Chili. Peace be with you. I love your coat.

What a weekend! Saturday was mostly spent in my bed. My sleeping patterns have resembled that of a family cat. Nap, roam around, nap, eat, nap, computer, nap, work, nap again. I could feel some sickness coming on so I decided that it would probably do me some good to sleep it out. I switched to the guest bed and it was the magic solution. I have no idea why it made such a difference, but it did and I am thankful. After I woke up, I cleaned, ate some yummy veggies covered in vinaigrette, packed my bags, and hopped on the train to Adeline's. She is the close friend of mine whom I spent New Year's Eve.

She lives in the suburb of Rosny sous bois. It was a rather easy trip, at least after I found the right train. Had I not double-checked, I would have gone to some other suburb and been stuck. I took a few pictures to show a little bit of what the suburbs look like here (for you Casey). I like the suburbs because you get the atmosphere and feel of Paris, but less stress and noise.
The view from Adeline's flat.Adeline lives on the top floor of a pretty posh apartment building. Her flat is so big and I twirled around with my arms out, amaze that I didn't hit anything. Once I arrived, she got started on the chili con carne. We were both starving and it took everything in us not to eat it cold.We ate and chatted for a bit, then made palette on the floor. This was something she learned from me. Thank you America! You really know how to throw a slumber party. We rolled out stuffed bodies on the floor to watch Love Actually and 13 Going on 30. Good fun! We, of course, had many laughs throughout the night and made up more than our fair share of inside jokes. We made it to bed around 2am and set the alarm for early, that's all I'll say. We had to catch the train to Paris so that we could visit a new church near Madeleine, Saint Michaels. Not too much research was done on this church, but we thought it would be fun to try out a new one.

We entered and a friendly American woman greeted us and told us where the coffee was located. She swore that she had met me before and that I had been the church quite a bit. I get this all the time. People think they know me. I have that kind of face, I guess. The English language was great to hear; British, Scottish, Irish, American. We found our seats near the front and felt pretty comfortable. They led us in prayer at the beginning and they mentioned in the prayer about "the Catholic church", but we had no idea we went to a Catholic church. It was really confusing because nothing else seemed Catholic accept for a short time of confession. I must say that I feel incredibly ignorant now, so I much read a little bit more about it. There was a time where we were told to turn around and greet others (phrased differently). I turned around and shook hands with two of the people and said "Hi" and noticed they both said "Peace be with you", so I began to say that to the rest of the people. However, I noticed that Adeline hadn't caught on yet. Once we sat back down, I said "Did you notice we were supposed to say 'Peace be with you'"? She laughed, I laughed, we almost cried. She was saying "Hi, nice to meet you!" to all of them. We joked that we should have gone all-out and say "Hey, pleased to meet you. Love your coat, where did you get it?" If you don't think it's funny, then you don't know real humor.

The message was pretty good and the songs were actually very good. At one point we were
to take a piece of paper and write down a name of someone we hate or don't like and then we were supposed to pray about how to change it. I thought this was strange. I really don't have anyone I hate. I can't think of anyone. I leaned over and told Adeline that all of the people around us were writing down our names because we said "Hi, nice to meet you. Love your coat" and giggled at odd times of the service. Once I said this, we laughed a little bit more.

I had intentions to do a little photoshoot with Adeline after church, but we both got a little lazy. Instead of doing an official shoot, I just shot a few random ones while we were walking. At one point we thought we were going to pass out from hunger. Shocking, considering how much chili we ate the night before. We couldn't find anything so I suggested Breakfast in America. It took twenty minutes via metro. There were some musicians on the train. There always are, but these were pretty entertaining and decent.Only she and I can understand this picture. Tetipple. This women walked by during the picture taking. I could resist her outfit. She is obviously not French. Notice that her pants are made of real cow, hair and all. She's bright.Metro entertainment. They were French, but singing good ole folk country.We finally made it, only to find that there was a two hour wait (slight exaggeration). Instead we walked across the street to a fast food Chinese place that charges you by the weight of your food. Mine cost more than Adeline's, so it's easy to say that I ate more. After that mediocre meal we slugged over to the boulangerie for some dessert. I had the chocolate-almond pastry and she got an eclair.

With really full bellies, we continued walking, just wasting time till she had to meet up with a couple of friends at Musee d'orsay. Walking, walking around Paris. I love it. We laughed so much that we enduced headaches and tears. Once her friends arrived, I left.

Along the way, two women asked me if I knew of a pharmacie that would be open on a Sunday. One of them was having horrible back pain. I told them of one, but it was about a mile away. It was towards my flat, so they walked with me. They are flight attendants that work for United and were in Paris for a day. Instead of having them walk all the way to the pharmacie, I just told the girl that I had a stock of subscription pain-killers left over from my wisdom teeth surgery and that I could give her some. Once we arrived, I ran up my stairs, grabbed five, then brought them down to her. I thought she was going to cry, but within half a second of the pills in her hand, one was already down her throat. Random meeting, but a cool one. Maybe I will bump into them on a flight sometime.

I went back to my room, changed, got under my covers, and watched Juno. This is my new favorite movie. Watch it. I found myself wished I was this girl, minus pregnancy. She has the greatest quick wit. I envy. I covet it.