I love Paris...

                                                        I will, triumph...                      

                                                               Me and the Eiffel Tower

                                            

So, this is the video that I took at midnight at the Eiffel Tower. The only problem is that I took it with my camera and held it long ways not knowing that I cannot turn the picture around. If anyone knows how to fix this, help would be welcome. For now you can see the most important parts by tilting your head. It is rubbish recording but some people will never see the Eiffel and I thought it would be cool to put it up! (Bonne Annee) means Happy New Years in French. You will hear it many times! 

Hello everyone and Happy New Years from Belfast! I celebrated New Years with my good friends Sarah and Jessica in Paris France (along with a crowd of people we made friends with in France). It was wonderful! I have posted some of the many, many hundreds of pictures I took over the week long trip. We saw everything, the Mona Lisa, the Eiffel Tower, the architecture from a river boat up the Seine River. It was so very nice to get a change of scenery from Belfast. Although it was colder than Belfast...I know, hard to believe. It is so wonderful to be able to change your view for a while, what a blessing to get to spend a week in France. All I knew how to say was please, thank you, yes, no and I am sorry. Somehow we got by with flying colors. There were times where we were at a loss because of the language barrier, but hey...that is half the fun right? 

The best part of the trip was when we came back to Belfast and all three of us girls, all just having rung in our fourth month in this place calling it "home". Something so very important that I have learned this year is that the concept of home can be so many things. Although my real home in Texas is what my heart is missing and yearning for sometimes...Belfast somehow feels like home for now. What a gift to be glad to come home...come back to our friends and "family" that we have built in N. Ireland. How incredible it is that after a mere four months we feel comfortable in the unfamiliar. 

I hope that all of you in this 2008 year we have just begun all find a home. A place where you heart is, if only for a time. Also I hope that all of you can find community and strength within your most unexpected places. May God bless all of you in this new year! 

Bonne Annee friends!

Melissa