"We'll always have Paris."

We left last Thursday afternoon and I, personally, was not mentally prepared for what was about to happen. Before I knew it, I was in a plane, then landing, then being dropped off by a bus in the middle of Paris. If there’s anything that’s being drilled into my brain here, it’s how incredibly blessed I am.

Sorry to do this in list form, again, but I don’t want to end up writing a book here. Paris trip highlights:

1. The Eiffel Tower – Climbed up to the second level (the very top was closed). Paris is a beautiful city and that tower did not disappoint.

2. The Louvre – Wonderful. I only wish that we’d had more time. Thoughts on seeing the Mona Lisa: not that exciting. It wasn’t surprising at all. I was more impressed with other things, like how huge Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa was!!

3. Musee d’Orsay – More exciting than the Louvre, to me. Monet, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, Serat, etc. My favorite piece: Degas’ “Little Dancer of Fourteen Years.” She was lovely.
4. Notre Dame – Impressive, beautiful, ruined by tourists.

5. Arc de Triomphe -- I loved it! Why does man try so hard, though, to impress? Nothing I saw in Paris was as beautiful as the sunset I saw on the plane home.

6. Food: Had a chocolate éclair. Yums! Also, spent fourty-five minutes searcing for crepes, finally found some, paid four euro for one, got back to the hostel and found out they had free crepes every afternoon. Typical.

Overall, Paris might be my favorite of the places I’ve traveled to so far. The city is so incredibly beautiful – the architecture, the people. I had heard so much from people about how rude French people can be and how I wasn’t going to like their attitude. I found this to be entirely false. The first French person we talked to, a girl we stopped to ask if she knew how to get to our hostel, immediately pulled out her iPhone and used her gps to help us get there. She was so sweet and welcoming. Then, when we got to the hostel around midnight and hadn’t had dinner, we walked to a restaurant down the street where we were incredibly surprised by the hospitality. Alex, Kim, Kristen and I were looking at the outside menu to see what they had (this was the only place we could find that was open) when a woman came out and told us the kitchen was closed. We asked her if there was anywhere we could find food at that hour and, after thinking for a minute, she told us to come in and she would make us something. She fixed us each a little salad and a huge piece of bread with egg, ham, and cheese. We were so surprised by how wonderfully sweet she was and could not thank her enough for helping out a few American tourists. Seriously, guys, French people are amazing. They are very different people, but aren’t we all?

Still, I don’t think anything will top Florence. No matter how amazing these big, crazy cities are, I think I will always be happy to come home to Firenze.

On another subject, I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately and it’s truly changing my heart. It has been really hard for me, in the past few years, to give myself time to sit down and be present inside of a book. Part of that reading includes scripture and things related to my faith. It’s incredible the way increasing your intake of the word increases your joy (Delight yourself in the Lord – Psalm 37:4). Even when I don’t find immediate joy, I almost always find peace.

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
And from north to east;
They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
But shall not find it.
Amos 8:11-12

John Piper says, “If the feast of worship is rare in the land, it is because there is a famine of the Word of God.” True.