10 July-16 July

I promise I've taken lots and lots and lots of pictures!! But it just takes years to upload any pictures and my hour of internet time that I get every few days always goes too fast.  But I'll do my best to upload some more later this week.  :)

10 juillet

Stephanie and I took the boat from Vieux Port down the coast to Pointe Rouge.  It was such a beautiful and peaceful half hour journey.  There was plenty of delicious wind whipping our hair around and spectacular views.  I stared down into the water for a while watching the boat splashing into the water and breaking the blue blanket and making white chaos.  I wondered how I ever survived life without living by a sea or ocean.  It was about 8:30 at night and the sun had begun to set and cast a beautiful reflection on the clear blue water.  We arrived at Pointe Rouge and went to find this Gelato place called Gelato Nino that my Marseille guide book had recommended.  It turned out being a winner with about 40 flavor options!  Some fun ones were speculoos, poppy (the flower), kinder, mars, snickers, lichi, and bubble gum.  I ended up getting a scoop of ferrero rocher (those delicious truffle thingies) and raspberry.  I always have to get a chocolatey flavor and a fruity flavor to keep the flavors and richness balanced J .  Stephanie and I started walking back west along the beaches.  There were people and groups everywhere picknicking and having a good time.  We had a lovely stroll down to Prado beach just enjoying the sun set and the cool night air.    

12 Juillet

Oh man what a day.  Marzia and I started out with a visit to Madame Baraboti who lived in an apartment near Rond-Point du Prado.  What a woman!  Marzia and I both fell in love with her.  She is paralyzed on her left side as a result of her stroke.  We helped her into her chair when we got there and had a great conversation with her.  She is Italian but has lived in France for 50 years.  She was so typiquement French as she said things franchement to us things that Americans just don’t really say out loud.  For instance she complimented or criticized different features of my or Marzia’s body which was hilarious because she was so serious and direct about it.  She complained about the loud noises outside caused by the construction.  We read our horoscopes in the newspaper.  We read a catholic prayer out loud that she had on a post card by her chair.   She told us about how the mosquitoes annoy her at night but demonstrated how they fly around her ear and then she smashes them.  She bantered with her housemaid about foods that she did and didn’t like.  She told us about her children and how they don’t come to her visit much.  She gave us sugar free Cokes to drink since she is diabetic.  She told us about how she, like always, will be alone on the July 14 (the French national independence day/holiday).  Marzia is going to go spend some time with her during that day so she won’t be alone. 

Marzia and I went to the manier for lunch hoping that there would be some food that we could have.  When we were in luck as they had a big spread of food for a group that was eating there and they demanded that we jump right in and eat along with them.  Delicious provencale pasta as well as a couscous salad, and shrimp.  After the meal, I talked for a while with Vladimir, the manier chef.  He is Venezuelan but married a French woman and so lives here.  He speaks Spanish, English, and French as he also worked in the states for as while as a chef.  His name is Vladimir because his Grandma loved socialism and so she wanted to give him a Russian name.  I told Vladimir that my dad lived in Venezuela for two years and that led to talking about the church.  Vladimir said that his grandparents converted to mormonism and that he had read the Book of Mormon out of curiosity.  He said that he really liked the principles that are taught in it.  He thought that Joseph Smith had written the book, but I cleared it up for him that Joseph Smith didn’t write, but translated it into English from the ancient text.  I went up and played with Danielle’s adorable dog who gave me lots of bises. 

