Day 60- Lets go to Paris X2

 Day 60

Here’s an update of my past week or so…Last week we had midterms. Which consisted of me decided that the “studying” of study abroad was way too heavily getting involved with my “abroading”. I spent a lot of hours studying this past week for three of the six tests I will have this semester, a bit nerve-racking but somewhat normal for a college student. Something that is quite frustrating for this nerd, is the fact that teachers here rarely give out top marks and a normal good grade is a “14 out of 20”, which is basically a C. For most of my friends whose classes transfer back as Pass/Fail courses to their home university, this makes life a lot easier. But sadly, every one of my classes count back home as regular grades, despite the grading discrepancies between the two systems. Anyway…after midterms were over…I peaced out for Paris with two of my girlfriends here…and here are some fun facts about “Parii”

Ten things you didn’t know about Paris:

1.     Do not take the Bus to Paris from Brussels. Crazy things will happen..aka 45 minutes outside of Paris your bus driver will claim his shift is over and just pull the greyhound bus over and stop for thirty minutes while holding everyone inside the bus basically hostage. And not letting anyone use the bathroom (including those of us who walked to the front and begged to just go outside). Then 45 minutes later, the bus driver will all of a sudden decide he’s back “on duty” and finish the rest of the trip.

2.     Paris apartments are the half the size of freshman dorm rooms. So it is super fun to try and sleep five people with all of their belongings in a room that is no bigger than a ten by ten foot square.

3.     You should eat a lot of crepes in Paris, but you should not eat so many crepes in one day that you get sick later on that evening because of them. I guess this carboholic got a little to excited that there were creperies on every corner.

4.     The children on the street that act like they are deaf and try and make you sign something to “support” them…are in fact just gypsies who will demand you give them money after you sign that sheet. And if you refuse to sign it, they will chase you around Paris and are not afraid of stabbing you in the back with their pen.

5.     Unknoweldgable cute blonde American girls really will fall for a scam on the streets of Paris. The nice guys that all look like they are from Morocco and are playing betting games with other people are actually just playing with some of their friends and are trying to reel in unexpecting tourists so they will bet as well on some of their “games”, and end up losing a lot of Euro. Somehow I had enough since not to play, sadly one of my cute, fun friends did not and lost 50 Euro.

6.     A lof of the buildings in Paris are in white and the view from Sacre Coeur is breathtaking. Climb the stairs, its totally worth it.

7.     Eating freshbaked bread underneath the Eiffel tower with some soft cheese and fresh ham is the greatest decision you can ever make.

8.     It is completely ok to take a lot of photos of yourself laying underneath the Eiffel tower, it’s the Eiffel tower. And its ok if while you are doing this it still doesn’t feel real.

9.     When your boss deicdes to take you to Paris the day after you return from a weekend trip to Paris, don’t panic. Just realize you are about to have the best day of your life.

10. When your boss lets you have 30 minutes alone to yourself in one of the largest designer stores in the world, it is ok to spend 100 Euro on one of the most beautiful shirts you’ve ever seen.

Well this explains a lot of the past week I’ve had. Basically, I went to Paris, stayed with some friends in a tiny apartment, ate a ton of crepes, ran through the city trying to see it all (epically failed at that)..came home Sunday evening and left Monday morning with my internship boss to go back again for the day for some business meetings.

            I feel as if  I got to experience Paris as a tourist Saturday and Sunday, filled with gypsies and eating as cheap as possible, and then on Monday I returned to Paris as a businesswoman (living the life of someone that is way cooler than me). We arrived in Paris around 11 AM after leaving around 930AM, so I realized I took the bus the night before that took about 4 hours to get home, and the train only was 1.5hrs. Ridiculous what us college kids will do to save a buck/euro.

            We got to Paris, found the office that the meeting was located at, and for the rest of the morning I sat, smiled and nodded at everything that was going on around me. The entire morning was in French, so basically I had little to no abilities to actually do any kind of work, so I basically figured out that I was not a “necessity” to this trip, my boss Lieve just decided to take me to “show” me Paris. I am so very blessed. So very blessed.

