PARIS!!!!!!!!!!

Peace momument that an american designed it was pretty cool.

Yah here is two famous mater pieces me and the mona lisa i dunno who is better its you call.
Musee du luvre yah get the pass because one day isnt long enough to stay in there and its good for a year so talk jerry into getting it for you (next group)
My family came to visit wow that was so much fun then Jerry invited us all to dinner at his house and we met olgas parents and everyone stood around the baby admiring the cute kid. Danny is awesome and will lead a promising life learning russain, french and english. Just for starters. But then jerry asked them to join us for mass at notre dame on sunday and that was awesome so they got to come there to i got to see them alot Jerry was very nice in negtionating the scedule so i could be with my family because they came for three nights.

The sister and myself standing in front of the tower.
Yah this is awesome its so pretty when it is lit up.

Paris first night

Picture is from underneath the tower with a cool feature on my camera. (I am meeting my mom sister and leann here tomorrow i havnt seen them in 2 months)

Awe its the group shot that every group will do so julie can keep a nice record of us.
It flashes every hour its pretty cool
Regular shot in the day time.

Random blog

Today is Teddys birthday the baby in the group turning 19 today and we still beat him in monopoly. Tomorrow we are going to the University of Abli where we meet a class of french students studying english. 18 girls no guys boy i wish i had that class in loretto. 7 Days till PARIS stoked about that. Another good thing about France besides being able to drink is losing weight i feel i eat more here but i lost 10 pds and its good healthy food. My mom sister and sisters friend are meeting me in paris so i get to see them very soon. This is my in a mine that was redone so we could walk through and view its history.(I think green is my color)
Toulouse down a street its a nice city.
Low flying plane that lindsay made fun of me because i took a picture of it.
A church in Toulouse it was very very nice and the wood work is insane.
In the middle you will see another picture of our house its pretty awesome except when you bike and have to come back up the hill from the other side.

Theres big jim standing infront of the worldest largest brick structure in a town about 2o minutes where i am from were a pint of heineken is 5.80 euro

castle in the sky

Yes that is a castle on that mountain and it took 15 minutes not stop to climb to it view was priceless though.
Eric and I at the first castle of the day explaining how the archers had one hole but 3 men in each hole.
Short rest break while driving and the town down below.
A view from the castle in the sky we were a stones throw away from a helicopter that was video taping the castle so hopefuly we will be on tv or a documentary at some point.

Stain glass windows inside of one of the churches.

john shot a 6 pack-and notre dame or sister church who helped out our college over here

We went to a festival and john decided it would be alot of fun to shoot a gun at a booth. In france they use real guns. John did very well with the rifle and won a small pellet handgun. Next he took his hand at a double barrelled shot gun and accidently shot her 6 pack of beer that was laying on the floor underneath her jacket and was oozing beer on the side. He felt bad and gave her money for the beer he just shot gunned and we laughed for about 30 minutes then again on the way home when we told tim. This is the inside of Notre Dame our sister church. It only a small church till they added on the big octagon section in this picture. We got to climb to the bell tower and play the bells Jerry yet again surpised us with the never ending list of things he can do.
That is a snakes skin from brazil and along with many of different animals brought back from brazil.
The room was filled and i want one of those for my house.
Treasures $$$$$$$$$

Conques

Eric is a really interesting teacher i wanted to buy this tipinain* not sure the spelling exactly but they are scenes on a church that tell us a story. This scene is the judgement day where God seperates the good from the evil. I bought a part of it bc the one i wanted was alot of money and kinda difficult to ship back home.

Lunch was good the french like olives on everything esp pizza so me and teddy split a pizza and salad special and it was good i just picked off the olives.


Monday morning we had to be ready early because tim went to abli to pick up eric bc we had another pligrimage that day this time to conques. I get the felling people just got tired of walking and said this is where we build a church bc they are always on a side of a hill and its very rough terrain.

first pilgrimage

Thursday afternoon one of our art history teacher came in to teach us about the two church we are heading to on friday. We had to be up and on the road at 8am . Anyways we went into town with eric because they had a sound and light show. The only sound i heard was how the prye which we live is is now lived in by college students who are from PA. The rest was mostly history of the town it was very pretty since they turned off all the lights in town and used controls to turn on the bridge the church and the other buildings. So we walked back up the hill to out home and it was about 1230ish when we got into beds. I woke up and got into the car and on our way there eric was still telling us how these churches were built and everything and i was really excited.

The second church was amazing this organ was the biggest and most unique one i have ever seen before.

After a long day we were all tired so we got back ate and pretty much just all fell asleep . Saturday we went kayaking and then later that night we went down to Nadeines were i got some Heikens that i was excited to order on my own. Today we got up and went to church and now we are just laying around writing our blogs.