I’ve learned several things about Spain in talking to Marzia:

-the minimum wage is 3 euros

-things are super cheap there

-Spanish people are in general, very active practicing people in the Catholic church—more so than Italian and French people  

-They are a lot of Chinese people there

-They start work usually around 9 or 10, eat lunch around 3, take a siesta, eat dinner around 10pm, and go to bed around 1am

-it’s super hot there

Maxime joined back up with me and Marzia.  We drove to Aubagne which is a cute Provence town north of Marseille.  It is actually where the house and chateau of Pagnol are.  We went to a maison de retraite (nursing home) in a beautiful area with lots of green everywhere as well as horses.  We picked up Madame Hernandez who is a sweetheart.  In going to someone’s room at a maison de retraite, you’re never quite sure what is going to be behind those doors and what condition the person will be in.  Madame Hernandez was a pleasant surprise as she was very fit and walked incredibly well and had an excellent working brain.  She has children but they rarely visit her.  She has been married twice, but is currently single.  We took a Madame on a petite sortie (outing) to give her a change of scenery for a while.  We went into the village center of Aubagne and wandered around for a while.  It was a cute small town with small narrow roads.  We learned that Mme Hernandez is an incredible artist and enjoys painting flowers, horses, nature, and people.  She loves ice cream, music, and reading as well as the books and movies of Marcel Pagnol.  We went to a café and had a nice relaxing boisson (drink).  She got ice cream because she has missed it and got a scoop of vanilla and café.  Mme told us stories about her first husband and her crazily strict and controlling Italian mother-in-law.  I learned that during Christmas time in Aubagne, there is a nativity market where people sell all different kinds.  We had fun walking around with her and I hope we get to see her again soon.  Veronique, our petits frères coordinator, told us later that Madame Hernandez used to be an alcoholic and that is why she is out in this maison de retraite that is far away from a main city and is a bit isolated in the countryside.  At maisons de retraites in Marseille, she would go to the bars around the corner and drink too much.    

Today Maxime got brave enough to speak English with me.  His is so accent is just so dang cute when he speaks English.  It still sounds a lot like French and sometimes it’s hard for me to understand him but he did pretty well and knows more than I had previously thought.  It makes me feel better that I sometimes have struggles with forming certain sentences in French when he has trouble in English.  I have been educating Maxime and Marzia in some American slang and will continue to do so.  So far they have learned the golden arches (Mcdonalds), “what’s his bucket”, and “you crack me up”.

So Marzia is already a translator which is her dream eventual profession.  She has an easier time understanding Maxime when he speaks English than I do and so she has to translate for me with what he is saying.  And then Maxime also likes to practice Spanish with Marzia and so she of course has to translate for me then.  She is also super good at understanding old people speaking French and just understanding people in general so she helps me out a lot.  Sometimes though, with the three of us working together, I never know what language is going to come out of anyone’s mouth which gets confusing because I’ll be expecting Maxime to speak French and so I’m in the understanding French mood part of my brain and then he says a phrase in English and I just look at him confused because my brain is not in the understanding English mode.  The three of us have fun together though and get along really well.  Maxime is always willing to answer French questions I have and today he taught me the word for license plate which is plaque d’immatriculation…that second word is quite difficult to wrap my tongue around and so we had some good laughs at me trying to get that word right.  Sometimes when I speak French or he is speaking English, we will say a word and the other one will not understand it…and so the person speaking will either try saying it a couple more times until the person listening gets it.  It’s funny because I’ll say a word and he’ll finally understand and say the word himself…and it will sound exactly the same as what I just said but obviously it’s harder for me to notice the little pronunciation nuances.  But it happens visa versa as well.   

I feel like I had a classic language mix-up moment that it seems every missionary has…at least in every missionary movie.  So we were talking to Veronique our coordinator about a woman that we had visited whose name is Madame Pellanq.  However I could not remember her name very well and then I thought I had remembered it and told Veronique I was talking about Madame Pasteque…which means watermelon!  All the French people in the room had a good laugh at me and I was laughing too in my embarrassment…hahaha.  I’m just grateful I didn’t call Mme Pellanq a watermelon to her face.  It’s ironic because I have had trouble with the word pasteque anyway and can never remember if it is pasteque or pestaque!