            After the meetings of the morning (in which the total amount of work I did consisted of plugging and unplugging a laptop), we ate lunch at a super expensive, beautiful Japanese restaurant where the meals cost 20 to 30 euro a plate. As I was eating my meal and looking around me, I realized that I was sitting around upper elite business men and women of PARIS. It was one of those …you better remember this moment Bailey Jo because it’s not ever going to happen again. When its snowy cold, and you feel like your living in sweatpants just watching movies in your dorm room come spring, remember that you acutally got to go LIVE a few months ago.

            Lunch ended and we headed to a coffee shop to do some more work before catching our train home. Little did I know, Lieve had a surprise for me. She told me she wanted to show me “the big store” since I hadn’t seen it. This store is actually called “Galleries La Fayette” and is one of the biggest designer stores in the world. I wish I had an accurate description of my reaction walking into this 8 level store. Some people say I can get a bit loud and obnoxious when I get excited about things….this was definitely one of those moments. My poor Belgian boss had to listen to me squeal at every store we passed by. Fendi, Prada, D&G, Chanel, Diane Von Furstenburg, Louis Vuitton, were just some of the ones on the first level. As I explained before, I think my boss realized I was a bit excited about being here and itching to look around, so she gave me thirty minutes to “explore”. I literally sprinted around some of the levels of the store that were more “inexpensive” (meaning things cost 100 euro instead of 800) and told myself that I was going to buy something. You are only in Paris on a free trip with your boss and in the best store ever once! So I ended up buying a beautiful gold shirt/sweater thing that cost 100E, which was super cheap haha.

            After I was on cloud nine from my shopping spree, we headed to do some work (which is what I thought this trip would be about), and we ended up at the Opera house…THE Paris Opera house that Phantom of the Opera is based off of. Did you know that there is a beautiful  restaurant now in the opera house that has a to die for terrace? Well I found that out….and somehow I ended up sitting on this terrace with my boss, doing some work and dining on some fine delicacies. My boss kept asking me if I was having a nice time, I tried to explain to her over and over how this was the greatest day of my life and that she was the greatest human to ever walk the Earth…but I don’t know if she got how happy I truly was.

            I was trying to think of some kind of spiritual application to all of this because I always like to put my experiences here back into perspective of my walk with my Savior…and the only thing that keeps coming up in my mind is that my life with Jesus is just like the day I got to have in Paris, it’s A GIFT! A FREE, AWESOME, UNDESERVED, GIFT! That we get to cherish every single day. Because he lives, I can not only face tomorrow, but I get to experience life with freedom and joy I didn’t know was possible. With Christ, we can choose to have an all-expense paid trip to Paris every single day. We get to put meaning to this crazy thing called life, we get to have something solid to fall back onto, and we get to put hope in something so much more than our feeble selves. If there is one thing I know, it is that I did not “deserve” this trip to Paris, and I for sure do not deserve what my God did for me on a cross 2000 years ago, but somehow our God shows us every single day how he promotes this thing called grace, whether its through a friendly smile, a loving hug, advice from a friend, or a business trip of a lifetime.  For it is by grace we have been saved, through faith and this not from ourselves, it is a large and magnificent gift from our heavenly father. 

Love to all,
GO BIRDS :)
Bails 

Belief and Bruges

Day 52-

First, Things you didn’t know about my life in Brussels

1    Our school is known as the "rich school" for kids around Europe. Because its a private, English- speaking university...so most of these kids are extremely wealthy and drive beautiful cars to school, while the rest of us hundred or so study abroad kids take every bus, tram, and metro possible, eat only if we have to, and are stingy with most everything because of how much the euro is costing us. 

2.     Our classes for schoool usually only meet once a week for 3 hours at a time, so we will have breaks during those classes to break up the time. During those breaks, most of us US kids get a coke, a waffle or take a short nap. What do the European kids do you ask? Every single one of them pulls out their pack of cigarettes and goes outside to smoke. It’s basically the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. If you want to look European, you better pick up a nicotine addiction before you study abroad.

3.    Frites are a meal. And it is physically impossible to carry a cone (what they come in) of frites home in without eating some. And then you get the delicious sauce everywhere.

