Noel

Seeing as it's been a ridiculously long time since I've updated my blog, I figured I'd do several smaller posts about the last several weeks, so as not to have a 27 million word post.

So this is the part of the blog where I tell you about Christmas in France!

On Christmas eve I went back to Claude and Yzabel's house (my first home stay). They had some nifty decorations, including a live tree decorated with ornaments and such,(just like home). When I got there, Yzabel and Canelle were making Christmas treats, more specifically, a bûche de Noël. You may be wondering, 'What is a bûche de Noël?'. Don't worry, calm down, I'm gonna tell you. It's delicious is what it is. It's a thin cake, rolled up to make the shape of a log, and then smothered in chocolate goodness. Around Noel, all the small bakeries, and super markets sell them, but as with anything,it's best when it's homemade by Yzabel . After the chocolate covering, the cake goes into the fridge, and is then decorated with powderd sugar, plastic evergreens, and a little santa. Pretty much amazing.

So after helping a little with the cake, I went upstairs and skyped home. I of course missed my family a lot. But thanks to the miracle of the internets, I was able to see and talk with them . On Christmas eve my family always has a big party so I missed that a lot too .

After talking with my family I went back down stairs. My host aunt ,her son, and Claude's mother had arrived. We all sat in the living room, they drank champagne, and we talked and ate various appetizers(including fois gras) .

Afterwords we ate a huge dinner. The main dish was a chapon(an enormous chicken). For dessert we had some delicious Christmas log , and various candies, one of which included little noise makers, similar to booby trap fireworks.

I then went back upstairs and called my famdamily again. Around midnight, my host sister told me that they were opening gifts...I was slightly confused. When i got down stairs, there were about a hundred gifts under the tree. Apparently Papa Noël comes at midnight in France. Mel(their daughter, who's now in Missouri) was on video skype, and everybody sang along to "Petit Papa Noël" before starting to open presents.

[note: I asked around, and I guess they start opening the gifts at midnight on Christmas eve when the kids are old enough to think that santa's fake]

After heading up stairs around 3 AM ,( there was lots of new wii playing), I called my fam again, then went to bed.

Christmas day was just a day to relax around the house, hang out,play wii, skype my family and feel sad a lot...but, c'est normal .

It was nifty to be able to hang out with the Lalaus family during the holiday.

Well that's my Christmas!

P.S. : All the stores were very much into the spirit as far as decorations and what not, also most towns decorated with lots of lights and what not, including projections onto buildings.I saw video on the news of the festival of the lights in Lyon , it was awesome, they went all out with their projections onto buildings.




Time

When ever I wrote my last blog, I was just getting settled in with my new family, now, 5ish weeks have already passed! Time is so weird over here(for me). When I think that it has been 5 weeks since I moved in with my new family , it's hard to believe, I feel like it hasn't been that long. But at the same time , when I think of specific things that have happened the last couple of weeks, it feels like it's been ages...Sometimes when I think about the fact that I've only been here for four months, it's hard to believe, it feels more like a year has passed...but I don't know, it's not like time is dragging on , like in (insert most boring subject) class, I'm having a good time, it's not like the saying. Do you understand? If your confused, I see why, I don't really know what I'm talking about either! Point is, is that sometimes time throws me off.




I hope you had a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Eid, Joyous Kwanzaa, and are just doing well in general.

Thanks for reading, I'll have another post up soon, so check back!

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