Bonne Nouvelle Année!

So, here is my holiday post.

Christmas eve was pretty interesting. The family and I went to the catholic church here in town, which is much much different traditionally than what I am accustomed to. Lots of monotone chanting and smoke blessings. A good christmas church band (with too many flutes)that doesn't really sound like they practiced brought back some good memories though.

Christmas day was great! Different traditionally again.. but great. Christmas started at lunch when we went to the grandparents. Christine's brother and sister and their families came shortly after. We opened presents all together, then sat down to a nice meal of Foie Gras. Foie Gras is a liver meat type thing that is really fatty.. It's made by shoving food down a goose or a ducks throat until it is about to explode. Then its liver become extra tender. This is a traditional meal for the holidays in France.. so I had participate. I wont lie, it was delicious.. but my conscience tells me never again. The lack of christmas music was starting to drive me crazy.. so the grandparents put on a old record of french christmas hymns for me! I only knew like three songs.

(Boxing day doesn't exist)

The next day I left with the grandparents for Stella Plage where they have a second vacation house on the sea. The sea was soo beautiful. The whole town was on sand, and there were lots of dunes to go hiking through! The grandparents took me to the town of Montreuil which is incredibly old and charming. There is a wall that was built all around the town (for protection from the english) and the grandparents and I took a nice stroll along the border which was always a beautiful view.

The week consisted of relaxing by the fire, knitting, practicing french, visiting surrounding towns, and going to France's largest Aquarium. It was a great holiday.

New years I went to a party with some friends. New years in France is pretty cool, because everybody says happy new year to every one for the month of January.. and people call distant family members to reconnect and say happy new year. They don't send christmas cards but they send new years cards.

Now we are back to work and today I went to re-register at Alliance français.

Sad to see the grand vacation over.

I hope all of you had good holidays too!

The coming of a new season.

I am just realizing that it's been a month since I've last updated... Sorry guys. I feel like I just updated last week! This scares me to think about how fast time is flying.

Well the french has come along quite nicely, even with out the Thursday course. I think after Christmas I will start up again at Alliance Francaise, and take professional courses there for 3 or 4 months on top of my course here in my town. I am still meeting too many people who speak english though..

How have I been keeping myself busy? The family and I have been to the theatre a few times, and we saw one really bizarre show that was very difficult to decipher, and a typical french mime show which was really hilarious. I've been to the Cinema a few times with some friends. I waaaas planning a trip to Vienna for New Years with a friend who I was going to met there... but I was to late to reserve train seats during this christmas season. So for the christmas holidays, I'll be here in Houilles. Which is still great! December season with rain is still weirding me out.. especially when I see christmas lights and fake snow on decorated buildings.

Planning/research on Universities for next year has been taking up a big chuck of my time. It's between Montreal and Manitoba at the moment...

On November 11, 2011 at 11:11:11 pm The family had a few friends over for a very nice evening of chit chat. Because I expressed how important this time was to me, they offered to pull out the champaign. btw's this date and time happens every century.. so if you miss it, time will never lead up to anything this brilliant again (unless you are lucky enough to live past one century). I tried taking a picture of the time ...I was a second early. AND on top of the amazing time, it was also 11 degrees outside. Too prefect.

Christine showed me these two really decked out places called "Printemps" and "Galleries Lafayette" which are apparently really worshiped in the fashion industry. The buildings were absolutely incredible, and everything was really expensive. I had to take pictures... I couldn't believe the prices. Here are some photos from that!

I went to the Louvre to finish up the left wing, here are a few photos from that too!

I will try to write again during the holidays.

Joyeux Noel!

Salut!

So basically the rest of my week off was great, I did everything that was on my to do list. I went to the neighbours to offer my working services (during a holiday...), but was declined and was invited over for supper instead! I thanked Karma, for that delicious meal.

