Joyeux Noël

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S !

I wish I could be home to see all of your smiling faces this year for Christmas, but instead my mom, dad, and brother are here in France visiting! After a few days down south (Nice/Hyeres) with my parents, we *barely* caught a train up to Paris. And I retrieved Mark at the airport yesterday morning. So the whole fam' is together to celebrate baby Jesus.


----------------------------------------------------------------
And here's the equation that got us from Hyeres to Paris:
(Canceled train in Hyeres + 44 euro taxi ride to Toulon + SNCF employee not knowing she could change our tickets + hey, that train to Paris we'd like to catch is leaving in 9 minutes + she's still looking for her boss to see if she can get us those tickets + oh wait now only 6 minutes til the train leaves + she's printing us the tickets + 3 minutes + she needs to write a note and stamp each of our tickets + and now the whistle + and now grab our tickets with a quick "merci" + 1 minute til departure + run onto the platform + shove our way on the train + this lady is standing in the doorway and she better move + great, Mom and Tina are on with the bags + the door is shutting + oh crap the door's shut and Dad's on the platform, not the train + pushing the button for the door to open + which it doesn't + Mom, "NO!!! This train's NOT leaving without your Dad!" + SNCF man making a phonecall to make sure the train doesn't leave + Dad running up to another car to hop on where a door didn't shut all the way + we assume Dad gets on + train starts moving + Me, "Mom, you stay here, I'll go find Dad" + found Dad + calmed down + walked through 4 train cars to find our PLUSH first class seats, which we didn't have to pay extra for, on our DIRECT train to Paris, ....see, there's always a silver lining, right? = Our crazy train-to-Paris adventure.)
----------------------------------------------------------------


I hope you are all having a relaxing and happy holiday today with family and friends. Drink some hot cocoa and eggnog, eat some pumpkin pie and russian tea cakes, and enjoy time together with family (as best you can).

A note on that...
Sometimes it's not easy to be the pleasant person you want to be or think you should be when you're with family, or even close friends...isn't it true that being around the people who we know love us (and will continue to love us) sometimes can bring out the ugly or most unpleasant sides of us? That's how I feel a lot of the time.

But family's family. And even though each person in my family knows how to push all my buttons in different aggravating, embarrassing, and/or drive-me-crazy-I-gotta-get-away-from-here ways, and even though when I'm around them I turn into a bratty, bossy, annoyed, I'm-always-right-there's-no-backing-down version of myself, we still love each other. Cuz family's family. So maybe you can relate, or maybe, unlike me, you turn into a total angel when you're around your relatives, but either way, I hope you are fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who love and care about you, and I hope you value your time together.

Merry Christmas.

Fête des Lumières

Fête des Lumières
DESTINATION: LYON, FRANCE
le 5 å 8 decembre 2009

Hello again, everybody!
I had a great weekend in Lyon for the Fête des Lumières, or, as we might say in English, the Festival of Lights!

Trains aren't usually this complicated in France...
Nikki and I took the train over to Marseille on Friday afternoon, where we got on our train (platform M), only to then hear the announcement (in French, mind you) that the train was NOT going to Lyon, so everyone on board wanting to go to Lyon would need to get off (although they didn't happen to mention what platform to RUN to). So, with all the other confused Frenchies, we proceeded to RUN all the way to platform D, where we literally crammed our way onto an already "complet" train. After standing in the aisle for 10 minutes, wondering what the heck we're doing (nobody had a clue what to do, we weren't the only ones)...everybody got off and RAN all the way back to platform M!! What a confusing (and pointless) ordeal orchestrated by the SNCF peeps! 40 mins late, we were on our way! (And luckily we did end up in Lyon)...

...where our buddy Tim met us at the station!
Tim is another SPU grad/language assistant, who happened to be lucky enough to be in Lyon (an underrated French gem!). It's "tied" (depends on who you ask) with Marseille for 2nd biggest French city after Paris. It's a beautiful mix of old and new, classic French architecture like in Paris, mixed with modern buildings and clean, smooth sidewalks (which Paris lacks).

We kicked off the weekend with an excellent Friday night-tour of the city, led by Tim. It was so refreshing to be walking around in the freezing (literally 0 degrees C) city at night. And it was so crazy to see other people out and about on a Friday night!! (Hyeres tends to die once the sun goes down.) On Saturday, we explored the city more and enjoyed the annual Christmas market.

