"Man does not live on bread alone....but if it's a warm baguette with some brie, you'll make it a while."

The living room in my apartment

The little park downstairs (we live five stories up!)

View of Marseille from my bedroom

The big window that looks out at other apartment buildings

Crepes!! 

The wine stash at church

Another lovely day in Marseille! This morning, I woke up early and had breakfast with my roommate, Bethany. After eating some fruit and drinking a few cups of espresso, we walked over to the church.

Unfortunately, ever since I got here, it has been raining (rather hard and consistently), so we aren't able to do a lot of exploring. But that's okay for today because today was the big spring cleaning that they do a couple of times a year at the church. The church here is very poor, and they can't afford to hire anyone to clean, so they rely on volunteers and interns throughout the year. Thus, I was on my hands and knees scrubbing with sponges and rags for much the morning and afternoon. We also sorted various supplies and cleaned out cabinets. Actually, I knew I was in France for sure when I had to organize the wine shelf AT A CHURCH! Haha that's a fairly significant culture difference between here and back home. Overall, the morning was a good bonding experience for me to get to know the members of the church and missionary families.

After we finished, it was raining so hard that Bethany and I stayed for lunch with the LST interns who live in the apartment over the church. We ate leftovers from the soirée des îles from the night before, and the interns and I talked about college for a couple hours. We compared life at Pepperdine with ACU and our college experiences in general. The four LST interns (David, Hannah, Veronica, and Katrina) are super interesting, and there is much laughter when we all hang out together.

Later this afternoon, Bethany took me to get a copy of our apartment keys made, but it was closed, so we went to an ATM, and I got to go grocery shopping for the first time here. We have a cute little store right by our apartment, and it has a pretty good selection of juices, cheeses, chocolates, fruits, and sweets. For dinner when we got back, I ate a nice, hot baguette and some delicious brie cheese. I think that's one of my favorite meals. Ever. Few things in the world are better than good breads and cheeses. And now as soon as I say that, after dinner when we went back to the LST apartment, we ate crepes. Two French guys our age from the church came and taught us how to make crepes, and we put nutella, whipped cream, homemade brownies, and ice cream on them (the crepes, not the boys. Dangling modifiers can be confusing). And boy, were those some delicious crepes. I have a feeling that I'll be eating pretty well over here, and that's okay with me.

Tomorrow morning is church, so I'm really hoping that I'm not too lost in the service, and that I am able to understand a decent portion of what I'm hearing. Cheers!