4.    Belgian waffles are as good as everyone thinks they are. Best with powder sugar, a little whipped cream and strawberries. World changing for this carbaholic  

5.     Whenever you walk into a metro station you have this automatic urge to start running to the stop you are supposed to be at to be picked up by the metro. You have no idea when the metro is actually coming but as soon as you walk inside of the building you know that the next metro is almost here and you will only catch it if you frantically run like a mad woman down the stairs.

6.     Do not leave the door to your apartment over while having friends come hang out. The creepy Mexican boy students who live outside will come down and stand awkwardly at the entrance to your apartment and ask if they can come hang out. And introduce themselves as Tom and Jose. And Tom and Jose were wearing way too much eye makeup.

7.     When you walk down the 600 stairs of the many old buildings you walk up to see different views of European towns (which magically all are starting to look the same) it is perfectly appropriate to pray audibly that you will not fall down the entire staircase, killing you and your entire study abroad program.

8.     The Dutch kiss everyone on the cheek three times when greeting, leaving or introducing. So when you stop after one, just prepare yourself to be kissed again and again.  I guess there is just a love of love being spread in the Netherlands (for reasons I won’t name).

9.     Teachers here don’t believe in double spacing. So when your term paper is supposed to be ten pages, don’t think in American college terms where that is about 2,500 words…think more like a 20 page paper ranging about 5-6 thousand words. And its over any subject you want in international maritime law, because there’s so many interesting subjects one would like to choose within that category.

10 If you get accosted by a ton of waiters on sea food street by the Grand Place in Brussels, its ok. Just go with it for a little bit and end up getting a three course meal with a drink for 12 euro.

Ok hopefully that made you laugh a little and realize a bit more about my life here. The past few weeks have been full of a lot of school, a lot of interning and a little sleep. Every day as I wake up and get ready for my day I still am in awe that I’m here and having the time of my life.

      Got to visit Bruge on Saturday. It was a beautiful, quaint city. Got to visit a hospital from the 12^th century ( oldest remaining hospital in Europe). And I was surpised to see so much “church” stuff in a museum dedicated to a hospital. The hospital was run by the nuns from the “St. John’s” church in the town, and there were so many statutes and paintings still left from centuries ago that depicted Christ in different ways. It kind of made me sad though because all of the depictions of Jesus were of Him as a baby (wearing a lot more royal kind of clothing than the son of a carpenter I believe Him to be) or on the cross looking so desperate and hurt. I feel like the reality of our Savior was not depicted, the loving, normal, human being that was willing to go above and beyond for his people was nowhere to be found in these pieces of artwork.

      After the church, we went on a canal ride…I guess every small Eureopan town has several canals running through it that you can take boat rides on because somehow everywhere I travel that’s what we end up doing.  Anyway, after that we had some frites for lunch (as usual) and then went to visit the relic of the holy blood, which is a small tube of blood encased in an ornate glass bottle thing. People believe this blood to be some of the actual blood of Jesus Christ. So if you stand in line in this church and then pay a fee, “to keep the church working”, then you can touch the stupid, glass case thing  that is being guarded by an old Priest who prays over it systematically. You touch the case for about five seconds, cross yourself, say a prayer because touching a glass case can do magic, and then leave. As you can probably pick up, I was not exactly happy with this whole thing. The message of the gospel was completely lost in this religious ceremony. The God I serve isn’t in a vile of blood in a piece of glass being guarded by an old guy in a fancy robe, He is with me, comforting me and laughing with me every step of life. Needless to say, I did not touch the glass thingy, but I did consider quitting school and moving to Bruges in order to stand outside the building each day and hand out pamphlets about the real gospel to all the people leaving the church.

      After that experience, we had a carriage ride, climbed a HUGE tower, and eventually headed home. Overall, it was an awesome day with great friends despite the realizations I came to about the different religious symbols in the town. What is funny to me is that Europe is so aethist these days, but their towns scream Jesus…but they scream Jesus from a religious standpoint, not from a best friend, intimate relationship standpoint. Maybe that’s where everything went wrong…

 After Bruge, we celebrated a couple of birthdays of the girls in my program. Ellen, my roommate had several friends in to celebrate her 21^st birthday and Saturday night we had 11 girls sleeping in our apaprtment. Felt like a sorority house, and was SO much fun…My friends kept saying how nice it was for them to see some familiar faces (most of them had one or two friends in town)…and it just made me more excited to see my mom in a few weeks.

