European Strewing

Well, in three days we leave for our European vacation. I have had terrible insomnia just from nerves. The idea of being on a plane over the Atlantic for 9 hours all night long with my very high strung 10 year old and with the possibility of not having my husband there is freaking me out. I am a weak vessel. I can't even get past that to actually look forward to being there and experiencing the history, life and culture of France and Spain. I know I am so, so blessed. But I am often lousy at realizing it. But this too shall pass and we'll be there and then we can start figuring out what we want to see and experience. Hannah is planning on doping all of us up with Dramamine which she swears will knock us all out and we'll be well rested (or as well as can be expected) when we arrive in Paris at 2 something a.m. our time (but a reasonable morning hour, Paris time). My thought is we just get to our lodgings and chill and then go to the 6:30 evening Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral. I think just seeing Notre Dame and maybe eating out somewhere is plenty to do your first day in Paris after the ordeal of flying all night. I do have a list of things I'd like to do in Paris: Sean is going to make a video journal as part of his confirmation preparation. Two saints we are going to try to learn about and visit (they are both incorruptibles!)are St. Vincent de Paul and St. Catherine de Laboure. I also would like to find the site of the University of Paris where Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas taught. I presume it is where the Sorbonne is now. We also want to see: The Louvre The Eiffel Tower Beautiful churches The Arc de Triomphe The Orsay Museum (Impressionists) The Pantheon And just soak in the Parisian atmosphere We hope to get on an excursion to Versailles and Giverny one day. Rick and the kids want to go to Disneyland one day. I don't think we'll have time for it, but they really want to do it. so we'll see what we can fit in during these five days. Hannah has a friend who is spending the summer in Paris, so she hopes to see her at least once while we are there. On Will's birthday, 6/29 we'll leave Paris and go on to Lourdes. I'm very excited about this! We just spend one night there, but I hope to participate in the candlelight vigil. It would be nice to go to vigil Mass Saturday night if possible, because the next day we are going to spend all day on a train getting to Avila, Spain. Hannah, Will and Josh need to be signed into their program at the Catholic University of Avila. Rick, myself, Sean and Becky will be staying in a little apartment in the center of Avila. I think it would nice to spend a couple of days just getting oriented to Avila. I'd like to do a day trip or maybe two to Madrid and a day trip to Toledo. I definitely want to go to The Prado in Madrid. I'm not sure what else we'll do in Spain. Of course in Avila our saints to learn about will be St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. I am praying that this trip is worth all the anxiety, money and effort! I hope our horizons get expanded and we learn more about this fascinating world and more about our Catholic history too. We'll be leaving Hannah, Will and Josh behind to study Spanish. I hope they learn a lot and have a great experience. Especially Josh. And then, in a sense, I can't wait to be back home again!