cultured.

my life motto, i think.

in france, most are the latter.

this week 4 out of our 10 students have birthdays. 40%. that is pretty unreal. 2 out of our 10 students are allergic to gluten. 20%. unlucky odds. 1 our of 10 students is a boy. 10%. he has a girlfriend back home. but that isn't really important.

one of the 4 birthday people AND one of the 2 gluten-free girls, our dear Allison, wanted to dine on a little indian delight for lunch. jamie opened the invitation to all and due to class and other excuses it ended up being five of us. including 2/4 birthdays and 2/2 gluten free folk. after our delightful art class we hopped on the metro and stopped at La Chapelle, where we would find the supposed 'Little India' quarter. after one wrong turn and a few blocks in the wrong direction, we turned ourselves around and found just what we were looking for.

we decided to take a chance on a random restaurant and it turned out grand despite the creepy decorations on the walls. we all got the little 13 euro menu and chose a drink, an entree (which here is actually an appetizer), a plat (which is really an entree) and a dessert. i think my favorite part was the drink - i had a mango lassi, some kind of yogurt based delight. i tried all kinds of things that i have never seen before, and tasted flavors that put a whole new set of tastebuds to work in my mouth. i even tried a handful of this mint treat that came with the bill that was basically just eating potpourri. mmm. wow! it was surely an adventure and by the end we were all quite full. on the way home emily and i had by far the best metro naps of our lives.

we were also lucky tonight to get to hear a member of the seventy speak just to the young adults here in paris. Elder Halstrom and his darling wife spoke and it was just perfect. Another man traveling with them, i did not catch his name, also spoke, in french and i understood every word! What a great feeling. i felt so blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people, Elder Halstrom asked everyone who spoke more than one language to raise their hand, and i am pretty sure that every single person did. he then made a joke about how you call people who speak two languages bilingual, three languages trilingual, and one language... american. funny because it is true. i am so glad i am here perfecting my french because i am proud to say that i, madeline bodine, speak two languages. and i am still very full from a particularly delicious indian meal. how cultured am i?

timber frames.

'so dr. suess.'

-bernie

metro shoe medley.

menu

how could this not be good?

birthday AND gluten free.

before

after

desserts.

potpourri. aka after meal treat.

about to eat some potpourri.

it was good until my mouth tasted like potpourri for the next few hours.

classy.

i will not tell you who this is,

just that they were extremely full.

emily and i almost didn't go to the 'coin de feu' aka fireside. we were tired and we weren't loving the idea of putting on sunday clothes and heading back into paris. luckily, my parents taught me something right because deep down in my soul something said, when a general authority comes into town, you go no. matter. what. so we threw on whatever was closest and went.

so glad we did. even if i was a little mismatched.