Today.

Caught up with my blogging. Whew.

I really enjoyed Chartres. We arrived late yesterday afternoon, and I bought an hour of internet so that I could check my emails and pay some bills (boo.) I was greeted with over 40 emails (felt a little bit loved :)) and two not so fun bills to pay.

After that, I wandered to the cathedral. It is beautiful and huge. I arrived just before 6:15 mass, so I decided to stay. I was glad to be myself (that is to say, without Wake Forest kids) in the vast, dark cathedral, and even more glad that there was a mass. I didn't understand everything that was being said, and considering I'm not Catholic I didn't know the parts of the mass. But, I did understand most of the homily. And for me, God is God of all. Denominations don't matter. I definitely felt His presence in the cathedral, and was truly awed by the fact that I was worshipping in a cathedral that is hundreds and hundreds of years old.

Dinner last night was delicious. Made up for some of the not so good meals we had on this trip. After dinner, we'd planned to go to a discotheque. However, we quickly learned that nothing is really open on Mondays. So, we all hung out in the guys' room and watched Miss Italia, an italian beauty pageant. Hilarious. And our pick didn't win. We were all rather miffed.

This morning we took an offical tour of the cathedral. An older gentleman gave us our tour. He was so cute and spoke really clearly. And you could just tell that he was an encyclopedia of knowledge about the cathedral. We went down into the crypts and saw the ancient foundations of the church, and then he taught us a lot about the facade and the stained glass windows inside.

I think the trip to Normandy has been my favorite so far. We saw such a wide variety of things, and the group had so much fun hanging out together.

I'll be 20 in less than three hours. Well, I guess not quite, considering I wasn't born in the French time zone and so really I guess I have to wait until its midnight back home. I sadly cannot celebrate tonight because we have a test tomorrow (boo). But, I think we're going to try to make up for it tomorrow night and Thursday night...we don't have classes on Friday! The guys are heading to Munich for Oktoberfest and most of the girls are heading to Geneva. I'm excited to go to Geneva...its only a few hours away by train, and I have a friend studying there this semester, so I'll get to see her.

Anyway, I'm interested to see how this birthday will feel. Probably a lot different, since I'm not home. I mean in some ways, its going to be a whole heck of a lot cooler. I don't care who you are, getting to celebrate your 20th birthday in a foreign country that serves great food and wine with a bunch of really awesome people around you is pretty darn awesome.

But, there's a little part of me hungering for a simple, normal, familiar birthday in good ol' North Carolina.