My french course here in Houilles has been an adventure. I go to these classes two times per week. On the monday, the "teacher" is decent, but on the thursday I have a different "teacher" who is horrible. Us foreigners in the class of approx. 7, (who all have similarities and major cultural differences) have become a learning unit. We generally don't learn constructive french with the teacher on thursday, because of the material, the way she speaks and her teaching style. I think an obvious regulation for a french teacher is that you have to be able to speak french correctly. Those of us who can understand the type of material we are learning, are not happy. Philibert who is 9 years old can not understand what we are learning, and he is fluent in French. One of the ladies in my course is Portuguese, and communicates with very little french (in a hilarious accent) and with a lot of expression... Some of us in the class had talked on monday about how we need to change the material of the thursday course, and the plan was to talk to the thursday prof about it on thursday. On thursday, this old portuguese woman, reamed out the teacher which was not the plan.... "Trrrrop Difficilee!!!!!! Pas biieen!!"And this teacher who is very defensive retaliated "Tu peux met tes papiers dans la poubelle, avec moi!". It was half hilarious, half incredibly uncomfortable. I probably laughed more than I should have with out making any eye contact. She's a volunteer.. so we did feel a little bad for critiquing her when she didn't want to be critiqued. Well, I'm not going to the thursday course anymore, it's a waste of time.

Home life is wonderful as always. I hit a patch of sickness recently, with tonsil, fever, and headache issues.. but I'm feeling better now. Christine has a lot of knowledge on organic medication, so I haven't had a need to see a doctor yet!

This is the first remembrance day, (that I can remember) where I haven't been at a remembrance day service. I've been reading a french kids book about World War 2, it just feels necessary.

The pictures are from the Chateau de Versailles and the Musee de Quai Barly (museum of the first arts). The picture of the shutters with the yellow flowers; that is where Van Gogh lived with his brother for 4 years or so. It was a period in his life when he painted the most. Maybe he painted the "sunflowers in a vase" when he was there...

Busy bUSY BUSY and I like it.

I'm sorry to the few faithful readers that I have for the lack of posts! I've been meaning to write something for a long time now, lots has happened.

I'll start with a few weeks ago... I've been meeting some people in town which means actually having somewhat of a social life, and practicing my french in a different setting which is great!

Then last week Christine Agustin and I went to take a sunday stroll around the Cathedral de Notre Dame. The sunday before, Christine the boys and I relaxed in the

garden in front of the Louvre, along with visiting the Musee de l'Orangerie. Very interesting stuff it was, but both of those times we didn't have time to go in.

Now my family is away on vacation with extended family in Spain, so I have a holiday here with a house to myself! They left early in the morning on the day of my birthday, so we celebrated before. This last friday, the kids were sent to the grandparents, then Christine and Nicolas took me to this beautiful Brasserie/Restaurant in Paris. The entire interior decor is made of ceramics, and the restaurant was built between the first and second world wars. I ate escargot for the entrée, and duck with french fries for the plate principale! It was really typical french..

The next morning the kids came home and sang "Bonne Anniversaire" continually, which was really cute. They all made me little crafts, except for Honorine who gave me a painted cup which was a gift that she gave to her father last year... Nicolas told me he would like to keep that. For supper, I went to the Creperie with some friends who made me feel special also. In the evening I went to a birthday party for someone I've never met... so when mid-night hit, and they all said happy birthday to me... I felt a little guilty. On the day of my actual birthday, I went to church! But not just any church... Notre Dame! And I sat in on the very traditional service with French and Latin hymns. I would say this is probably the most unique birthday I've ever had...

With the family being in Spain, I now have holidays also! And I've found lots of things to do to keep myself busy. Yesterday I spent the day in the Louvre and really enjoyed myself. I think I got through 2/3 of it! I'm proud of that. Today, I went on an english walking tour through the Marais which is an old historic central area in Paris. The guide was very knowledgable, and we toured and learn't a lot about the history of the buildings and churches. I will admit, after living in the french culture for two months, it felt a little uncomfortable being within a group of 60 year old american tourists, but it was worth participating in. I will being going on another tour tomorrow morning.

For the rest of the week, here are some plans that I have:

-Spend a day in Versaille

-Get my tragus pierced

-Chill with some new friends

-possibly finish my Louvre adventures.

-Musee d'Orsay

This is considering I don't spend a few days filling in for the neighbours sick nanny... I'm crossing my fingers!