jenna's paris journal: mise à jour

A lot has happened in the last two weeks. I went back to school from the holidays, Chris Ramento came to visit for 10 days, and Nicole Serleto and Nathan Reim stayed with us while they were visiting from Florence. It was so great to have visitors--we miss our friends and family so much! Especially having Chris here so long was great because we already know him so well... he honestly felt like our fourth roommate! It was great just relaxing and living here with him. Come back from Scotland, Chris!!

Also, I have been getting more involved at the American Church in Paris, and I really like it! They have a great young adults group that meets weekly for discussion/bible study and I have met some really great people. They are also very service-minded. Becca and I went to a homeless shelter/soup kitchen last Saturday and it was a really great experience. It is run by the Missionary Sisters of Charity Roman Catholic order (founded by Mother Theresa), and all of the Sisters were so kind and committed to their mission. It was really neat to serve the homeless people (there were about 400 who came in that morning) and get to talk with them a little. I am amazed that they open the kitchen every day for such a large and extensive meal to so many people. I was really blessed to be a part of it and I hope I can go back soon.

Last Friday, Kara, Chris and I got to see Andrew Bird at the Casino de Paris. He is an incredibly talented one-man-band. He plays the violin, picks the violin strings, plays guitar, whistles, and has an amazing voice. He records all of the instruments while on stage first, then has them repeat so the song progresses. Beauty. Other than a weird, long intro and one of his guitars not being tuned properly before his first real song, it was a great show.

Me and Chris before the show