À Bientôt, France

In just another hour, I'll be hopping on a bus that will take me from Ambialet to Toulouse. From there, the group will fly to Paris, where we will (weather permitting) board a plane leaving at 4:40 pm France time to arrive in D.C. around 7 pm EST.

I wish I had taken the time to post more frequently this last week, as I could probably write a dissertation on the past few days here alone. But with final exams and tearful goodbyes, doing so just wasn't realistic. Still, I need to write one final post:

Europe has been very good to me. The highlight of my entire time here has undoubtedly been getting engaged to my best friend. I could not be more excited to come home and see you, Alek. That clock never seemed so alive as it did in Paris and Rome. We need a lifetime together in order to make up for how fast the time goes by.

Secondly, I think about how lucky I am to have been able to visit 4.5 countries (counting the Vatican) in three short months. Little pieces of Barcelona, London, Paris, Rome, and the Vatican are with me wherever I go now, and I think that's pretty spectacular.

Finally, I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to get to know some incredible people along the way. Living at Le Prieure has been nothing short of an unforgettable adventure. I've had the time of my life, and I owe it all to you.

À bientôt, France. I'll be seeing you.

The Pronino Foundation

With Thanksgiving quickly appoaching, I have been giving great thought to everyone and everything in my life that I have to be grateful for (as cliche as that may sound). And as I count my numerous blessings, I frequently think about the street kids who forever touched my life in Honduras. About one and a half years ago, I traveled to Honduras with my university to The Pronino Foundation, an orphanage that has been organized to take children as young as three or four years old off the streets. Nearly all of the children living at Pronino have, at some point, been involved with gangs, drugs, abuse, or a combination of all three. The story of every boy there is really nothing short of a miracle. They have experienced more suffering than you or I can imagine, yet these kids are now the happiest, most thankful people I have ever met--all because of Pronino. Their resiliency is absolutely admirable; their joy for life is something that we should all be striving for on a daily basis.

It's my hope that all of the boys I met in Honduras will someday be able to go out on their own, land a successful job, and continually spread more of the same love and kindness that they showed me. As such, I strongly urge anyone out there in the blogspot world who wants to make a charitable donation this holiday season to consider Pronino. I can promise you that the boys there will genuinely appreciate it.

http://www.pronino.org/default.aspx

Love Story

Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl. In their younger years, they both wondered the crowded halls of Damascus High School, talking to each other on the way to their lockers at the beginning of the day and back to their buses at the end of it. Fast forward five and a half unforgettable years, and the boy flies to Europe to visit the girl. He bought tickets to Rome and back to Paris. On their first Friday in Paris together, the two visited some of the girl’s favorite places in the City of Lights, including Notre Dame de Paris, the Musee d’Orsay, and the Latin Quarter.

If that wasn’t enough, the two decided to take a twilight ride up the Eiffel Tower. From the tippy top, they could see one particularly bright spot beneath them. This light would just so happen to mark the place where their lives would soon change. After descending from the very top of Le Tour Eiffel, the two stopped to get dinner at Carrefour, the French take on Giant or Safeway, buying a five-star dinner that consisted of pre-made salads, French bread, and Nutella. After a picnic dinner in the Splendid Hotel that the boy had reserved for his stay, the two went to the balcony to admire the best view of the Eiffel Tower in all of Paris.

Now since this balcony was just barely large enough for one person to sit down on, the boy, being the gentleman that he has always been, let the girl sit down (on a towel, of course, so that she wouldn’t get cold) while he thoughtfully situated himself next to her from inside the room. It was around 11 o’clock when the Eiffel Tower shimmered as it does on every hour of the evening, and the girl noticed that the boy was on both of his knees. At first, she didn’t really think anything of it because of the foot-long height difference between the room and the window leading to the balcony. Then, before the girl had any idea of what was happening, one of the boy’s knees lifted from the ground and he asked her to marry him!

They’re going to live together happily ever after.

The trip of a lifetime.

It's been three weeks since my last post, and oh what a three weeks it has been. I have mastered the Parisian Metro system, walked the narrow streets of Rome in its entirety, and driven the length of France back to my home in Ambialet. In these past twenty days, I have made memories to last a lifetime with the best of friends and I am eternally grateful for each moment along the way.

Of everything I was able to see and experience in these past few weeks, I am most excited to announce to the world my engagement to my best friend and the love of my life. Thank you so much, Alek, for taking the time off from school to meet me in Europe (and for pulling off the amazing surprise without me having even the slightest clue). Our adventures together were better than anything else and I am absolutely thrilled at the idea of being able to spend the rest of my life with you.

To my friends and family back home: I fully intend to update this blog as frequently as possible with all of my best stories from Paris and Rome (and oh golly-gee-whiz is there a lot of them). If I fail to do a good job at this or am MIA for awhile, please forgive me. I still have a month left of classes here in Ambialet, as well as grad school applications to complete.

I miss you all bunches and love you lots,
Melanie