I had invited both Marzia and Maxime to come to the Young Adult FHE that night with me.  They both came!  It took us a full hour to get there with our 4 different means of transportation that it took to complete the journey.  We came a half hour late and so had missed the lesson the missionaries had given on service.  But we were there just in time to eat quiche with everyone.  I introduced Maxime to the missionaries and he just started talking to them and asking them questions about their name tags and what they were doing in France and asking questions about the church!  Maxime stood and talked to them asking lots of questions for about 40 minutes bringing up things I had told him about our church and asking further questions about it.  They gave him a brief version of the first discussion and ended up giving him a book of mormon.  Marzia was sitting there the whole time and listened.  They both said they found it really interesting.  I was super impressed with the missionaries and how they were able to answer his questions so well and with analogies and examples that were tailored to apply to French people and their culture to increase their understanding of principles.  I’m glad that Maxime got to talk to them as they are so much better at speaking about the church in French than I am.  Man it makes me want to serve a mission so much more!

 After talking to the missionaries, we all went up to the YSA center area and played lots of rounds of Uno.  I found a Spanish book of mormon and read from it trying to sound legit.  But then I had Marzia read a verse out loud and was put to shame J.  We chatted with Elder and Sister Rutman while we were playing.  I just love them so much and I always find more things I have in common when I talk to Sister Rutman.  She has the hugest, most beautiful collection of jewelry and I told her I want to see her jewelry chest sometime and Elder Rutman assured me that it was huge and they weren’t able to bring a huge chunk of it out on the mission.  I found out that Sister Rutman loves the Sound of Music and so I told her about incredibly beautiful the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg which she had never heard about. I told her it was a necessary sound of music pilgrimage and she would never regret it.  The whole time Elder Rutman was jokingly telling me to stop tell her and said thanks a lot! now we will have to go there!  Haha. 

It was a good night and Marzia and Maxime seemed to have a good time so maybe they’ll keep coming with me and they can actually hear the lesson and such next time.  Marzia facebooked me that night and thanked me for inviting her and said she really liked the atmosphere that was there.  She told me she was planning on coming to the English class that Elder and Sister Rutman invited her to that they hold on Tuesday evenings.  Maxime told  me he had liked all the people he had met and found it all very interesting.  He is still trying to grasp the concept that there are French mormons and I told him he just needed to come to church and then he’d see 200 French mormons!

It has felt so good to share the gospel with them!  Even if it doesn’t go past the point of curiosity for them, I have at least set a good example to them and they know the truth about our church and that we are good, normal people.  Stephanie told me that she thought I would make such a great sister missionary which is a great compliment!  I have definitely found that it is so invigorating and rewarding to share the gospel.  Before Stephanie came to France for the internship, her Dad gave her a father’s blessing and in it he said that Stephanie would have lots of opportunities for missionary work during her internship and that she would be reunited with people that she knew in the preexistence that would later thank her for sharing the gospel with them.  A big assignment to fulfill but we are already seeing it happen as she has also had several opportunities to share the gospel with the people around her. 

13 juillet

Our first visit today was to Madame Cheillan.  She lived in this cité (a big “village” of tall and wide apartment buildings).  I have become quite the master at working the system of opening doors of apartment buildings.  There are several types of room buzzers and different ways of finding the name of the person you want to call.  Some of them have cameras or just a phone call to the room of the person and they talk to you or look at you and press a button in their room to open the building door for you.  It was the first time that Madame Cheillan had been visited by les Petits frères and so we were able to explain what the association was all about and what activities we organized and held.  Madame Cheillan was really good at talking and talking but not very good at listening…we hardly said anything and she just talked and talked which is common when people sit at home by themselves all day every day.  One interesting thing she talked about was how she hated Americans…which made it quite awkward for me sitting there especially since I had previously told her I was American.  She hates Americans because apparently during WWII, the Americans air raided Marseille in September 1944 because it was being occupied by Germans.  Her father was killed during this air raid because he was killed.  He was at work and wasn’t able to get home or get to a bomb shelter quick enough.  I need to look it up on the internet and verify that it was America that bombed Marseille.  Nonetheless, her father was killed which is really sad and is reason enough for her not to feel so kindly towards Americans.  However, I didn’t really know what to say response and so I told her I was sorry she had lost her father and that war is always a terrible thing.  I also reminded her about the thousands Americans that died at Normandy and during all of WWII in trying to liberate France and its people from German occupation.  She had no other option than to agree with me on that point.  It wasn’t a contentious conversation at all, but was just very interesting for me and a different response to my nationality than what I have gotten from most old people here.  Mme Cheillan talked about how there was nothing to eat or drink during the German occupation and that they didn’t go to school, but just kind of wandered around. 

