Je l'aime ici!

Je l'aime ici... or, I love it here!

It's been about a week and a half now since departing from the United States, and I am already in love with this country. So many things are different, but so many things are so wonderful... and it is absolutely beautiful here!

I began my trip with a typical McFarland adventure. As many of you may have heard, the Sunday that I was scheduled to fly out, a transformer went down in Cleveland, causing all power to be out in that part of the city which just so happened to include the airport. The radio broadcasts indicated that no flights would be leaving, and we were near positive that I would have to leave the following day, putting me in Paris a day late. We decided to drive to the airport just to be sure, and upon arrival we found that they were using generators to operate three terminals. Only three flights would be leaving that evening... and MINE was one of them! What a relief for us all!

I took off without any other problems and was on time for my connection in New Jersey and for my arrival in Paris. Upon landing at 10am Monday morning, I met up with the API group in the Charles de Gaulle Airport where our Resident Directors immediately began speaking to us in French alone. How exciting!

We were taken to our hotel in the Latin Quarter where we stayed for three nights. It was absolutely gorgeous and exactly as you would imagine Paris to be! I was placed in a room with a girl named Galia from Pittsburgh. We later found out that our roommates in Paris were the people who would be living nearest us in Grenoble as we live just down the street from one another. She has become one of my good friends here as we spend a lot of time with one another.

Above you can see the view from the front door of L'hotel Minerve where we stayed.

Our first day in Paris, we spent a lot of time just getting to know the area well and getting to know the other students with our program. We went to a little supermarket where we bought baguette and Nutella and a few clementines for lunch... very typical and delicious French food! Later in the evening, we met with the RDs and were taken on a boat tour of the Seine River where we saw all the most beautiful places in the city. Paris is surprisingly quite small, but it has MUCH to see! After our boat tour, we made our way by métro to a little restaurant called Restaurante Perraudin where we had our first truly French meal. This was a traditional three-hour French dinner consisting of three separate courses for each of us. My meal included an appetizer of flaky bread puffs filled with warm goat cheese, a stew of steak, potatoes, leeks, carrots and other veggies and a delicious warm apple tart with vanilla ice cream on top. I have to say, French cuisine is by far the best I have ever had! I have not yet tried something I do not absolutely love! Below you can see the first of the three yummy courses!


The next morning we awoke and had breakfast at the hotel which consisted of baguette and croissants with preserves and Nutella, soft boiled eggs, yogurt, fruit and lots of cheese. They served us coffee and tea in our own little pots and offered orange juice and water as well. After breakfast, we took the train to the Palace of Versailles which was absolutely incredible. It was even bigger than I could have ever possible imagined. Although very cold and snowy, we were also able to walk around the gardens a bit as well, although it would take several days to see all of them. For lunch we stopped at a little café where we had delicious sandwiches on baguette... these have become one of my favorites since being here! After eating, we took the train to the Musée d'Orsay where we saw many famous pieces including lots of paintings by my favorite, Monet, among others. We had the rest of the evening to do whatever we wanted, so a group of us decided to go to the Montmartre area. This was by far my most favorite place that we visited in all of Paris. A little area situated at the top of a huge hill, it consisted of lots of cute little shops and restaurants. It was absolutely wonderful at night with white Christmas lights lining the streets and music playing. At the very peak of the hill rests the cathedral Sacre Coeur, or Sacred Heart, which was stunning at night. From the front steps of the church, there is an incredible view of the city! After Montmartre, we visited l'Arc de Triomphe where we climbed the spiral staircase all the way to the top. Then, a few people in the group were tired and went back to the hotel for the night, but some of us were dying to see the Eiffel Tower at night to see it light up as it does once every hour during the evenings. We made it just in time to see it as we were getting off the métro... and it was absolutely wonderful!

