Day 9- Beauty is within.

I woke up slightly home sick. Yesterday was june 5^th, and here that’s all it felt like. At home I have a wonderful boyfriend, Phil, who always makes me feel like a princess on my birthday, but we are far far away from each other. Today when I woke up it was slightly different, I felt more empty than normal, and how can I feel so empty in a place like this?

My mom skyped me from Disney just before I went to class, and seeing her made me slightly more home sick. I felt crazy, Stop it Michelle, you only do this once, you are home all of the time, as my father would say “your not missing ANYTHING in Glassboro, nothing new here” but something felt missing this morning. 

 I went through the day slightly off, going through the market buying vegetables for dinner, with out fully appreciating the strong scent that was almost suffocating and I attended class feeling slightly distant.

Fresh veggies from the market, YUM!

 My teacher had asked about my birthday, and I told her about the dinner and cake, making me realize more that yesterday, was really just another day, not feeling like the start of my twenties.

Because class is three and a half hours long we get a 20-minute break for “Gouter” or snack. When we returned from “gouter” our teacher ran past us and said "hold on let me set something up for our next writing prompt." We waited in the hall until she said to come in.

I walked in and almost cried. This wonderful woman had taken her entire gouter break to go and get me some little dessert pastries from her favorite shop as well as a birthday candle and lighter so I could have a proper birthday celebration. It was so special to have this from some one I just met, but had already admired and enjoyed so much. The gesture relinquished much of my discomfort, and helped me remember that I am in a beautiful place with beautiful people.

Birthday gouter with candle :)

My Birthday Treat

After class, our teacher set up a private tour with some one that she know for the church that is next door, the same church Jill and I went into the first day we arrived. The tour was out of this world. The details this man knows were so amazing. He told us about the scandalous king that would make love during ceremonies, and about the old baptismal bath that people were brought into the church through only on Easter, every corner and stone and statue had so much more meaning than just its external beauty. When we heard these stories, the church that Jill and I visited just days earlier had become an entirely different place. The walls came alive, and even when staring at a statue that hadn’t moved for centuries upon centuries,  my imagination flew and I could see images of the people moving through the old Church and city that I move through on a daily basis.