We went to the neighborhood where the person for our next visit lived.  We found a centre commercial to eat lunch.  It is so funny finding lunch with Maxime.  He is so French about eating.  It is necessary to find somewhere proper to sit down and eat.  It is necessary that we evaluate all of our lunch options before finding something that we all decide on.  It is necessary that we all get similar things—he doesn’t get the concept of everyone get what they want and then meet back up to eat…that’s a no go for him.  Anyway, we ended up buying sandwiches at the grocery store that was there and then we found a bench area outside to sit down and eat.  And at least 20 minutes of sitting and doing nothing besides relaxing and talking is necessary after every lunch meal in France…which doesn’t bother me much.  It is always amusing talking to Maxime because he has that common French quality of saying things about other people that Americans wouldn’t tend to say because it’d be so blatant that it’d be rude.  So he finally told me and Marzia today that he had a girlfriend and they’d been dating for 9 months.  He asked me why I didn’t have a boyfriend…which kind of was a weird question to me.  Because it seemed to him like something that I had complete control over which is not how it seems to me.  I didn’t really know what to respond and told him that I hadn’t found anyone I liked enough yet.  Then he told me that when he first saw me, he was shocked because I look a lot like his girlfriend—he said we have the same color eyes, the same style of dressing, the same skin color, and the same hair color…kind of awkward for me and I didn’t really know what to say so I just laughed.  Also, Marzia and Maxime think my Chacos are ugly! Ha.  I thought about it and realized how they did probably look super weird to them because they are not at all European and there doesn’t really exist an outdoorsy hippie style in Europe.  Maxime also asked me what my “type” was for a guy…again I didn’t know what to say…he is just really good at asking questions like this like it is no big deal at all.  I didn’t know how to explain this type of thing to him…and so copped out with basic things like tall, smart, respectful, and such.  He wouldn’t ever understand qualities that I look for such as honors the priesthood, would be an initiative-taking family leader, or be a good dad…more gospely qualities like that.  Us 3 have a good time always laughing, talking, and making fun of each other.  We had a conversation today about what romance is.  Marzia and I believed in the stereotype that French men are romantic…but that is wrong.  Maxime thinks romance is taking his girlfriend to an expensive restaurant and paying for it…..wrong!  He asked me what I thought romance was and I said it is an ability to express the beautiful emotion of love in a beautiful way that could be through words, gifts, music, gestures, acts…etc.

