June 24th

We arrived around 7AM and met up with Jessica who had been in Paris for a few days before us (and who had Justin Timberlake on her plane!). We piled on a subway with all our luggage, and walked a very long distance to arrive at our new home for the next five days: a very small protestant church in the poorer suburbs of Paris. There we met the pastor, I believe her name was Christine, and some food she brought for us. She was very sweet with dark but graying hair and a thick accent. Then began the exploring. Upstairs was the sanctuary, an open room with a small stage at the front, no pews. Downstairs was the dark scary bathrooms, a kitchen, and a common room complete with a foosball table and folded up warped ping pong tables. After a quick nap we realized we still had an entire day ahead of us. It was only 11AM. So what’s the first thing you do in Paris?

We took the long walk back to the subway and went straight to the Eiffel Tower. We climbed up all 1660 steps to the top and embraced the view. When it began to get very hot, we began our slow decent. At the bottom we declared ice cream time. After a small vanilla cone, we went to Notre Dame. The line was closed off so there was no more climbing to the top of structures, but we went inside and walked around. Outside, I began juggling, but sadly, no onlookers gathered. By then the day was up and we went home to cook some spaggehti bought from the local market.

And then there was night. Dark doesn’t come early in Paris. The light lingers around until it gets kicked out around 10:30PM. Even then, it’s still there at the door. Night in Paris is nothing like New England nights. It feels like everything is still going. Everyone’s still awake and busy, they just slow down.

I began to get ready for bed and found the showers were discusting things with barely any light (it wasn’t welcome there..). The water was cold and the drainage broken, which means only a few minutes before you have to shut the water off and wait a very long time for some to drain. After the bathroom adventure I settled down in my sleeping bag for a good nights—for no sleep at all. Max, our minister snores. Very loudly. All night. Some of the kids went downstairs to sleep, but I didn’t realise this. Eventually I fell asleep just to be woken up again at 1AM by yelling outside. People hung out outside the doors of the church all day and all night. At night, they yell very loudly and play music. The worse part was they yell in French. At least if it was Spanish I could understand it. It was rough.