First Impressions with Priests...

As you recall from one of my first blogs when introducing myself to the priest that does mass at our church I messed it up ... completely!! When trying to say "my name is" I ended up saying something like... I love to call myself.. Well, being an elderly priest, the following weekend when we returned to mass, he forgot he even met us!! I was on the clear on that one! :)

So after visiting the cathedral in Albi, we invited the head priest over for dinner. (that's who our guests were....when I was setting the table and lost Speedy!). He had gone to this monastery as his schooling a long time ago. So Tim, our directory, and Gerry, our professor gave him a tour of the building and showed him what it is becoming into today. Well, earlier I threw in a load of laundry that didn't need dried, just needed hung. Being it was personal belongings, I wasn't going to put them out on the clothes line, rather in my room on the coat rack. So I get my stuff out of the washer & put it in the clothes basket. Truck along up the stairs, make a turn and what do I know... I see Gerry, Tim, and Father all standing... riighhhttt theree! So Gerry introduces me to him, mean while I have a basket full of bras!! Oh boy was I embarassed!!

Some reason these first time meetings, just haven't been going too well for me! haha. I asked Tim later, and he said no one saw what was in the basket... I lucked out on that one!! :)

Have a greaattt dayyy!!

Speedy :]

Okay.. If you know my boyfriend at all, you know he loves his animals, especially reptiles! I guess you could say it kind of grew on me and I don't mind them now myself, either...

There are wild lizards here that just run everywhere.. They must have sticky things on their feet because they can run up and down the outside of the monastery!

I walked into my bathroom the other day and there was one in there! Well.. hahaha. the walls in the bathroom are smooth and he could not climb up them. So I had him trapped in a corner! :) :) Well I ended up catching him. Now, you have to understand these things are.. FAST! Like, really fast. So I was trying to be extra careful walking back into my room with him because I scared him the one time and he started running. I dropped him and he ran under a door.. Now I had to chase him and catch him again! No worries, I did! Jim gave me a shoe box so I could keep him in. I wanted to name him "fast" in french... but fast is rapide, and I thought that would just be silly. Teddy and Jim wanted to name him Pedro or something, I didn't like that either. So I stuck with Speedy. Well Speedy could climb the sides of the shoebox, so... I had him in Teddy's room and sure enough he got out. Uh oh! Well Teddy trapped him under his hands, I brought the shoebox over and we caught him! Thennnn, I had him on my desk and was trying to call my mom and he got out again! Well I got the shoebox and caught him myself. Then it was time to set the table because we were having guests over. So I put him in the shoebox with a piece of toilet paper to give him something to play with and put him in the corner of the bathroom & shut the door... I came back up after setting the table... & Speedy was gone. I looked and looked and looked, I couldn't find him anywhere. Janie, Tim's girlfriend, was nervous because he was in our bathroom!! Oh well.. I think Speedy is gone now and is living his own life :) Here are a few pictures I got of him, while I had him.. :) :)

Au Revoir Speedy <3

Albi

Tuesday, September 23, we visited Albi. We've gone here to do shopping and hang around the city before, but this time Gerry took us into the cathedral called "La cathedrale Sainte-Cecile d'Albi." Saint Cecile Cathedral, built from 1282-1380, was consecrated on April 23rd 1480. The Last Judgement was painted at the end of the 15th century. The statuary, the scultpures of the Jube, the enxloser of the Great Choir were finished in 1485. The vault and the walls were painted in 1512. The Great Organ was built from 1734-1736, and restored in 1981. The new altar was consecrated in 1980. [Thanks to the brochure we received..with parts in English!! I thought it was interesting and you'd like to know.] We also learned this is the tallest standing brick builing as of today... check it out... :]

If you look reallll closely, you can see me at the bottom!! :)

The Organ. As you may notice all of these old cathedrals have amazing organs!

This is Saint Cecile. She is laying on her side, which is a very uncommon way to have a statue lay. Most are on their backs with hands on their chest. She is laying as so, and if you notice her ear is facing up. This is because she was the saint of listening; that everything in the world is just about listening.

The choir.

Excurion Quatre.

Friday, September 19th: fourth & final field trip with Eric. We went to Toulouse and visited the Dominican order; Inquisition; Les Jacobins; Saint Sernin; and Place du Capitole. This is where Eric lives so he knew this city too well! Toulouse, compared to Pennsylvania, could be kind of compared to Pittsburgh.. Here are some pictures of our day....

We were ontop of a car garage; looking over the city

The one street was soo small that you could touch each side by standing in the middle!

Towards the back of the cathedral, there was a mirror so that you could look down and
see the ceiling, so visitors were not hurting their necks staring up.

It was an interesting day. Gerry then let us go shopping.. oh no!! I found this cute store full of shoes.. Well.... I ended up leaving with 4 new pairs!! :) haha it soo made my day! They're super cute, and it was a really good deal!
Well that's all for now.. I'll put more pictures up soon!!!

Au revoir!!
Dieu bénissent

boys will be boys

Soo.. there are no pictures for this blog but some of the silly things that have been going that really didn't fit in any of the other blogs....