We went back into the centre commercial and bought a cake, candles, and a bouquet of flowers to take on our visit to Madame Daumas because it had been her birthday just a few days earlier.  It was quite an adventure finding her apartment though.  We were walking down the side of this 4 lane road when we witnessed a robbery.  There were these two teenage boys on a moped.  The boy on the back jumped off the bike, ran to the car that was waiting at the red light just behind them, reached in through the front seat window that was about ¼ of the way rolled down, grabbed the woman that was in the driver seat’s gold necklace, ripped it off her neck, then ran and jumped on the back of the scooter and they sped away.  It happened so fast and I couldn’t really believe what I had just seen happen had happened.  The woman in the car turned around to go after the boys, but they were long gone and I doubt she ever was able to find them.  Seeing this robbery happen after being warned about things like that in Marseille so many times kind of shook up me and Marzia.  But we had no other option than to keep walking to find Mme.  We could not figure out where this apartment complex was that we were searching for…Maxime asked this one lady and she offered to drive us there.  As soon as we got in the car to take us there, she warned us about the area and said it was not very safe and we shouldn’t be out walking.  Ya we already knew that, but it made everything a bit scarier.  Every moped I saw, I kept thinking it was the robber boys.  The lady took us to the apartment building and we went and found Mme Daumas.  Mme Daumas was overjoyed and so happy when we gave her the pretty pink gerber daisies and told her we were there to celebrate her birthday with her.  We got all the candles set up on the cake and then it took a bunch of tries to blow out the candles, poor thing!  The cake was half a fruit cake and half a chocolate cake…and was delicious of course.  Madame Daumas also warned us the dangerousness of the area and told us how she almost got accosted at her apartment by letting this man in that said he was apartment shopping and wanted to look in.  She let him in the apartment complex door because he sounded nice and looked nice.  But then she had a bad feeling when she saw the man at her door and didn’t let him in.  She found out later that the same thing had happened her neighbor except that her neighbor had let the man inside her apartment and the man grabbed her wallet on the table and ran away.  It was super hard for all 3 of us to understand Madame because she was missing lots of teeth and was really bad at articulating her words and so we did a lot of smiling and nodding.  She is another one that just loves to talk and talk and would probably have talked to us for 3 more hours if we hadn’t said that we had to leave.  After the visit, Maxime commented on how tiring it was to sit there for over an hour and focus all your brain power on understanding what she said and I told him don’t worry, that is what it is like for me all day every day! 

I went back with Marzia to her hotel room and used the internet and hung out with her before it was time to go the church for the movie night.  She is such a sweetie and we love talking and hanging out.  She ended up asking me lots of questions about the church and my standards.  She asked questions about the law of chastity and why I wanted to obey it.  She asked me why I wanted to marry and date Mormon people as well.  She was going to come with me to the movie night but then her roommate ended up having an emotional crisis and she stayed to be with her.  I went to the movie night and we watched The Two Towers, the extended version.  Oh man it was long—almost 4 hours.  I haven’t seen the first one and so Jared had to fill me on who basically everyone was and why they were doing what they were doing.    I kind of dreaded having to watch this movie for so long and wished it was safe to explore the city on my own, but I actually ended up enjoying and getting into the movie so that it didn’t feel like it lasted almost 4 hours. 

Mindy, Jacqueline (BYU students doing the same internship in Toulon) came with Stephanie to see the end of the movie.  Then we all drove back in the car that we had rented for the weekend back to our apartment.  It was crazy how it only took like 10 minutes to drive back where it took almost an hour when we take public transportation.  It’s always funny hanging out with these 3 because I feel so young and inexperienced since they have all served missions and are almost done with school…but I learn a lot and they treat me as an equal so it all works out.             

14 juillet

Ever since I learned about Bastille Day, the French national holiday, in 8^th grade, it has been one of my dream’s to be in France during a Bastille day.  Bastille day celebrates the day that the French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille prison/arms storage place/castle in 1789 and was the straw that broke the camel’s back that propelled the French revolution.  Surprisingly, a lot of the French people I talked to didn’t seem super excited about the holiday and told me that they didn’t really have any plans or didn’t really do anything.  But still, I enjoyed this holiday with the French people that did celebrate it.  The four of us woke up at 6 in the morning to leave for Carcassonne.  I have also really wanted to go to Carcassonne ever since I found out it was a real French city, not just the game that my dad and brothers play on their iphones.  It was about 3 hours to Carcassonne.  I slept for the first hour but then watched out the window the rest of the time at the beautiful countryside on my right and the Mediterranean on my left.  We passed lots of vineyards and rolling green hills.  We also passed lots of cute little villages each with an old church at the center of town.  Every once in a while we’d pass a village with a big cathedral or a big abby that was beautiful.  We saw several castles up on hills too.  When we got to Carcassonne, we were only 30 minutes from the border of Spain!  Too bad we didn’t have time to stop over there…someday I’ll get to Spain J.  I started freaking out just when I saw the signs pointing to Carcassonne and freaked out even more when I got my first glimpse of the fortress walls. 

