sweet like Candy.

Life is full of waiting periods.

The last couple days I just did some reading for my classes, stopped by the bakery a few more times to indulge (which I’ve been doing WAY too much of), and just relaxing. I think my summer workload had finally caught up with me so I just wanted to lay there and read. And sleep. I’ll come back to that at the end actually.

This morning we left Paris for good. Soon after our meeting all thirty eight students, the four adults (three professors and one of their wives), the five children of the professors, and our bus driver Peter from ‘de Nederlens’ piled into the BYU labeled Elbobus and took off to Chartres, France. We were dropped off downtown and given a few hours to wander before driving to the hotel.

A group of us wandered through the Cathedral, which we will be getting a professional tour of tomorrow by a world-renowned tour guide. I can’t remember his name right now but apparently he’s been doing these tours for over fifty years. CRAZY! He’ll be awesome, I can feel it.

We walked around the back of the cathedral and there were these gardens that meandered down into the suburban area of housing. It was out of a movie, I swear. There was a small river that ran through the neighborhood, under the cobblestone streets. We came up to a little bridge that was under a weeping willow tree on a little island in the middle of the river. If you didn’t know this fun fact about me, my favorite trees are weeping willows. They are perfect.

We got food at some random 'kebap' place and it was SO GOOD. All this food here is just too good and it's worrying me. Mostly worrying me about my weight...yikes. We eventually made it to the hotel and had the opportunity to get settled in. A few of us girls played some outside games with the two youngest boys of our professors while their mom (our English professor) watched and just laughed. But anyway. We are basically being put into our rooms with different people at every hotel we’re going to. My current roommate and I bonded quickly by talking about boys for a couple hours. Typical, right? Tomorrow night we’ll be at a new hotel, with new roommates, in a new town or city. We’ll be at nine different hotels in the next 15 days. So I’ll be getting to know a lot of the girls in the group pretty well. Hopefully. Of the thirty eight students, three are guys. I’m not sure whether to pity them or consider them lucky.

 There were these cool fountain like things in front of a bunch of shopping streets that I decided I wanted a picture with.

Hide the thimble with these boys was ridiculous. They are too good at it.

Sidenote. Sebastien was so kind as to correct my spelling that the pastry I had the other day was in fact a “beignet”, not however I had spelled it. Just to clarify that.

Okay so my notes about this program is done for this post

BUT.

I want to go back to the summer job I had and tell you a little bit about that, so either continue reading if you want, or not. I won’t be offended. Anyway, this past summer I had the opportunity to live with my sister in the Portland, Oregon area. She helped me get a job at a corporation that houses and employs developmentally disabled adults. Basically, I was an on-call caregiver.

For the last twelve or so weeks that I was there, I was working about seventy hour weeks—most of the shifts being thirty six hours straight. I did some of the most physically, mentally, and emotionally draining activities that I have ever experienced. I cleaned the houses, the worksites, I cooked meals for five other people, I made sure they were clean and ready for work every day, I made sure they were well fed and drinking enough, I worked my freaking butt off. And I loved every minute of it. I worked with some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. I loved that job—it didn’t even feel like a job anymore. I was helping them live their lives to the best of my ability. I did all I could so they could be happy and every single day I hope that I did enough. I hope that I was able to make their lives better because of what I was able to do for them. Within the past week, one of the clients that I worked with for those last twelve weeks, passed away. I wanted to take these last few sentences to think about her. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to work with that population and with this client. I will forever remember her. Her little hands that were always searching for something new, her laugh that would randomly ring out in the night, and her sweet little smile. Sweet, like Candy.

There ya go.