At the Christmas market!

This weekend was really a weekend filled with FRIENDS! It was great to be with Nikki (as usual) :), to see Tim, meet and hang out his friend Megan (another awesome SPU grad, go figure...we're taking Europe by storm), and meet Tim's roommates. And... Laura came down from Paris (yay!) and stayed with us for the weekend. ALSO, our Austrian friend Bernadette came up from Toulon! We were able to meet up with Britney (SPU grad/language assistant) and 2 of her friends who were also in Lyon for the festival. At the Christmas market, we had a total of 6 SPU grads! Oh, and did I mention we also hung out with our French engineering friends, and their friends?! Dozens of friends, some new and some old!


It was really fun to explore the city, go out to bars with people our age (what? this does not exist in Hyeres...), and see the city all lit up (with the thousands of others who crammed into the city for the displays)!

Nikki, Laura, Bernadette, and me outfitted for the cold in our new hats, mittens, & scarves

Saturday night, we went to one of the main squares in the city for the festival's kickoff celebration. We spent the night walking around the jam-packed streets seeing the different light displays. It was fun to be a part of something that so many people were there to experience! Although we felt a bit like cattle headed to the slaughter...we were packed like sardines! Body to body...bobbing along with the rest of the crowd... it was crazy!

Break from the crowds for pizza!Photographs from a previous festival on display

And we had no train problems on the way back to the city....we got a RIDE back with some of our French friends!! I haven't ridden in a car in ... hmm... a very long time!
What a weekend!!! :)

It's the Holiday Season!

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving, and are enjoying the holiday season so far! Our celebration over the weekend went splendidly (details to follow), and now it OFFICIALLY feels like the holiday season!

And, what's more, it's pouring today! It feels just like home :) After being outside in 'the wet', it's nice to get cozy at home in pj's and cuddle up to a cup of tea -- and Mariah Carey's fabulous renditions of the Christmas classics.

On Saturday, Nikki and I took a train over to Aix-en-Provence, where we met up with Laura, who took the train down from Paris for the weekend. We explored the booths at the Christmas market and had lunch out at a nice café.


After a nice morning and lunch in Aix, we hopped on a train back to Toulon to do some prep for our Sunday Thanksgiving feast. We made a trip to the grocery store for a few more supplies, then enjoyed some cookie baking, spiced wine, and FRIENDS Thanksgiving episodes to get us in the holiday spirit.


The evening view of the roundabout from Nikki's apartment

Sunday was a (perfectly) cold and rainy morning -- perfect for a day of baking! We headed out to the morning open-air market (arguably one of the most treasured "business-as-usual" features of life in Europe), where we picked up some veggies for our veggie platter and potatoes for our mashed and sweet potato dishes.


Toulon port on rainy Sunday morning and the market

And then the baking adventure began! We did lots of planning in advance, so we had all the supplies necessary. We had to be tricky coordinating all of the dishes with the small oven, and we pulled it off (like experts)!
And just in case you're not impressed enough already, let me just amaze you with a list of all that we prepared:
--veggie platter with dip! (even dip required creativity...food is quite different here in France)

--roasted chicken (her name was Henrietta), stuffed with an onion and garlic, salted/peppered/buttered/and basted every 20mins :)

--mashed potatoes (whipped up with the beater like Mom does)
--cranberries (thanks to Laura's trip to the American food store in Paris!)
--gravy (we are so awesome and such grown-ups we can prepare these complicated things...seriously, this was a liberating/confidence-boosting experience when it comes to food prep)
--sweet potato casserole (with cinnamon, mashed up, with marshmallows on top--so good! I was skeptical at first...never again)

--corn soufflé (like cornbread, only lighter/fluffier/mmm...)
--green bean casserole
Here's Laura with the crusts :)
--and don't forget....pumpkin pie!!! with homemade crusts and homemade whipped cream!


In case you couldn't tell already, I'm really proud of how it all turned out. It was lovely spending the weekend together baking and eating, eating, eating. Totally worth the effort! And it really felt like a kick-off to the holiday season, just like at home!

Before...

And after...