Yesterday I had an awesome day at work. I’ve learned just how blessed I am to have this job…great people who invite me to things with them and a great boss who treats me to lunch often. At lunch yesrerday, Lieve (pronounced Leefa) kept talking about how she needed to make a trip to Paris next week in order to go to a few business meetings. She talked on and on and on about Paris…I was like ok lady I get it, you have to go to Paris. And all of a sudden she goes ,”ok so it’s decided…we will go Monday”. I thought my heart was going to stop. Me, an unpaid intern, who doesn’t even know how to copy and paste correctly sometimes is going with YOU to Paris. She smiled and laughed as I freaked out for the next ten minutes about going to Paris with her. What a freakin awesome opportunity. My mom gets mad when I say I’m never coming home….but unless my next job sends me on free trips to Paris, I’m never coming home. Lol just kidding mom.

Anyway…. It’s really neat to come home after a long day of work, put my iPod in and just worship Jesus on my metro and tram ride home. As I’m walking the last bit to my house, I really feel alone, but in a good way. I’ve said time and time again that I wanted this trip to be about me and Jesus learning a little bit more about this crazy world…and every single time I come home from work, He reminds me that its just me and Him. In those moments, I see him smiling down me at all the crazy stuff that’s happening, and I hear His voice comforting me to keep serving Him and holding His hand throughout this whole crazy process. It’s an alone time with my Savior that I have always longed for and pray that the desperate nature I have for Him here won’t diminish when I go home.  It’s funny at first when I got here I was afraid of a lot, and even jumped out of a window because of my fear (and obsession with the movie Taken)…but one night when I was on my trek home from work, the Lord reminded me that He was my rear guard. And later I found the exact verse that he had laid on my heart… for the LORD will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Isaiah 52:12

   Not only is he my rear guard, but he goes before me as well. Now when I start to get fearful, ill whisper to the God of Israel, knowing that He is acting as a shield behind me. I’ve gone through  a lot of scary situations in my life before. My dad, hero and best friend was diagnosed with cancer when I was 18. He almost died several times after that. Looking back, I see how I was on the edge of falling in so many ways, spiritually and emotionally. But there was the God of Israel being my rear guard and hoisting me up with little bits of comfort and hope when all I wanted to do was fall down.  When I didn’t know who I really was and got my heart broken for the millionth time and decided I had no will to go on, there was the Lord going before me putting people (my parents, great friends and awesome mentors), groups (Klife and cheer) and an incredible Kamp in my life in order to show me His UNENDING , UNWAIVERING, UNCHANGING, and UNCONDITIONAL, love for me despite my ability to stand on my own. And now as I walk through the streets of Brussels at night, I feel His powerful, mighty, and strong spirit against my feeble one, ushering me to lean on Him in any and every scary moment that comes my way.

       I truly believe that fear can drive people do some crazy things, I know in my life it has driven me to some hilarious and awful decisions. What if that cloud really turns into a tornado? Well then I guess I’ll sit in the basement all day while my friends enjoy the pool party (something I actually did). What if the lighting strikes the water in the ocean and electrocutes me? Well I guess I’ll just stay on shore (on a stop on a cruise with my family). What if my grades aren’t good enough to get into the right school? Well, I guess then Ill stress out to the point of tears and cause havoc in my household. What if that boy that is supposed to be so amazing and lead me spiritually in a Godly relationship never comes? Well I guess I will settle for jerk number 1,2 and 3 that come my way. What if those boys are really following me home? Well, I guess I have to scale a balcony and scare the Bejesus out of my roommate.  

      I encourage you to remember that the Lord goes before and is your rear guard in every single step of your life. Fear has held me to some stupid stuff, but the more and more I understand about my great Savior, the more I realize that his LOVE, FAITFULNESS, MERCY and STRENGTH is so much bigger than any fear that can cripple my life. Despite my constant failures, I strive each day to depend more and more on Him because I am totally convinced that cannot do this whole life thing on my own. For I know that my God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and of sound mind. 

Love you all,
Bails