A 26 Year-Old Polish Woman

Sunday morning I woke up and got dressed and put on my trench coat, but when I got outside it was like the middle of summer. It was clear and warm and by the time I got to the bus (I had to walk really fast because I was running late and didn’t want to miss the 10:50) I was really wishing I hadn’t chosen this particular day to wear my sweater vest. I made the bus with 3 minutes to spare, panting, and ran into my friend Glenn from Singapore who is really involved in the young adults group. We had a nice chat on the way to church in which I learned some interesting things. According to Glenn, I look like a 26 year old Polish girl. Well actually he added that I could probably also pass for German or Italian or something else European but that he never would have guessed that I was American, or that I’m 21. I guess that explains why, when I was talking to the desk clerk at my hotel that first day, I made some comment and he said “You’re Italian right?” I don’t know how you can really look “American”, but evidently it’s possible, and I don’t. I didn’t realize I looked that old, but I asked some Americans later and they agreed, so there ya go. Anyway, Glenn and I also discussed how Asians look so much younger in comparison to westerners, so people always think Glenn is much younger than he is, but Asians can always guess his age.

At church it was their annual ministry fair. Emmanuel isn’t very large, I’m not sure what average attendance is but I would estimate 125-150 split between two services, plus a smaller French congregation of about 30-40. But for a church of its size, it has a ton of ministries and does a lot of outreach. I officially signed up to go on the church retreat the first weekend in October, and to help take care of the kids so I can go for free. Ruth, who helps with the young adults ministry, came over to ask me how well I speak French. It hadn’t occurred to me, but since both the English and French congregations are coming, we’ll possibly have both English and French speaking kids. I think my French is good enough to manage, although it is hard enough to understand little kids when they are speaking your native language, so I can’t make any promises when it comes to understanding little French kids. But I’ve learned that kids are kids no matter what language they speak, so I don’t think it should be too hard.

After church a bunch of the young adults decided to go grab lunch. Some didn’t want to go all the way into the city, so we walked down the street to a little Italian restaurant. There ended up being a pretty large group of us and it was a lot of fun. I just had plain cheese pizza because it was safest. The French put some realllly bizarre things on pizza. Case in point: Bethany, an American who has spent a lot of time in Paris, and is now here for a few months working for an IT company, decided to order the house specialty pizza. The menu said it was pizza with ground beef and fries. When I read the description I asked if she thought that meant the fries came on the pizza or on the side. We decided it must mean on the side because who in their right mind would put french fries on a pizza? The French, that’s who. They brought out her pizza with a pile of french fries in the middle of it. It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. I didn’t want to seem like a tourist, but I had to take a picture of it. Go see for yourself. And then order some Dominos and be glad you live in America where people don’t put goat cheese and fried eggs on pizza.
a bientot mes amies-
Lyndsey