Jour d'action des graces

Apparently the title of this particular post is the direct translation of Thanksgiving day to French, but I have only heard Parisians saying 'thanksgeeving', with a french accent (read: more nasal with emphasis on the ing but no pronunciation of the final g)

I did get some grub time here in Paris with two amazing dinners thanks to the center for the Americas at SciPo and fellow American students (along with a few int'l first timers). Thank you to all of you for feeding me!



Further in spirit of Turkey day, I just wanted to give thanks for all the wonderful people in my life and all the fabulous opportunities I have been given in this past year. Love and remerciement for my amazing family, old and new friends, my carte de sejour (finally!), café cremes, skype, umbrellas, ADX sisters (home and abroad), pumpkin pie, wifi access at the local library, scarves, seeing the Eiffel Tower at night when taking metro line 6 from Etoile to the apt, the lovely P/NP option, and for a lifetime of joys and tears and growing during my first 6 months. Yup, as of November 30th I will have offically been out of the United States for half a year, and even though I know everyone says this, I really do feel like I just got here. Hard to believe I have to leave in 6 months...

Again, love and thanks to you all for sending love and prayers my way : )

xxoo

La Neige!

It SNOWED today!

Not torrents of stick to the ground snow, but light airy flakes of white stuff! I was hanging my laundry to dry and noticed shiny pieces of fluff drifting down past my window into the courtyard of my apt building. Literally two seconds later I had my shoes and jacket on and was outside in the street, I probably looked a little odd standing and staring, but it was the first time I had actually seen snow fall...after my feet started to get a little chilly and the lovely snow started to mix in with rain, I headed back inside with a pain au chocolat from the corner boulangerie to finish up some reading

I now think I should buy some warmer socks and maybe some more scarves, winter is here : )

xxoo

Allez les Bleus ; )

As classes at uni take place only once a week (for 2, sometimes agonizingly long, hours) our profs will hold make-up classes if they ever need to cancel. Our french prof's 'cours de rattrapage' was to take us to the theatre this past Tuesday! It was an extremely amusing piece centered around one story, of a man in a bus, told in MANY different ways from news broadcasts to country western songs to soap operas. Plenty of laughs.

Then this evening, the stade de France where the citizens of France gather together to enjoy football matches (I must say football, because a Chile friend of mine said that to say soccer would be horribly uncultured of me). It was freezing but fabulous nonetheless. Although it took a little adjusting, for example, we did not quite understand some of the cheers at first, luckily a little boy around 5 was sitting behind us, and he pronounced his words a little more fully, so at the start of each chant, we'd all lean back slightly to listen to what he said before joining. Another difficulty was the showing of discontentment. They do not boo, but whistle here, which I am completely incapable of doing, so I had to content myself with angry fist waving at bad ref calls. Unfortunately, I may be catching a cold (I know, again!) but joining in the 'allez les bleus' chants will be well worth a few days of bed rest : )

bisous! xxoo

Les repas espagnol

Perhaps one of my favorite parts of our trip... the food! Including pics and short descripts of the weird and yummy :)

translated literally means 'broken eggs' first meal in Madrid


Paella and sangria for the first time


El Tigre tapas bar



Choco and Churros


Gelato! I had chili pepper chocolate...spicy sweetness


We are pastry fiends!


Barcelona bar in the market place with GREAT seafood


Rice and squid cooked in its own ink...looked like charred blackness, but was tasty-tasty



now I am off to start a jogging regime...

xxoo

Une semaine en España

Hola!

Back from a little under a week of fun in fabulous Spain! A fellow Paris student and truly fabulous travel buddy, Joyce, and myself spent our "study break" seeing Madrid, Granada, and Barcelona. below is a pic outside the window of my early morning train as dawn breaks...