The following day, Wednesday, we visited Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle, my favorite cathedral of all. It is the only church in Paris with the original stained glass windows as they are the only ones that were not destroyed in the war. During the war, they were taken out, placed in boxes and stored outside the city walls to protect them. Today, they have been replaced and make the second floor inside the church one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! After this, we went to the Louvre. Although incredible, I wish so badly that I would have had more time to take my time and see so much more of it. With it being so expansive, it would take someone four months to see every item on display. However, I did get to see much of the French sculpture and paintings as well as a few Italian paintings including, of course, la Jaconde, or the Mona Lisa, and she's actually MUCH smaller than one would imagine her to be. After the Louvre, several of us went out to les catacombes where the bones of 600,000 graves have been moved. During a time in France when a great sickness broke out, they ran out of room in the cemeteries and began moving the bones of the dead to the old mining tunnels underneath the city. Today, you can venture down where there is tunnel after tunnel of skulls and bones arranged in various shapes and fashions. Although a bit disgusting, it was actually very cool to see! That evening we had dinner in the Latin Quarter at a little Algerian restaurant and then went for drinks at a little café on the way home. The wine and the hot chocolate in France are so delicious! :)

Our last morning in Paris, Thursday, we went on our last touristy adventure to the Eiffel Tower where we climbed on foot the stairs to the second platform (unfortunately the top is closed in January due to the weather). It was absolutely wonderful! It was the most perfect view of the city and we took lots and lots of pictures. It was also the first day that we saw the sun, so it was even more perfect!

After the Eiffel Tower, we went to the train station to catch the TGV to our new home, Grenoble, where we would be meeting our host families at the airport for the first time!

Paris is one of the most wonderful things I have ever experienced. I heard many things about the French being rude or stand-offish, but I have found exactly the opposite to be true. I have encountered so many friendly people here, and it is almost refreshing in comparison to the United States. People ALWAYS say bonjour and au revoir, as it is rude not to, people love to help us practice our French and are careful to take it slow so that we can understand and people seem to enjoy the little things in life much more without the constant hustle and bustle of everything. It has been wonderful experiencing this culture, and I am already learning to love so much about it!

Although I have class soon and must go for now, I will be sure to write about my first week in Grenoble and my family very soon. All is wonderful and well, and I feel like the luckiest girl alive to be experiencing such wonderful things!

But until later, à toute à l'heure, mes amis!

Aujourd'hui, c'est le jour!

Aujourd'hui, c'est le jour! ...or, today is the day!

It feels like forever ago that my dreams of studying abroad began. I would hear family and friends speak of the young people that they knew who were off in different countries studying and experiencing the culture of a new and exciting place. And I always knew that someday, somehow, I would do the same. With my love of the French language throughout middle and high school, it was obvious to me that I would choose a francophone, or French-speaking, country for my semester abroad. After lots of research and meetings in the international programs office at Marietta College, I knew I had found the perfect place when I found API's program in Grenoble, France, a small city in the south-eastern portion of the country in the Alps region. It was perfect... the school, the housing arrangements, the classes, the location.

After a lot of prayer, a long application process and lots of meetings and paperwork, I was not only accepted into the program but also awarded a scholarship through API. I knew upon receipt of the news that this was it... what I had been awaiting for so long. My opportunity to follow my dreams. I am finally on my way... to the city of lights!

I leave in less than an hour for the Cleveland airport where I will be flying out at 4:45pm this afternoon. After about ten hours of flights, I land in Paris at 10am tomorrow morning (Paris time) where I will meet my resident directors and the rest of the students in my program, both those in the Paris section and the Grenoble section. We will be touring the city, sightseeing and undergoing our "orientation" process for about four days. After our time there, we will depart by train on Thursday afternoon for Grenoble. My host family will be awaiting my arrival at the train station to take me to my new home about twenty minutes outside of the city center in Meylan.

I received information about my family about two weeks ago, and could not be more excited to meet them and get to know them during my time there. They are la famille d'Oléon, consisting of a father, Thierry, who is an architect, a mother, Marie-Pierre, who stays at home and their six children, three of which still live at home. They are also currently hosting another exchange student from Mexico, Carla, who is seventeen and there for the entire year. I look forward to spending time with her, as I know it will be helpful for my language skills to speak with someone who is also learning French for their first time. I was also able to googlemaps the family's home, and it is beautiful. The Alps paint the perfect backdrop of the very Euorpean-looking home. I cannot wait to finally see it in person and to meet the people with which I will be spending the next four and a half months.

