Saying Goodbyes

Today is our last full day in our little apartment in Perigueux France. I am going to miss it. I will miss our two single beds smooshed together. I will miss my little toaster oven I baked everything in. I will miss hearing the highs chool students every night at 6 o'clock yelling in the hallway after they are done with school. I will miss running along the voire vert (the river). Today I went on my last run past the horse pastures. What a beautiful area we have lived in.

We've had a busy 2 1/2 weeks. My parents flew into Nice and we met them there 2 weeks ago. We had such a blast exploring the little villages along the Mediterranean Sea like St. Paul, Eze and St. Laurent. We rode bikes along the Promenade des Anglais. My bike was broken and I rode for forty five minutes before stopping and telling Kyle "I think something is wrong". Everybody else was just gliding along and there I was sweating and peddling fast to keep up. I counted it as my exercise for the day. We visited Monaco and ate a fabulous meal near the prince's palace. Don't tell anyone but he's pretty ugly looking. After 5 days in Nice we rented a car and drove 11 hours to Perigueux. And we laughed the whole way. They gave us a compact car (we even told them how much luggage we had) and we played tetris to get all our stuff in.  You couldn't see out the back window with all the luggage and my mom and I couldn't see each other in the back because we had another carryon in the middle. Memories. We visited Sarlat, Oradour, Bordeaux, St. Emilion, and of course Perigueux. We played golf and I got a par! We visited castles and drove through the beautiful French countryside. And don't forget the amazing food along the way including fois gras (duck liver pate). But before meeting my parents Kyle and I spent a few days in Aix-En-Provence. I fell in love. I love how each region of France is so different. I am so happy where we got put in the Dordogne but I wouldn't mind someday living in the French Provence. Such beautiful colors and smelly things they have there.

 Crazy windy up where Cezane did his famous painting of Mt. Victoria and Kyle looking like Alfalfa

My new favorite flower-it's everywhere here 

 

Eze

Us in a cool picture frame in Monaco

Roadtrip

 Bordeaux, Place de la Bourse

Chateaux Hautfort--the castle where the movie Ever After was filmed. It's like 45 minutes from my house!

The members in Perigueux threw us a surprise going away party. I almost cried seeing everyone there to greet us. I went around to everyone in the circle giving the customary bisous to say hello. I'm going to miss that. I'm going to miss the sweet members here who have treated us like family. This is the first ward that we've really felt apart of. Members gave us fancy chocolate, I got some sweet green shoes, and we got a plaque with painted monuments in Perigueux. We ate good food and then danced til midnight to techno music. What an awesome branch we had

 

Me and Remi, my best bud in Primary

We've said a lot of goodbyes this week. We ate dinner with a family we are close to. We drank grapejuice with the kids we taught English to. We had a picnic in Brantome with our lovely friends from Britain. It doesn't seem real that we're leaving. It feels like home here.

My dad left last Monday to go back to work and my sweet mom stayed to help us pack and clean up the place. We are almost done. Hopefully we don't go over our luggage weight limits thanks to mom and pops helping out! We leave tomorrow by train to spend our last 6 days in Paris. We can't wait. Then it's goodbye to France (hopefully not for too long) and hello to America!