An Extreme Week

The end of week four of french class is around the corner and half of the students head back to their home countries. I only have three more weeks of class here in Chambéry. Man has my time here gone by really fast but only because I am enjoying every single moment of it. I really am torn about how I am excited to finish classes and go do my mission work but I am not excited to leave the amazing town of Chambéry and all of my friends. But I don’t want to think about that yet, lets talk about what has happened this week so far!

Monday I was supposed to go canyoning but it ended up getting canceled again because of the weather. It got rescheduled for next week so hopefully the weather will be nice and we will go. Tuesday a group of us made our way to a local dairy farm by taking the bus and then walking up a hill. It was a beautiful walk and I forced myself to only talk in French with everyone. When we got to the farm, we learned about how the farm operates and how it compares to America. It was so weird to see cows that are only used to milk and not to eat! But I took advantage of the situation and learned as much about farm life in France. I got to milk the cows and taste the milk. The milk I tasted was not pasteurized so that was a first for me but it tasted amazing! My friend Nora was super excited about being on a farm and seeing a cow from up close. It was great to experience that with her. Here are a few photos.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I did something crazy...I went paragliding. I know it sounds kind of extreme but man I was going to do it no matter what. The opportunity came and why not do it in France in the Alpes! So I watched a few people take off and it didn’t look to hard. Next thing I knew I was strapped up, attached to the instructor, running forward, and letting the wind take us off into the air. WOW! What a beautiful site of the mountains and the valley below. I could see all the way to Italy! I was told that I was about 1000 meters off the ground below. I am surprised by how much it wasn’t really an adrenaline rush but more of a relaxing time. My instructor let me take control of the flight and taught me how to turn left and right. But sadly after that my motion sickness kicked in and I started not to feel good. Thankfully we were almost done with the flight. I believe I was up in the air flying for about 15 minutes! It was such an amazing experience but I will have to say that I probably will never do it again because of my motion sickness. Here are some photos that I took while in the air.

Tonight I am heading off to a going away party for some of the students in my program. Tomorrow, I leave with four other friends to go to Milan, Italy for the weekend. I am super excited for this! Thank you everyone and hope you are doing well!