Christmas Day

Dec. 24th, 2010.

It snowed ALL DAY, cold cold Christmas in Paris. We decided to have a lazy homey day and just watched Christmas episodes of Friends (YEAH, The Holiday Armadillo!), and did grocery shopping for our dinner. The Fromager, La Boucherie, the Monoprix... we went to all of those to get the ingredients for the amazing Raclette we would have later. Raclette is a type of fondue and we got three different types of cheese to melt... Delicious!




Dec. 25th, 2010.

Christmas morning! After three days of non-stop snow, we woke up to a beautiful sunny Paris. Bridge made pancakes, Sam came over, and we had orange juice/champagne for breakfast... YUM. Now we all look like the FatBooth picture Neto has been taking of us (I'll see if I can get a hold of them cause they're worth sharing). Christmas presents came later, and now wer're al getting ready to go ice skating at Hotel de Ville.

We're having turkey for dinner tonight!

This is our Christmas tree, we even decorated it! Not the most robust one, but it brings love into the Watson-Salazar household.

Presents :)

Sam's stocking

Merry Christmas to everyone! Bonne fete!

Joyeux Noel!

Just finished having an amazing dinner, our Bridgette/Sam/Mile family dinner with a special guest from Costa Rica, Neto (a.k.a. Cachete Inflado). Will post pictures tomorrow but I just had to share this amazing fun we just recorded.

School's Over, Now What?

Around these time of the year I would usually be trying to get finals out of the way, and thinking of nothing else than going back home, having big family dinners for Christmas and going to the beach in New Years... Best break to then start school again in January, coming back to snowy (if lucky) YVR Airport, starting new classes and the start of term celebrations that come with it.

Those were the days.. But these are the days too. I'm just a little awkward while everyone's statuses say "Home"/"At *whatever* airport"/"FML flight cancelled"/etc. For example:





I had to use Sofie as an example because she's leaving today and I'm about the meet her in 20 min (love always right thurr sofie). Anyways, I'm not going home, not even close to an airport, the closest I'm to travelling is taking a TGV train to Lille tomorrow.

That's ok, though cause I'm happy I'm gonna have this time here as well. I'll have the big family dinners in France too. First in Lille (Marie-pPierre asked me in her last email if had already had escargots, foie gras or buche de Noel... this sounds beyond promising). The I'll have family dinner two in our place in Paris with Sam and Bridge, Sam wants turkey and I support the motion, except it will be difficult without an oven, but nothing the Monoprix can not fix.

And then comes New Years, and for that I get the best gift ever, Marifer is coming and staying! I've been looking forward to her staying in Paris for some days, and then visiting whenever throughout the semester in La Rochelle. So I guess this is more of a self-assurance kind of post, nothing to exciting, just needed to write it down for myself. IT'S OK MILE, IT'S OK!



bonne fetes a tousss
gave up on the caps lock and french accents

wait a second, taking them up again



Next goal in life: Select some of the 300 billion pictures of Bridgette's birthday party and post. That's usually what happens when Sam gets a hold of the camera. That's also what happens when people decide it's a good idea to eat chest hair, you just have to document. That's also what happens when you're drinking, eating and smoking for hours. Another thing that happens is your apartment in not a nice place to wake up in, and it smells almost as bad as Saint Germain de Prés metro station in the morning, for the 36 hours.

For now, I will just post this hoping to score points on the 'best roommate' award. Breakfast for the birthday girl, courtesy of me. Nothing can go wrong when there's peanut butter on the table, just sayin'.

Sun on Snow

I'll leave the rest of Reims for later because I'm too axious to comment about the crazy weather these days. First day of snow was beautiful last week. Then it got all slushy, and now the sun's out like "aefgdoh ae i fges00gh affhgerr feev efkafhol"...

Hjalte taught me an expression in Danish which means something like "we're going to do this like there's no tomorrow!", or something like that. So I wanted to see if it applied in this context. I think I used it right, except, yeah I can't write in Danish. Bridge then told me I could say "the sun's out like it's going out of style" or "the sun's out like white on rice".

Haha WHAT?! I love how I'm expanding so much my English vocabulary and expressions here in France. Who knew I had to come to Paris to become a legit Vancouverite.

Anyways, this post was about the crazy weather, and the sun shining today like "vdeecf iig oeraxagto oeethnfakh"!


Little retrospective:

Sam took these the first day it snowed... It was snowing like "flies on shit!"




So much snow falling on 27 rue Saint Guillaume






And these a little series on windows. First in late autumn...



The winter hit...



And this is a show from today's hybrid bizarreness.

REIMS - Livin La Vida Loca

What to do when you're walking around Reims in the night:

Hate Nickelback..






And then hit the Asian Traiteur/Karaoke Bar

YES. It's always good to get your dose of Abba, Cindy Lauper and Ricky Martin.




Classic. "OH, SEE THAT GIRL" in the background makes me smile..


The lighting, the decoration, very nice.



The most enthusiastic of all though, was the couple dancing in the back. I'll be happy if I reach 70 and can still move my hips like that! They even joined us in the conga line danced in pairs with their younger counterparts, us.




What a cool DJ.

REIMS - Pubs and Dinners

After a long run, both teams decide to enjoy the twilight, smoke a cigarrette and plan the next move that will lead to the conquest of Reims by the pseudoparisian crew. First stops take us into a pub, second for dinner... but this was all just building up tension to what would happen later. The night was just starting.

Oh yeah, and Sam ordered 3 bottles of champagne for dinner. When we realized they were 50 euros each, the cheapest, we politely (meaning someone ran before they popped them) sais we only needed one, merci beaucoup.

Phew.














Dinner at the restaurant with the cow patterned chairs.

REIMS - Family Portraits

Siblings, the lost child meets his sister in Paris.

REIMS - Surprise!

Well how thoughtful of the boys to leave some welcome-to-Reims presents in our rooms, made us feel right at home. Good start, the trip really ended up being a road trip due to our inability to read directions (or should I say Google maps, really, get you game on cause the roads you told us do not exist). Now, it was champagne time!