Okay, so basically Carcassonne is the coolest, best preserved, biggest, tallest, best medieval castle/medieval fortress/medieval city.  It just compares to no other castle I’ve ever seen.  It legit felt like I was in Sleeping Beauty or Robin Hood walking around those fortress walls.  We followed the Rick Steve’s walking tour and learned about the different people that had lived there which includes Romans, Arabs, and the French.  It was cool that all of the fortress walls had the typical castle wall border on top.  It was also cool to see the slits for soldiers to shoot their arrows through as well as the holes for pouring hot oil out on people.  There were so many beautiful turrets with the orange tiling on top.  The pictures are incredible…but they just do it justice!  We walked around and had fun taking pictures.  We also went into the beautiful cathedral that is there.  There were lots of little shops and restaurants in the city.  Of course there were medieval costume and medieval toy stores as well as chocolate and candy stores.  I hate a ham and cheese crepe for lunch since I hadn’t one of those since Paris!  Outside the cathedral in this plaza area, there was a group that included a man playing guitar and another playing violin.  The music was so beautiful and set such a beautiful atmosphere in that medieval cobblestone plaza with a gorgeous gothic cathedral right behind me.  It reminded of the music  that we danced to at our Madrigal Feast in high school and so I started doing some medieval dancing steps…ha and the three other girls joined in and we had this special moment with all of us dancing and putting our hands together in a circle and walking around.  That lasted about 5 seconds as we realized how dumb we must look…ha but it was so fun while it lasted J.            

Next we went and saw the castle!  It was sooo cool and looked so legit.  Rick Steve informed us that this was the castle where they had filmed the real people Robin Hood film!  I will definitely have to go watch that movie when I get home (as well as the animated Robin Hood and the movie A Knight’s Tale).  We decided to go into the castle after we went to the jousting tournament.  I made some quality purchases in Carcassonne, including gifts for the last few people on my to get a gift for list.  I bought a cool medieval vest/armor thing that I pictured David in for the dress up closet.  (I also bought a belly dancing scarf and headband in Israel for the dress up closet that I pictured Rachel and Bethany in…and probably David tooJ!  And I bought French hats in Paris for the dress up closet…but don’t tell the kids because I want to surprise them with these new dress up closet additions.)  I also bought a pin to add to my pin collection of course.

Next was the jousting tournament!  This was possibly one of the coolest, most memorable experiences of my life.  I thought medieval times in Dallas was cool, but this was 1000 times cooler.    The backdrop was the fortress itself and the riders and horses were decked out in medieval garb.  It was also a little play as well as tournament with the horse attendants and such as characters involved in the story with the riders.  There was also a king and queen there watching the tournament.  It was a bit difficult to understand all that the people said, especially when they would speak through a microphone and it would echo.  But I got the gist of it with what I understood and with watching the actors.  Each of the jousters had their own personalities and region they represented.  There was a rider that was “from Britain” and they made some good English jokes including the classic “Where is Brian, Brian is in the kitchen” joke.  The horse riders showed off some of their skills by riding by and picking up rings, riding by and slicing an apple in half, and riding by while bending down off the horse to pick up scarves that were on the ground.  Then there was the jousting tournament and it was exactly like it is in movies!  I loved when the riders would make contact with the other rider’s shield and wood pieces would go flying everywhere.  After the riding towards each other match happened, then the two riders would engage in ground combat using either swords or axes.  The riders got into it and had us cheering for them and rooting them onto win.  There was also an inner plot going on where this Arab woman had been captured and was being held hostage, but then her brother, a prince of an Arab country, came and fought and beat the champion jouster which released his sister.  The whole jousting tournament just all felt so legit, and magical, and real.  Winner activity!

