Ten Days!

My little iGoogle calendar showed ten days until I leave for France! I seriously don't know how much more excited I can get. I simply cannot wait; I feel as if I will burst with joy! I truly don't know how much more perfect this trip can get on paper. There is nothing that I am not looking forward to - not even the long flight!

Does my overabundance of exclamation marks clue you in to my exuberance?

A friend asked me what I am hoping to take out of this trip - in other words, what I am expecting to learn while in France. On one hand, I am not expecting to gather any great life lessons - primarily because the purpose of my visit is tourism and not a mission trip or study abroad. On the other hand, I know that trips like this don't just happen randomly to everyone. I am really very lucky to be going. I would like to believe that God has a purpose behind the trip - perhaps something as simple as relaxation or meeting new people. Who knows how my interactions with the people in France will affect me or them? (For some of my readers I know you believe I'm thinking about this way too much - hang in there).

One aspect of this trip that delights me is the opportunity to meet and stay with a French family - this family specifically. Our hostess, Lorraine, is someone whose name has been mentioned casually around me for quite a number of years now. I perceive her relationship to my friend Anne to be quite similar to my friendship with Nicole, my (former) roommate. Good friends are worth celebrating and spending time. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to visit Nicole in Honduras over Thanksgiving and I am grateful that Anne has the same opportunity (and that I get to accompany her!). Friends are important; community is important. This theme of relationships/friendships is one that God has alerted me to and something in which I place great value.

Additionally, I don't really want to be that tourist who visits the nice, touristy sections of a city or country and fails to absorb the authentic culture. People who've been to Cancun, Mexico have a very different view of Mexico than those who have been on a mission trip to the heart of Mexico City, Mexico. Both types of trips have their places; I simply don't want to exclusively visit the "nice" areas and claim to understand a culture, people, or place based on that small snapshot.

( <-- my host mom Rosa, my roommate, and I)

One of the best ways to learn about a culture, people, or place is to live there with people who have spent their lives there. To me, living with a host family (in my case, a host mom) while in Spain was a huge draw to the program I chose. I am honestly very, very excited to meet Lorraine and her family and see a tiny bit of the France I would have seen if I had studied abroad. And I get to visit the touristy places too (bienvenue Versailles!).