Day 9- Our last morning-Easter

The plan this morning was to get up early, Kendra see her Easter goodies, and get down to Notre Dame for 8:30am mass. Took Metro at Opera to Pont Neuf and walked to Notre Dame. Long Line out front, but not for mass. We walked right in, but there was a small crowd at the back of the nave. There were no seats to sit down. 

I was expecting a very serious mass with organ music, and ladies in fine dresses and hats. Well, it was not quite that.  Every seat was taken by a group called "Scouts and Guides of France". These were all young people (maybe 17-20 years old) all wearing green or blue shirts with a bandana. The Scouts obviously had a big part in this mass. They were helping with translations at the alter, they were playing in the band (a band with a full drum set and guitars) and they were clapping and singing along.  This was not the mass I expected, but we enjoyed it.

A little at a time some of the seats began to empty out so we actually did get seated. (Oh, and no kneelers in the pews.-ahhhh.) I also expected communion to take HOURS. They had lots of help and communion was given out within 5 minutes. (many of the scouts did not take communion). With all the music and clapping and no kneelers, apparently Notre Dame is the French version of Resurrection Parish (who knew?).

Back to the room to finish packing and get on our way home, via Iceland.

 Well our flight was delayed about 3 hours at CDG Paris for a broken sink in the bathroom. We were offered sandwiches and drinks at about 2 hours and 45 minutes into the wait, but there was no time to give these out so we all boarded.

When we got to Iceland, we went through customs, and ran to our plane that had been waiting.

We arrived home about 9:30pm (about 2 hours late) Kendra checked out her "Wellesley Easter Basket" (she had worried all week whether there would be Easter at home, too), and to bed-work and school in the morning.