We went back and toured the castle which was cool.  We saw some of the fireworks out the window on the ledge in preparation for that night.  But at this point, I had gotten a massive headache and so walked through it quite quickly so that I could get out to get some food and water.  Stephanie and I split a whole baguette and I went a bought a Carcassonne sweatshirt since it was getting pretty chilly and it I expected it to get even that cooler that night.  So yes, I was that dumb tourist that wore a shirt of the current location…ha ha but it couldn’t be helped.  We went and ate dinner at a restaurant that took lunch checks and had pizza and pasta.  We left the old city/fortress of Carcassonne and headed over to the new city to find a spot to watch the fireworks.  And oh my goodness was it crowded.  There were thousands of people everywhere!  People had been camping out for hours to get a good seat for this renowned firework show.  It was extremely difficult to make our way through all of these people.  We had to cross Pont Neuf and it was just packed.  It took us about 45 minutes to get over this bridge because we were just smashed like sardines and there were even times when the moving mass would just stop moving and no one would know why.  Some people were pushy but others laughed like us at the craziness of the situation.  We finally made it past the bridge and walked around looking for the best vantage point.  We found a good spot and stood for a while playing Go Fish, waiting for the show to start which ended up being around 10:45 since it doesn’t get dark until about 10. 

And oh my word.  Most incredible firework show EVER.  They shot off all of the fireworks from the fortress and the fortress was lit up below it.  At one point during the half hour show, they changed the lighting on the fortress to this hazy pink/red color and lots of smoke came rising up to make it look like it was burning!  And it looked so real, that I was worried for a bit that some of the fireworks had caught fire.  But no, the show continued and was just so beautiful.  So many fireworks of so many colors, designs, sizes, and patterns.  There were some fireworks that made the shape of a heart, others that made the shape of a smiley face, and others that made the shape of a star.  I took lots of pictures trying to get some good pictures and ended up getting several good ones! There was one point where big streams of white fireworks came streaming down off of the fortress walls.  There was another point where they started some fireworks shooting off of one side of the fortress wall, then slowly worked its way out across the city wall until there fireworks shooting off the whole side of the wall facing us.  The finale lasted like 5 minutes, and I’m pretty I was sighing and exclaiming the whole time at the beauty of it all.  The crowd would all sigh/gasp/clap at the same times when something particularly beautiful happened or when there was a pause in the show.  The pictures don’t do justice to the grandeur of it all.  I don’t know if I’ll ever see another firework show that could beat that one.

We got some Magnum ice cream bars to make it a perfect finish to a perfect and extremely memorable day.  And then oh man, the journey home.  It was a bit like my Israel/Italy/France getting back marathon…or at least had similar feelings of complete exhaustion and loss of brain power.  So we left around 11:30 and it took two hours just to get out of Carcassonne which should have taken us about 10 minutes…there were just thousands and thousands of other people trying to get out as well.  So it’s about 1:30 now and we’re finally on the autoroute to head back home when we realize we need to get gas.  We get to a gas station and realize that this station only takes the European type of credit card and no cash.  A tender mercy happened and this sweet teenage boy came to get gas at the same time.  We asked him if we could give him cash for our gas if he could pay for it on his card.  Happily he agreed, and took care of us.  Honestly, I dozed off for the majority of the rest of the drive home…I just could not stay awake!  But Stephanie was able to stay up the whole time to drive us home and the other two girls took shifts in singing songs and talking with her…they are incredible…and I feel bad that I fell asleep, but that is just how it worked out.  We got into Marseille at about 5:30am as the sun was rising and I was put in charge of navigating in Marseille and getting us back to our apartment since I have the best general idea of the layout of Marseille.  In my half asleep state, it was a blessing that we were able to find our apartment perfectly with no wrong turns or wasted time.  I tried to direct Stephanie back to our apartment from the same starting point the next day, and had quite a difficult time so I know it was such a blessing that I was able to do that early Sunday morning.  We were blessed in so many ways on our journey home.  If we had known it was going to be that crazy of a journey back home, we would have stayed the night in Carcassonne.  We sludged up to the apartment at 5:30 in the morning, changed and brushed our teeth as fast as we were capable and crashed into bed to try and get a few hours of sleep before church which would start at 9:30.                   

