Paris and Revelations

So it's been a while since my last blog; I've decided that I'm not the best at keeping up with these things. I'd like to believe that that's because I'm too busy out and doing stuff. That's a good reason, I'd suppose.
The past month and a half have brought a lot of changes to my life here. For starters, I changed host families a few days after my birthday (mid-June). It's not that I was being starved at my old house or anything, but the old host mom and sister just weren't really around. I really enjoy having someone to talk to, having family dinners. It was kind of difficult to arrange much 'hanging out' with friends because of my busy work schedule, as well as being exhausted at the end of the day.
Long story short, I moved in with the Festers, the family of an exchange student buddy of mine. They are a mama, a papa, and three wonderful and wild 12 year old triplet boys. We have breakfast together every morning (I enhanced the breakfast table array with peanut butter) and swim, ride bikes, and watch movies in English together. That last part is a demand from my host father; if the boys are going to watch movies with Super Nanny (my newly established nickname), they have to be in English. This way, the native speaker can answer any questions! Overall, I am very happy with my new family and know that I have, once again, established some true friends for life.
As far as work goes, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I am quite ready to be finished. I enjoy my internship, but it is quite a lot of scanning, copying, and sorting of papers; a little too much butt-on-seat action for me.
I am sitting on the Thalys train from Paris right now. I left Cologne on Friday evening and rode through Aachen and Brussels- the train also made a bonus stop at "Middle of a Field". The train in front of us broke down, so I sat arranging photos and listening to music. Every time the announcer came on to say something (in French), everyone would gasp. I acted mildly surprised; I couldn't arch my eyebrows as high as I would have had I understood what was being said.
I got to my youth hostel at around 11:30 and thankfully plodded into my room, where I met my roommate, a sweet, young English teacher from Taiwan.
The next day I work up early, scarfed some breakfast, and headed for the Eiffel Tower. It was kind of surreal seeing it- it made me think of my first time in Germany and seeing castles. Here I ran into two Canadian girls- we spent about 3 hours together, plodding around in the field in front of the Eiffel, viewing a shooting wall from the Revolution times, eating fresh Boulangerie pastries, and exploring the gardens of the Louvre museum. We parted, and I went to find Caitlin.
Cait and I finally met up in the late afternoon after some Metro (subway) issues, but we found it! We walked around for hours, visiting some great thrift shops at the suggestion of her French friend, and we finally plopped down for a wonderful pizza and salad dinner at 8:30. We walked along the river, evaded some creepers, and headed back to the youth hostel for some wine and good conversation.
After a quick view of the Arc de Triomphe and an unsuccessful search for barets, we said au'voir.
I grabbed some lunch in the Gare du Nord train station. There was suddenly a free seat, and I asked the young girl sitting nearby if I could intrude. Mathilde, a beautiful red head with Bohemian dress, was a wonderful lunch companion. She had just returned from the Czech Republic where she was learning about farming techniques. We exchanged emails and I hope to see her again!

Now that it's coming to the end of my time here, I can honestly say that I am ready to be coming home. Europe is beautiful, and I am so thankful for all that I have been able to see and do, but I am ready to see my family, ready to lay in my bed with my dogs, and ready to get into the fall semester. I found out, too, that I got an internship in a school in southern India. I'll be teaching English at the Bridge School, an NGO-founded center for holistic education. I am very, very grateful for this and excited to see where it leads me. I feel that I want to teach- I realize how much I love working with children and worldly, natural education is a beautiful thing. I hope to be a good conveyer of this gift.

This will quite possibly be my last blog. As is noted, I just haven't really been writing much lately. I guess I've been experiencing so much that I have to process it all first!
Thanks for reading. I wish you all well and a wonderful life.
Liebe Gruesse,
Hylary