Alone in Paris!

Sorry about the lack of posts the last few days, but as you all can imagine with the holidays and being a "tour guide," I've been a busy girl! I dropped my friend off at the train station this afternoon (shes headed for London, Lucky!) and I had an amazing time with her. It was great being able to show this city to someone. It made me realize how much my French improved and how much I LOVE PARIS!

Here's a little recap of the rest of the week...

I tutor English to a family in Bourg-l-Reine (a suburb of Paris) and one of the families invited me there for Christmas dinner. They are a wonder and sweet family. Christmas Eve is the day most French families/Parisians celebrate Christmas. The actual Christmas day is spent traveling to their vacation homes or a ski resort. So lucky enough for my friend and I, we were able to partake in a real French Christmas Eve dinner! It was so wonderful and definitely distracted me from the fact that I wasn't home for the holidays!

My poor friend doesn't speak a lick of French and is Jewish, so she was such a great sport about going to a long Catholic mass with me. We had a great time sitting around the table of 16 French people, and communicating through broken french and english. We didn't start eating until 10:30 though! It started out with Foie Gras (ie- duck LIVER and LARD, it tastes surprisingly like a creamy peanut butter, but the thought of it makes my insides churn!) and smoked salmon. The next course was duck,  potatoes au gratin (french style, yum!) and a dish of acorn squash and apples! We ended the meal with a salad and a plate of TWELVE different cheeses! As a new vegetarian/vegan (hello lactose-intolerance!) the meal was a bit difficult to eat, but I decided the cheesy potatoes and cheese plate were to hard to pass up. Of course, I suffered horribly the next day. Did I mention there was a different wine with each course?!

We took a break to let our food digest to let the little children open their presents. Christmas is done quite differently over here. First off, as cliche as it sounds, everyone (even the 4 year olds) are dressed sophisticated in head to toe black.  Secondly, under their christmas trees, instead of mounds of presents, each person gets about 5 or 6 really nice presents. The little kids grab the presents and give them out to whose ever name is on them. Obviously since I am not family and only knew 5 out of the 20 people there, I wasn't expecting anything, but Madame Mangez had three beautiful gifts for me and 3 for my friend as well. Her generosity astounded me! 

After that, I believe I may or may not went into diabetic shock. I did not keep track of the macaroons, "french brownies" (don't know their name, but they were AMAZING!!), ice cream, and bon-bons I ate. I do know that I washed it all down with a glass of champagne, though. 

We left at about 3:30 am, sufficiently stuffed and extremely merry! It was the perfect Christmas and something I'll never forget!

Christmas day, we woke up at 1 am and did not leave our beds allllll day. I have NEVER stayed in my PJs all day, so it was a big deal for me! ha, trust me I've had my lazy days before, but I normally do at least a pilates video or a 20 minute walk, but my friend was having none of it! We stayed in our PJs, ate more cookies and candy and watched GLEE all day/night. I'm officially obsessed! =)

Saturday we went to the Louvre all day to see my girls Mona and Venus. Then we went to the Galleries Lafayette to check out their Christmas displays before they took them down. So pretty! Sunday and this morning involved lots more touristy things, too much to recap!

I had such an amazing time with my friend, it was a great distraction for all the change I'm going through! I can't wait for the new students in my study abroad program to come, but I'm definitely going to miss all the friends I made last semester!

Hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas day and break with their family and friends!

What is your favorite Christmas memory? Mine is when my mom accidentally put my name on my brothers BB gun when I was 10. We were both so confused (he was jealous, I was pissed!) that we cried before my mom realized that I had opened the wrong gift!

Bisous!