We were sitting in class one day before our 3rd field trip & Jim goes "I like castles." Well, Teddy being silly goes in the strangest high pitch, girly voice "i liiiike castles." So, this is an ongoing thing now, and every time it is still freaking funny!

Well... it's football season now and for any of you football fans, you probably know about the fantasy football leagues.. OH BOY! Breakfast, Lunch, Supper, in between.... this is ALLLL they talk about! It's soo bad that I actually had a dream a few nights ago that I WAS PLAYING FOOTBALL! Okay. This is enough of that! hahaha.

Then, if they're not talking about football, they are playing ping pong.. there is only so much ping pong a girl can watch, holy moly!

Teddy video tapes everything everywhere we go... Well Jim realized he can record videos on his camera too. Oh boyyy. They went for a tour of the house today. But silly boys, made their videos 25 minutes (+). The files are so large that they will not fit onto their computers haha.

Okay, there are these wasps here that are the size of like ugh i dont even know.. but they are like 10 times the size of a wasp in PA! They are HUUGEEE! Well, one got in the kitchen today and ooh boyyy. hahaha. Tim decided he would kill it.. Well he got a spatula and as the wasp was flying towards Tim, he took the spatula and hit it like a freaking baseball! haha. it was FLYINGGG across the kitchen! Oh my gosh, it was too freaking funny! It was a "you had to be there" type of thing..

Well now I caught you up on some of the silly things boys do... (:

Excurion Trois.

Tuesday September 16th was our third field trip! We visited Carcasonne and Montsegur castles. It was an interesting day. It was a day full of breathtaking views. We wondered about the inside of a castle, which was basically a small village with all kinds of shops and places to eat at, and climbed the side of a mountain to see the remains of an old castle. On our way to Carcasonne (which was a two hour drive) Eric, our professor, told us we were not allowed to sleep on the way. "You Americans tend to fall asleep whenever going for rides," he commented. haha. I'm glad none of us slept or we would have missed out on some amazing views.. Here are some pictures of our day!

These were the views we stopped along on the way.
(both top & bottom)

Above is a picture of the castle we walked throughout. This was Carcasonne.

Inside of the walls...

This was looking out of the holes in the walls over the village.

This was Montsegur. The remains of a castle...WAYY up there!! We had to walk!

One of the amazing views from the Castle reuins.

Me & the boys

Yet another, breathtaking view.

Leaving the remains...THAT is where we were!

Girls day out!

WOO HOO! Now this is what I'm talking about!! Me, Janie, and Julie had a girls day in Albi. Janie is Tim (our director)'s girlfriend and as most of you may know, Julie is the director for the study abroad program at Saint Francis. Her and her husband Bob (pictures of them were in the previous blog) came over for a week. It was a blast having them here! We did soo much. But anyways...back to the day out. It was nice to get away from the boys and actually go shopping with girls. Looking in the same stores, at the same stuff... it was soo much nicer than being stuck by yourself. Normally when we go out, the boys will go in their store, I will go in mine, and we'll meet up down the road.. boring! It was a much needed day. We stayed out a little later than planned but it was so much fun! After returning, we had dinner with the whole crew, sat around talking about a little bit of this... a little bit of that. Then came upstairs to watch Wedding Crashers. It was perfect. Unfortunately Julie and Bob left us today..but that's okay they have a few days in Paris! Now she can tell us a few hints about Paris to prepare us for our first trip! Well.... sorry there were no pictures, but I had to share this :) :)

Dinner & Music!

Wednesday, September 10 We had a dinner gathering at our house. After the dinner we had people showing off talents left and right! Between guitars, fiddles, and singing the night was full of fun! The dinner, again, was a 5 course meal. Food food and more food!! :) At our dinner we had near 20 people. Nadine, she owns a cafe right down in the village. We go to her for lunch often, and ALWAYS stop in for some ice cream. ;) Her husband is the mayor. So between the two of them, they basically run everything that goes on! Then there were Peter & Margret. They are soo soo nice. They are a British couple who also live right in the village. They speak English, so it helps us out a lot! They are in charge of the choir at church. Very talented in the music field!! They brought one of their friends, Dick. He played the fiddle. Peter and Margret also run the bike shops where we rent our bicycles fromThen there were architects who came; they are working on the church and all the renovations going on within the monestary. Well that basically sums of the evening soo..here are pictures! :)

Music beginss!

This is Dick, Margret, and Peter

I was standing on the other side of the table and trying
to get a picture of everyone;
Teddy took one at the same time! It looks kinda cool :)

everyonee :)

Me, Margret, Jim, Peter, & Teddy

This is our professor in the red (Gerry) &
the director of the program in the black (Tim).
Here, Gerry was singing .. talk about amazing! I don't
think there is anything this man cannot do!

Peter & Margret. Nicest couple you'll ever meet

Julie & Bob :) Words cannot even describe these two. They are that great.

Here is the mayor of the town, Nadine's husband.

A night full of fun... a night that will always be remembered