15 juillet

It was a true struggle to get up at 8:30 to get ready to go to church.  But we knew we had to go because was Stephanie was giving the relief society lesson that would happen during the first hour of church.  We all seriously felt like zombies with little rational brain power and so we made it through church thanks to prayers we offered for energy.  Stephanie gave a great coherent lesson which was obviously due to some divine help considering the miserable night she had had the night before.  I helped her with the lesson and she had previously asked me to talk about sharing the gospel with the people I work with since the lesson was on missionary work.  I talked for a little bit to everyone and it went well!  Sunday school and sacrament meeting was a struggle to stay awake and seemed to last about 5 hours each.  Oh and every prayer seemed to last about 6 minutes at least.

After church we drove back to our apartment and then took Mindy and Jacqueline to the train station for them to go home.  Then Stephanie and I, still feeling exhausted and brain dead, went to fill up with gas and then returned the car.  It felt good to have the car returned back without any damage or accident.  Then we came home, ate, and crashed with a 7 hour nap.  We woke up about 10 and got some things done, but then went back to sleep around midnight.    

16 juillet

This morning started out with a planning session with Veronique at the manier.  We reported on how visits had gone last week and what visits we would do this week.  We fill out these papers for each person that we visit and just note how they were doing and what occurred during the visit.  Maxime filled out some of them and afterwards Marzia and I found grammar mistakes in his writing which made our day!  He had written Nous sommes allé and had forgotten the s at the end of the last word which is a grammar rule that has been drilled into my head.  Also he had written On l’a ammené au centre ville and the l’ represented la and so he had forgotten the extra e at the end of ammené because he was talking about something feminine.  It was funny as Marzia and I explained the grammar rule to them of how one must make agreement in the verb if there is a preceding direct object…I can still hear Ms. B’s voice saying that same rule to us over and over again.  What was funny was that Maxime and Veronique didn’t believe us and had to look it up on the internet to verify that we were right.  Ha!

We made lots of phone calls to set up appointments for the week.  Then we drove to a bakery to get lunch to bring back to eat at the manier.  I can’t figure out if Maxime is just a weird, not normal person or if all French boys are like this.  But today, out of the blue he told me I had a pretty nose….ha!  Americans just don’t say blunt things like that…He told me that it was very straight and symmetrical…I felt very awkward but told him thank you because I didn’t know what else to say.  Later as we were sitting at lunch, he remarked to the other young guy sitting there asking him if he didn’t think that I had a pretty nose that was all straight and symmetrical…..so awkward!  He even went so far as to tell me that even though I resembled his girlfriend, I had a prettier nose than her.  Hahahahahaha.  He’s a strange guy, or just very French….I’ll never know. 

We went and visited Madame Colonna d’Ornano.  We chatted for a while and then she showed us the pictures of the Calanques that were in her hallway.  We visited one of her neighbors which was a man that is super into history and family history.  He made sure I knew who Marquis Lafayette was and told me that Lafayette had named his son Washington.  I told him that I lived in a town called Fayetteville that was named after Lafayette.  Madame Colonna didn’t want us to leave and kept trying to find things to have us do or have but we couldn’t stay there all day, even though she would have loved that I bet.

Today I taught Marzia the phrase “keep it on the down low” which means keep it a secret.  Everytime we drive by McDonalds she calls it the golden arches and is proud of herself J.  I tried to explain to Maxime and Marzia today about how it was in my eventual plans to stay home and be a mom and not always be working.  They couldn’t believe I was serious and said that women in Europe wanted to be liberated from their role as just moms…but I guess most women in the world, including the US think this way too. 

Tonight I had a salmon and spinach quiche from a bakery for dinner, super good.  Stephanie and I tried to go do laundry, but it was closed when we got there.