Bonne Pâques

Sauzet

Bonne Pâques à tous! Happy Easter everyone! This weekend was full of great food, lots of fast French, extremely long masses, and an outing in search of sun. Saturday night, I joined my host family at their parish's Easter Vigil. The cathedral lit by candles was a gorgeous way to bring in the new season.

Poët-poët-poët laval

 Yesterday, for Easter Sunday, I got to join them on their yearly jaunt south. We were in search of sun and picturesque medieval villages. The sun didn't come out until about 2pm, but the villages we visited were absolutely beautiful (really, a tourist's dream) and almost silent. Almost everything is closed on Sunday in France, so on Easter Sunday, absolutely nothing is open. Somehow, with lots of luck, we were able to find a tiny little restaurant in Poët-Laval to have lunch. A minuscule village atop a hill that I'm fairly certain only has three restaurants total.

Church in Sauzet

 We went from Grenoble to Sauzet, Sauzet to Bégunde-de-Mazenc, Bégunde to Poët-Laval, Poët-Laval to Mirmande. Each village tiny and full of newly blossoming flowers. I got to see a lot and spend some really nice time with everyone in the family.

My birthday apple!

We got back from our outing and played picture and word games until dinnertime. Hilarious and definitely a little hard for me, though I did try to pull the I-don't-actually-speak-French card. And then at dinner, I was surprised with birthday candles stuck in an apple in a bowl of chocolates. My birthday isn't until the 15th, but they said since the entire family was here this weekend, they wanted to celebrate it with me together.

Such sweet people and a joy to be with for Easter! The only thing missing was hearing my mom say, "He is risen!" and stuffing my face with fried dough.

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