"You get on the boat, they speak a little French, and it goes on the water" (Day 12)

We spent the day at the beach. We drove 2.5 hours to Collioure, which is on the shore of the Mediterranean, near the border of Spain. As soon as we got there, we all at least put our feet in the water. I couldn't believe how clear it was. We only had a few minutes before getting on the boat. Every time I'm by the water, I think of the line from LeAnn Womack's song "I Hope You Dance," which says "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean." That seems to be a theme on this trip. We are so small in comparison to the rest of what God created that we need to be vulnerable at times and not feel like we need to conquer everything.

After the boat, Jen, Jill, and I went to get something to eat. It would have been helpful to know a bit of French at this point, but we managed. After lunch, we went and sat on the beach. It was a lot rockier than

I expected, but the water was beautiful. We sat and enjoyed it for a while and then decided to walk around the town. As we were leaving, we saw a bunch of people from our group jumping off a rock ledge. We decided to stick with our goal of the trip to try new things, and joined them. It was fun! We felt veryaccomplished. Then we walked around town for a while before leaving. Throughout the day, we ran into 5 or 6 people speaking English. It was weird that language immediately made us feel connected in some way. At home, we don't feel connected just because we all speak English, but when you lose something so basic and find it again, it's like finding gold.

For dinner we had soup and spinach and chicken. After dinner we all sat outside and talked and ten a few of us went for a walk.