Oh Canada...

Greetings from Canadian soil.

I have been home for approximately 18 days. 2.5 weeks or so. It's another interesting adventure.

My flights went well, no complaints. I arrived in Toronto in good time, made my way quickly through customs, picked up my bags, dropped them off again, found my connection and got onto the next plane. I then took the short flight to Ottawa where I met my parents and my sister. It was pretty perfect timing. They arrived with a couple gifts:

 

The domestic arrivals area in the Ottawa airport makes for a rather anticlimactic reunion, add on to that 12 hours of early-morning and travel fatigue, and you understand why I didn't seem quite as excited about being home as I thought I would be. 

The drive home was really odd for me. I enjoyed chatting with my family, talking about the day, the drive, home, all kinds of things but surprisingly little about France. The weirdness came in the fact that it felt so normal. I didn't quite know what to do about that. It's hard to explain why normality became an oddity, but I'll try. The evening before, Thursday night, I had enjoyed a picnic with some friends by the Eiffel Tower. The next day, I was in Canada, home, back in my "normal life." It was normal to be driving down a highway with my parents in Canada. But there was so much distance between my two days and I just couldn't comprehend it.

 

Martha, Lynette, Maria. My last night in Paris.

 

I promised a co-worker last summer that I would get

a picture of me in front of the Eiffel Tower with a beret. 

We added a baguette and a cork that we found in the grass. 

 

Mario, Luc, Claire, Lynette, Maria, Adriana. 

We had a wonderful bit of time together with lots of laughs and some good food. 

It was such a blessing and a pleasure getting to know these friends throughout the year.

I hope that I will be able to see them again some day. 

Those pictures are from the Thursday. The first photos are from Friday. Saturday morning, Jessica drove me down to Hamilton where I had the joy of watching friends and classmates graduate, and surprising a few of them! It was so good to be able to see them all again! There were smiles and tears going around. A great big thank you to Jessica for all the driving she did that weekend, just so I could see friends and family. After the graduation, we stayed overnight in Hamilton (thanks to Aunt Liz), attended my church there (my 2nd English service since September, the first being in Venice), and then we headed out to see my older sister and brother-in-law. We had a nice little visit and then headed home, stopping off at my brother & sister-in-law's place for dinner and some time to chat. It was really good seeing (almost) everyone again! 

 

Friends! Lynette, Abbey, Cassie, and Jantina.

 Three "generations" of RIF girls. Stephanie, Abbey, Lynette.

 

Dr. Rusthoven with a few of "her girls." 

And that's that. I have been spending quite a bit of time at home over the last few weeks. I have been job searching, sending out resumes, setting up interviews, attending interviews, and hoping to get a job soon. This weekend I get to see Lydia, who is getting married this summer, and meet her fiancé! I also get to see my grandparents and some cousins and other relatives! I'm excited! Sometimes I feel like I'm doing very little, but my mind is often quite busy. It's trying to sort through everything that happened this year, keep memories, think through the cultural changes, figure out who I am now, and how I fit back here at home.

I'm enjoying the view, being at home again. The river has so many different "moods" and it's fascinating to see them change, hour to hour, day to day. Here is one of the more violent ones that we have had somewhat recently when a storm blew in. It was cool to be able to watch it blow up the river; I could hear the rain on the river before I could see it!

 

The view from the protection of our porch. It was pretty cool.

I think that's the end of my updates. I don't really know what I'm going to do with this space now that I'm finished the France adventure. I guess I'll update it as I feel or as I remember. I apologize if anyone checks this habitually and finds it getting rather boring. I'll do my best to come up with great things to say now and again. :) 

As for now, though, I want to say Thank You to those who have kept up with me along my adventure this year. Thanks for the time you have taken to read this blog, for your interest, and your prayers. It's been a bit of a roller coaster, but very good all in all. I miss friends already, and definitely hope to go back sometime to visit. I think what I miss the most is worship at l'Église Évangélique Baptiste de Paris-Centre, also known as 72 rue de Sèvres, along with the amazing people that I met there. I bought a couple music books at the Maison de la Bible before I left, books that I had seen used before at the church. I've been flipping through them randomly while at home, trying out the tunes on our piano here, remembering them, getting pieces stuck in my head, and enjoying the memories. It will be a good while before I figure out how to play those that don't include a left-hand staff, especially because instead of chords, the book uses the French version of do-re-mi to explain what to work with. I have some figuring to do.

