Flights

I am currently enjoying the marvelous hospitality of my dear friends, the Hadleys.  My flights were canceled to come home, so now I'm staying here an extra couple days.  I have a flight scheduled to go out on the 24th, which will get me into Chicago around 2:30pm Chicago time on Christmas Eve.  I want to say again how blessed I am to know the Hadleys.  I know I've said it before, but it just needs to be said again.  They not only opened their home to me for two nights, planned to drive me to the Lyon airport, have fed me many a meal, and in general fill me with joy-which has not happened in quite a while.  I don't know what I would do without them.
And now, since my flights have changed around like crazy, they are letting me stay with them another day and night, and are taking me to the train station to get to Paris.  They are without a doubt some of the best people I know.

French Film

Two weeks ago, my professor in my Modern France class was sick.  We thought that we just had a free day, but alas, we had to make up the class that she canceled.  With so little time left in the semester, she decided it would be easiest if we all just went to see a movie.  So that is what we did tonight.  It was more or less about the issue of immigration and its effect on the country (I think).  But, being a French movie, there was a whole lot of taking off clothes.  At one point, the girl is so scattered that she leaves her house completely naked and doesn't realize it until she's sitting on the train.  I think the guy was a taxidermist, and the girl was an activist who would sleep with people to change their political opinions.  He was trying to hide his ancestry (I think he was adopted, but his birth parents were Greek Jews who were killed at Auschwitz) and she is half Algerian, and her father's family was killed in the French-Algerian War.  It was an interesting story to say the least, and I can understand why she picked it.  However, if given an option, I'd probably still watch Les Choristes over any other French movie.

Where did the time go?

As of yesterday, I only have three weeks left in France.  It feels much like the chocolate truffle in my mouth- a little bitter, a little sweet, and so rich.  This is not to say that my leaving is rich, but more my experience has been rich.  Here are some things I have learned thus far:

-Getting from place to place, hurrying along, and not appreciating what is around you is futile.
-Not everyone can be (or should be) as obsessive compulsive as me when it comes to organization.
-This has been proven over and over again to me: God will provide you with a family even when you're away from your own.
-Learning another language in another country is more exhausting than you can imagine.
-Showers don't need to be attached to the wall.
-Saying you are from Chicago now is associated with Obama as well as Capone.
-Americans tend to get a bad rap- and for true reasons.  Let's try to change that, shall we?
-Saying all Frenchmen are rude is like saying all Americans are New Yorkers.
-French cuisine surpasses any other country's cuisine.  No contest.
-It is amazingly difficult to deal with sorrow in another country, but in the end (I hope) it will make you stronger.
-The French are all about public transportation, and it is fantastic.
-French shoes are great.

Obviously, I have learned more: such as correct grammatical phrasing, how pronouncing one letter differently in a word can mean something entirely different, and other educational things.  However, the above list is what I have found to be most important, as least, from thinking off the top of my head.