As for now, I am not so much nervous as I am excited and eager with anticipation more than anything else. I have waited so long and am anxious to finally be there. I will be so relieved when I am done traveling and settled in so I can begin learning all there is to learn and seeing all there is to see. I get butterflies every time I remember to myself that in less than 24 hours, I will be stepping foot onto European soil for the first time in my life... what an incredible opportunity He has given me! Praise God for His goodness, always.

At this point, I am not so much scared but realistically recognizing the difficulties with which the language barrier will present me. Although I have studied French for about eight years now, I know that it will be an entirely new experience speaking with natives. However, I am confident that if I am able to overcome my apprehension enough to try, without fear of failure or perhaps messing up, my language skills will increase tremendously. I've been told that total immersion is the best way to go if language proficiency is the goal, so I have to trust that as hard as it may be, this will be the absolute best possible thing for me. Living with a French family and taking all of my courses in French, I look very much forward to seeing my skills progress and learning to express myself more fluently and efficiently.

Perhaps my biggest anxiety about my time there will be finding a "faith" community. During my time at Urbana 09 in St. Louis, I attended a session on the francophone world and I was absolutely shocked at some of the statistics I was hearing. The man speaking was the IFES director of the Caribbean where he said only about 10% of people are believers. I was startled by this number, but he went on to say that this was, in fact, quite high in comparison to France where it is an estimated 0.4%. In the past century, France has undergone Laïcité. This is a widespread secularization movement that has banned anything "religion" from public facilities. It is not like here in the United States where, for instance, a school is perhaps just not affiliated with a particular religion, but any sort of religious discussion, symbols and clothing is absolutely prohibited. In fact, I will not even be allowed to wear my cross to school, as it is a public university, unless I tuck it away underneath my shirt.

After the session, I was actually able to speak with a young girl about my age who had studied in France last summer, and I was able to ask her some questions about what it will be like as a believer in their country. The first thing that she said was, "Your faith will certainly be tested, Bethany. BUT you will leave there so much stronger than when you went." She said that it is very difficult living in a place where discussion of religion, faith and beliefs is absolutely unheard of. However, she was also very encouraging because she said that people there are so curious. She said that when you approach them without any agenda and simply get to know them as friends, it is then that THEY begin to ask questions, and it is then that you have the opportunity to share your beliefs. So, although I was shocked and a bit taken aback by some of the things I was hearing, I was relieved to finally be able to talk to someone who knew, who had experienced it firsthand and who could better prepare me for what it will be like.

God never ceases to amaze me because as all of this was unfolding and my thoughts on this topic became more frequent, I was speaking with my cousin in California, Donna, who mentioned her friends living in France. She gave me their information, and, upon contacting them, I found out that they too are believers and have been doing ministry in France for many, many years now. Although they do not refer to themselves as "missionaries", as that is forbidden in France, they serve in the areas of pastoral care, discipleship training in French churches, etc. How incredible and encouraging! I have been in contact with them via email and I look forward to the possibility of maybe even meeting them while I am there.

Overall, I look forward to this trip as an adventure. An adventure to travel, to learn, to meet new people and see new places, but also an adventure in my walk with our Lord. I know that at times it will be difficult, but I also know the He is faithful, all the time. Throughout all of this, I am constantly reminded of Psalm 37:4 that says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." I am so thankful to Him for providing the way for this trip and the blessing that I know it is going to be. I am eager to see how He will use it to grow me and make me into the person that He desires for me to be.

I am anxious to share with you all at least a small piece of my experience and my time there. Please be praying for safe travels and for His hand of protection during my time in France. I am eager to learn about all that He has in store for me, and I am excited to be able to share that with the people that I love most... you all, my friends and family.

Au revoir, mes amis!