Arrived in Madrid after a long night ride from Paris to be greeted by a lovely lady from back home. Mariel and her roomie Karen guided us through the Madrino maze of large courtyards, vast museums, great Spanish art, good tapas, fabulous paella, crowded open air markets, and sunny gardens. Some fav moments include sun shining through the crystal palace in the gardens, seeing Goya's work in person, choco and churros, noise of a tapas bar,2 euro scarves, finding our way back to the hostel in the early morning, conversing in french with our hostel roomies (they were coming back at 7am, we were on our way out). Oh and I had the most amazing opportunity to dine with Mariel's host family too, which made for an amazing look into daily Spanish life (gracias again to your Senora, Mar). But, all too soon we were off to Granada on an afternoon train through the Spanish countryside.





our lovely Madrid guides (thanks again ladies!)
first tapas bar (el tigre) complete with local noise, good food, dirty floor, and fabulous company!

Again, another familiar face awaited in the station. Jenna showed us first to our hostel before leading us up the winding roads of Granada's old Arabic district to the most beautiful wall overlooking the city valley, Alhambra, and snow capped Sierra Nevadas, while enjoying a flamenco guitarist. We then proceeded to a cornucopia of food delights from tapas to gelato to tea (I might dedicate an entire post to pics of our meals and overuse of the word yummy). The next day dawned to unbelievable blue sky, sunny courtyard coffee with Caitlin and Jenna, complete with time for catching up, it was unbelievably comforting to have time to chat, making me feel a little more connected to home. Joyce and I then made the trek up to Alhambra, the most beautiful city/fortress/castle I have ever seen. Detailed carvings, lace-like woodwork, green gardens, intricate fountains...beautiful.










sisters in Granada : )
distant Alhambra fortress/castle at sunset with the snowy Sierra Nevadas
Finally the Alhambra itself, one of the outdoor gardens and a wall inside...if I ever come across a vast sum of money, I would be sorely tempted to attempt a copy of this majestic monument

Finally, onto the great unknown of Barcelona! We had no local contacts in our last stop and the weather's beauty didn't quite hold til the end of our trip (no worries I had brought along an umbrella), but we managed to squeak out some culture, again some awesome food (including seafood that we saw crawling in buckets just moments before), chat up some locals for what seemed like hours about american politics(in french no less) and a few kids from our hostel all with knowing a half dozen words of broken spanish. The Dali, Picasso, and Guadi lines, colors, and earthy shapes made for a dizzying finale of Spain. Not too mention traditional catalan desserts, more tapas, and fresh seafood (thank heavens Joyce is familiar with that, she provided excellent instructions for properly consuming everything).



Me on the Gaudi bench in his Guell park (reportedly the longest bench in Europe, I simply fell in love with the mosaic work.

Overall a most excellent time away.

Thanks for the prayers for safety and all the love you've been sending my way : )

xxoo

Obamania in Paris : )

The lovely expats, anglophones, and of course Americans gathered for an election gala at the aquarium in Paris on November 4th to follow the results all night long (a necessity since since Paris is 9 hours ahead of the West coast).

We gathered to also enjoy a night of CNN on big screens, lovely drinks, buffets (although the French don't quite have the true buffet down yet...), and of course politics. I loved being in the midst of an historic event in a very non-usual setting. Now when future generations ask where I was when the US elected the first black president, I can say sitting next to some girls from Georgia in an aquarium in Paris...

pictures above include
water tunnel on way into the aquarium including election decor
Ashley and Kitsy tickets in hand
Myself and Emily towards the end of a very long evening

un visite : )

Salut!

This past weekend I had the absolute joy to host some lovely American buddies during their visits to Paris! Mariel, Karen, and Kian were all fabulous houseguests, and it is always amazing to be able to 're-see' the city, in a way, through their eyes. They were troopers, packing all 4 of us into my studio, walking through the rainy streets of Paris, and managed to hit lots of sights during my classes on Friday, followed by a lovely dinner at my fav restaurant. Saturday brought a little sun during our walk through Pere Lachaise (there really is nothing like the bright autumn leaves on mossy, wet stones), a showing of James Bond, and some sparkly Eiffel Tower time.

As luck would have it the sun comes out as soon as they are heading back to their respective homes for the semester (Madrid and London), but I was able to take advantage of the sunny situation for my first bike ride in Paris, which was lovely. I think it might have been so due to the lack of cars on the road at 9 a.m. Sunday.

Whats better is I get to see them soon! I will be heading out to Spain for a week tmrw, only problem is I still haven't packed...

bisous!