Que Dieu vous bénisse.   

~Lynette

The end is in sight...or is it?

The end.

A story doesn't usually begin this way, although authors sometimes use it as a way to draw people into their story because they're confused and want to understand why they've done what they've done. There's probably a fancy literature-word for that and most likely a much better explanation, but that's what came to mind first, so that's what you get. Anywho, that wasn't really my intention, the whole getting-your-attention-thing. Mostly it's just to state the fact that I'm almost at the end of my stay in Paris. 

To begin with, we'll start by going back just a little ways. Last weekend, James & Jantina visited me (a friend from Redeemer & her husband)! It was really great to see people from home again. We did lots of touristy things, walked a lot (just ask them...), enjoyed time together, ate good food, etc. Here are a few photos:

 

 Père Lachaise Cemetery: one of the most interesting 

and beautiful cemeteries I have ever seen.

 At Trocadero, known as one of the best places to view the tower.

On our walk towards the tower to see it close up, I mentioned something about riding on the carrousel. I had never done that before (not that I remember, at least). Jantina thought it was a good idea; so we did. All of the parents who had put their young girls on there kept looking at us funnily (I know, not a word, but it works best here) as we went around and around and around. We had a good time.

 We took pictures of the tower from underneath and then sat around, waiting for it to get dark enough to get cool night-tower pictures. This is one of the almost-dark pictures. I'm hiding in the right corner. We actually ended up being able to see it "twinkle," but we had to wait until 10:00ish until it was dark enough for them to put on the sparkly lights.

 We found a park that I had seen pictures of from a previous RIF student. It has a man-made waterfall (not bad, eh?), lots of grass and trees, lots of people, and an awesome view of part of the city from up on top of a hill.

 

It was a nice day and there were kids playing in the water wherever they could find it. What I found strange was that they were all still in their normal clothes; no bathing suits to be seen. Some had stripped down to their underwear! Kids are kids anywhere, I guess.

This month happens to be the last one that I will spend here in Paris. Back in December/January, I received a calendar from my friends as a Christmas present. This is the picture from the  month of May. I added the chocolate, as a suggestion from Erica. See, I mentioned to her that I had 30 chocolates, enough for one per day before I went home, and she said I should make an "advent calendar." So I did. Yum.

 This week is the third week of May. That means that it's almost time to go home. Before that, though, I have 3 conference exams, one phonetics exam, one mega grammar exam and one tiny, stressful oral exam. It's going to be a blast. Exams are always a good way to finish off one's time in a foreign land. I can't really complain too much, though; I chose the student life and exams come with that. On an awesome (and kind of crazy) note, once I finish these exams, I will officially be finished my Bachelor of Arts! 

So the end is in sight. Or is it? The end of my time here in France is in sight. It's a bitter-sweet feeling; I have mixed emotions about it all. However, it's not the end. Inserting cliché here.....the end is just the beginning. It's true, though (hence it becoming a cliché). My time here in France is quickly coming to a close, but it means the beginning of so much else back home. It's the beginning of summer 2011, of a continued discovery of myself once I'm back in my "comfort zone," of continued schooling, of figuring out how to keep in touch with friends from Paris, and the list goes on. This year is ending soon, but there's so much more still ahead. I'm thankful for everything that I've seen and experienced and the people that I have gotten to know while I've been here, and I look forward to whatever and whoever lies ahead.

Blessings,

~Lynette