Happy Easter!

Today marks the first holiday I have ever spent away from my family (not including new years, of course) and the theme has mostly been a lot of under whelmed Paige. It seems dealing with a holiday away from home is a lot easier when you mostly just don't act like its a holiday.

We left for mass at 10, to be ready for the 11:30 service. Honestly, I don't know how you go in there with a Christian attitude. You stand in line, and people push you around, and there's a lot of line jumping and yelling and frustration. It felt more like I was waiting to get into a concert than a church service (although, maybe that's how it should be. I didn't like it, but maybe god did...something to think about later). Obviously I was raised with a very different way of worshipping, and I'm sure other people got a lot out of it, but it wasn't for me.

Yes, the church is BEAUTIFUL. And they had the incense going, which made it feel like home. I could follow where we were in the service, but not because I speak any French; i could just tell by habit. But everyone was crushed in there, and you had people just going to take pictures, and I had to watch the whole thing on a video monitor because I was behind this big pole. I'm not complaining, just explaining why I prefer my small church at home. Also, not being able to take communion just sucked. It normally wouldn't bother me much, I don't think, but the combination of feeling like an outsider to this country and then not even totally welcome in the catholic church kind of stung. I wanted some Jesus, and they were just waving him around in my episcopal face.

The whole experience was kind of like prom. Not really as big of a deal as you had hoped, but you would always wonder what you missed if you didnt go.

We had some free time, so I came back to the hotel for some packing. We switch hotels tomorrow, so everything needs to be ready to move again, like a mini travel day. Supposedly the new hotel is supposed to be only a 20 minute walk, and hopefully no cobblestones, so it shouldn't be bad.

We met up for group time, and we talked about the weeks plans, how everyone was doing, and our reflections on Germany. Then Greg made some comment about how we were all away from home on Easter, and pulled out a bag of chocolate bunnies for everyone. I almost cried, and this is when I learned the value in pretending it wasn't really a holiday. Marc and Kristie had also gotten us chocolate, which was nice.

We went to the Pere leChaise cemetery, which has lots of cool famous people and is just generally huge. Dad would have loved it. I saw Chopin's grave,but got lost trying to find Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. I'll probably go back on our free day, because one hour was definitely not enough time.

We were going to go on the boat ride we were supposed to do yesterday, but it started raining again so we just bought tickets for Tuesday, which we'll do rain or shine. Then we broke for dinner.

A lot of people went out for a fancy sit down meal, but that was not following my denial of a holiday plan, so i ended up going back to the hotel alone and stopping at Quick, which is like a French mcdonalds. I make it a habit to try and find my way home alone a few times in every city, because then I feel like I really know what's going on and where things are instead of just following people around. And the chicken nuggets were perfect; I'll be having my Easter dinner when I come home, and in the meantime, I needed the ease and simplicity.

Now I'm back at the hotel, where I was going to try and FaceTime people but since the Internet isn't working it looks like I'll just call mom and dad and spend the extra money. I think I've racked up $70 worth of calls since the beginning of the trip, but it's been worth it to have my phone during emotional emergencies. Hopefully I'll have a chance to read more of the virgin suicides tonight; our metro card isn't active until tomorrow, so I can't really go anywhere. I think staying in for a night wouldnt be all bad anyway.

So good night, happy Easter to all my friends and family in America, and save me some Reese's eggs! (you could get them on sale tomorrow and I wouldn't know the difference, hint hint.)