Jason The British guy with the chainsaw

I left off talking about a BBQ we were susposed to attend. We went to Jason's house which was beautiful it had a nice pool but it was a bit to chilly to swim. I played with there dog oscar while drinking a nice cold heiken. It was amazing place there were people from different countries but they all spoke english so it was nice to be able to talk to them easily. A british couple with there daughter were really nice they were Lovely(british accent). Anyways i met Peter and Margret who were two very well local known peter rents the bikes and Margret sings in the choir. We ate and ate and then after we ate we ate some more. There was so much food. But then Peter told us a story about how two families were in huge fight some years ago and now its a ghost story. Jason was joking around about how there was a chainsaw man who haunts the monestary. This is after we been talking about movies like saw 1-4 with i think everyone over here loves. Anyways this dinner and meeting was for the baptism of a young girl. We got up for church in the morning were lindsay said in french I love to call myself lindsay to the priest which speaks very little english but we had tim there to straighten out her mistake. The church is lovely and it was so nice. After mass we toured the family around the monestary so they could see the wonderful place we have. Later on that night we went into abli to see the fireworks and go to a carnival we picked up maddy who was the Godmother and she came with us. We played one game at the carnival which i one it was a punching machine. Tim drove us back up to the castle ruins where we stood about 40 feet from the hill and we got slammed on the ashes coming down. I talked to one of maddys friend who was in England so i thought i would talk to her it wasnt the best convo i had but it was fun. After we got home we were all tired and just passed out. Monday our first day of class arrived at last it was amazing i learned so much of french in one day than i did in 2 years. Tim gave us the go ahead to go get our bikes so us four headed out on bikes cause we had to be back at 6 pm we went down along the tarn river then it started to go uphill......mountians so teddy had is head phones in and lindsay and john turned around so i chased lance armstrong up and up and up then i was like he can find his way home haha so i turned around and headed home i got back to the bike garage in town where peter tim john and lindsay were there talking so i stopped and then the four of us minues peter came back up the huge hill to get to our monestary. Needless to say we all were tired but class was still fun and interesting after class we ate then tim left his car down at the bike shop so me john tim and lindsay walked with him at 11 oclock at night in a small rural town. I used a flashlight i thought i wouldnt use (THANKS MOM). We got the car came back where we met up with teddy to study a lil french before bed.

First day and night in France

I left about 1030 from Johnstown to get to pittsburgh. We got to pittsburgh where i checked my bags in and got the tickets. After that i met up with lindsay and met her family. 15 minutes later i met up with teddy where the three of us went to the gate we just sat around i called john saying we were getting ready to get on the plane he was still at home bc he was flying out of new york. We landed in detroit motor city and teddy and i went to the pga shop and played the 7th hole at pebble beach where teddy beat me by one stroke. Anyways it was about time to leave teddy was on a different flight so he walked to gate 30 when me and lindsay walked to gate 64 where she realized she was on his flight not mine so she had to run to his since he was leaving in like 15 minutes. So i got on my plane sat next to a nice guy who was retired from the navy. I watched iron man and 88 minutes and slept very little. After the 7 and a half hour plane flight i was beat but i still had to go through customs in amsterdam after that i had one flight to go. I was able to get through the long line with a kid from the States he liked my shoes bc he had the same pair so we talked about that and how he went to west point and my study abroad program after that we wished each other luck and went on our different ways. I was walking through amsterdam airport when i hear JIM JIM JIM it was lindsay and teddy sitting in this cafe looking area where there were walls of wine and liquors. Then we got on to the flight and it was only a 90 minute flight. Once in Toulouse we got the bags and headed for the door where a tall man with a red shirt asked if we needed a play to stay for the night it was tim. After tim showed us to the car he talked about the cities we passed and how we will go to the french college and eat with other students. Anyways we pulled into house(huge monestary) and john was waiting there to greet us and show us to our rooms. The places they redid are amazing. Anyways after we ate dinner which was amazing and the bread is as good as i heard. We sat outside for a little and talked then i came back unpacked and fell asleep. Good morning i woke up and start to write this blog and right before lunch i deleted in by accident so this is a new one since i deleted the old one. We ate lunch which was also very good and then tim had us walk down and meet the towns people. We have a BBQ at 630 it is now 5:17. My afternoon consisted of climbing and that pretty much it. Tim left us about 1:30 because he wanted to go see the people who are having the party if he needed to bring anything so it was our first time alone in france we decided to climb and climb we did. But the pictures we got were amazing we climbed to the ruins of a castle across the town from our castle in the sky. Anyways enjoy reading the rest of my blogs once i get them up and enjoy the photos because they speak for themselves.