Friday, June 7, 2013

A long, but wonderful, Thursday

Because I was asleep at 8:30, and was still overrun with many emotions of being so far away from home and in such a new place, I was awake Thursday morning around 3:45am, wide awake and feeling homesick.  Happily realizing that it was only almost 10pm, I sent a text home and hearing from my parents made me feel a lot better.  However, I still had the problem of not being able to fall asleep.  So, from 4am until our 7am breakfast, I finished reading Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, which I finally got to read this trip.  (Sidenote: The Notebook an amazing book!  I loved it!  And it helped me get back into reading for fun which I haven't been able to do in quite some time, so I am quite thankful I was able to have the time to read it.)

Anyway, at breakfast we wished the Brothers a good day as they left for school and assured them that we would be alright on our own for the day without them there, about which they were quite concerned.  In fact, I was really looking forward to a day on our own since we had been kept so busy the few days previous.

After our breakfast, we hung around for a bit, showered and then set out.  For the second day in a row, we visited the Checkers (which is like a Walmart) around the corner, and then took advantage of the beautiful sun, sitting out on the patio of the priory reading.  

At 5:50pm, there was knock on our door inviting us to come to evening prayer and Mass, so we took advantage of the offer and joined the brothers for Mass.  As soon as Mass was over, we met up with Br. Philippe to have dinner at his friend Marie-Chantal's house.  We didn't realize how extravagant this meal would be!  At Marie-Chantal's beautiful apartment, we had a delicious four-course dinner, and we re stuffed by the end of it!  At dinner, we met Nokhaya and Clifford who we would be working with at Sinomlando in the coming weeks.  

After such a lovely meal, and having been up since 3:30 that morning, I could not have gotten myself to bed fast enough once we returned to the priory.  That was a good thing, because our work at Sinomlando began bright and early Friday morning!

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