Des baguettes partout!

Bonjour encore et bonne semaine! Today, my first full Sunday in Paris, was my first opportunity to go to Hillsong Paris - an amazing church founded by people trained in the original Hillsong church in Australia. The music, the message, and the enthusiasm from the people there was incredible! The whole service was bilingual - the songs that were in French had the English words like subtitles underneath and the English songs had the French underneath. All of the announcements and the message were given in English and immediately translated into French, so the two people were speaking at the same time - just alternating phrases. After church, the PH/Powerhouse people (young people ages 18-25) got together to eat lunch at a few different restaurants. I ended up going to a Japanese restaurant with about 20 other young people (French and international) to eat and hang out. At one point at our table people were speaking English, French, Spanish, and German at the same time - very international! After lunch, the smaller groups met up at a cafe to have group fellowship together and have some coffee (or, in my case, hot chocolate!). We also played a game that's similar to the American game Mafia but that the French call "loup-garou" which actually means werewolf. In the game, everyone draws cards and looks at them secretly. A few people (usually 2-4) learn they have been chosen as the loups-garou and one person is the petite fille (little girl). When all the villageois (townspeople) "go to sleep" the loups-garou wake up and decide which villager they want to kill. Meanwhile, the "little girl" can sneakily open her eyes and try to determine who the loups-garou are without getting caught (aka so the loups-garou don't try to kill her off and keep their identities secret). All in all, a fun game but somewhat complicated when a bunch of French people are all shouting and talking very quickly!

My interesting fact for the day (and the inspiration for the title of this post) was one I learned while eating lunch at the Japanese restaurant. The French use the word "baguette" to mean MANY different things. Firstly, the one I knew before coming here, it is used to refer to a certain type of bread. Not all French bread can be called a baguette - it refers to the specific shape of the bread. In addition to the bread baguette, baguette can also mean chopstick (which I learned at lunch), drumstick, a stick in general, the conductor's baton (baguette de chef d'orchestre), or even magic wand (baguette magique)! Altogether quite an enlightening and enjoyable day! I can't wait for church (and church related activities!) next week! A plus tard!