Some highlights from December: I got to talk to Mom & Dad on Skype a couple weeks back and because Grandpa & Grandma were at their place for the weekend, I got to say hi to them as well! It was nice to be able to see them and I think that they were pretty impressed with that crazy new-fangled technology. I got a letter from Jessica. I did some (Christmas) shopping in the touristy-area of rue de Rivoli and I bought a very lovely scarf. It is officially my favourite. I got a card from Mom which contained snowflakes and a card from Becky with a picture of her which made me happy. That same day I received a Christmas card from Grandma: 3 cards in 1 day! A day or two later I got a Christmas card from Bethany. So many cards, so much love. Hooray!
I recently bought 2 maps at a librairie (book store): France and Benelux. Now I can track where I have traveled and where I will be traveling in the next little while! This goes back to when I was a bit younger and Dad would give us maps when we did road trips so that we could see where we were going. He would show us and we would trace it out, following the route. At the end we had a nice little souvenir of where we had been.
Last weekend Rachel & I found the Père Lachaise cemetery. It is the largest cemetery in the Paris region and it's actually enormous. It's also so different than any cemetery I have ever visited. It is the resting place of many famous people: authors, politicians, comedians, composers, musicians, etc. such as Molière, Chopin, and Jim Morrison. It was very interesting, but we didn't spend a long time there. We did find the grave of Edith Piaf, a famous French singer from the mid-'30s to early-60's. Next time we'll have to find the map of the cemetery so we can find our way around. For more info: http://www.pere-lachaise.com/
We went to the movies and watched a French film called "Pieds nus sur les limaces." Translated, it's something like "barefoot on the slugs," but the official English title is "Lily Sometimes." It was an interesting film. French cinema is very different than Hollywood. Here are my thoughts: French films use less music throughout, use more realistic-looking actors and actresses, seem to have much less of a storyline, and contain more raw emotion than Hollywood films. Which is better? I'm not quite sure. All I know is that we were all very confused by the end of that film.
Last Sunday was the Christmas party at the church. In the afternoon a choir made up of church members sang a few songs, the congregation/audience sung a few, and the children put on a play. There were so many kids around and it was so much fun to watch. I had a hard time understanding the whole thing, but I got the general idea and simply enjoyed watching the kids do their thing.
Tuesday night was the Young Adults group Christmas night. We ate good food and sang traditional Christmas carols (in French, obviously). After the carols we listened to Matthieu speak about our gift to God during this time of year. We always talk about the gift that God gave us, his Son, and express our thankfulness for that but we don't talk about our gift to God quite as often, so that is what the focus of the mini-message was. Then we did a huge number-pulling gift exchange. I say "huge" because there were almost 60 of us there. We each brought a small gift, then we each pulled a number out of a bag, and then numbers were randomly selected to choose a gift. Time-wise it reminded me of the van de Hoef Christmas day when we sit around reading poems and opening gifts for hours. It probably didn't take quite as long as that does because there were no poems included, but it still took a while to get through everyone! It was a lot of fun, a very good evening.
When I got home from classes on Wednesday I found that the Ypma Christmas newsletter had been sent out, so I sat down and read that for a while. I don't know many of the families included, especially those who live out West, but it's interesting to be able to read about each family's year and at least pretend that I know my family. Facebook has helped with that partial-connection in the sense that now I can look at pictures of some of the family members and that's fun, too.
And now we're almost at the present time. Thursday I had to go in for a medical assessment for OFII, the French immigration office, in order for them to finally give me my titre de long séjour, allowing me to legally stay in the country until June. I'm healthy (hooray) and so am now the owner of a picture of my lungs and large sticker in my passport. I also now know how to find a doctor here if I need one. Good thing to know. :)
Erica & I said goodbye to Rachel on Friday morning as she left to go home for the Christmas holidays. We had a Christmas party in my grammar class. We ate good food, and drank hot drinks or fruit juice. We played the telephone game in all of our languages starting with French, then English and then in no particular order: Italian, Greek, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, and Chinese. You've played it before, right? It's hard enough in English for English-speakers to pass a simple sentence around. Try passing a short sentence or a few words of any of those other languages and you end up with quite a laugh. We also played Tabou (Taboo) for a little bit in smaller groups. Good times. :)
This morning I said goodbye to Erica as she left for home. And now we come to the present time. I'm sitting in my room, roommate-less for now, updating my blog (finally) and listening to my music. And that's that. Next week I'm going to explore some more of Paris that I haven't seen yet and I'm going to Versailles with a friend from class. On Friday I head out to Holland for a week with family there celebrating Christmas and New Years. What am I most excited about? Hard to say, so here's a list: meeting all the family that I will, seeing where my grandparents grew up, hearing the Dutch language around me for a bit, being in a real house with a family, home-cooked meals, Christmas dinner, church in Dutch, and ollie bollen at New Years.
And to finish off, a few pictures:
Snow: part of one of the biggest snowfalls Paris has seen since 1987.
I've heard that in the banlieues there was quite a bit more than this,
so we'll give it to them. It's not London though, is it?! ;)
So it snows and we have...green grass?
This is in a parc (where else would you see grass?)
and you are, of course, not permitted to walk on this.
It was snowing for real in our courtyard...for a couple minutes.
The beginnings of a good morning Christmas feast in our grammar class.
Grapes, cookies, chips and juice.
I hope you've enjoyed the update-essay. I didn't have to write an essay this semester for my classes, so I figured I might as well make up for it somewhere. ;) I hope everyone has a safe and very enjoyable Christmas break.
Blessings,
~Lynette
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