Last week was a good one. My lovely american friend Delpha, who is engaged to a French boy (named, quite appropriately, François) invited me to a wine tasting that François and his co-workers had organized. They had all worked at Nautic, a big boating fair in Paris, for the 10 days preceding, so by the time Monday rolled around, they were ready to relax a bit. Someone reserved a small bar in the 5th for us, and the fact that there was more consumption of wine happening than tasting of it only made the atmosphere better. I'm starting to wonder if the entire idea of a "wine tasting" was merely a pretext!
I can't help but add that François and Delpha met at a "salon" event kind of like Nautic -- she was here with her company just for the week. They met and exchanged information; I don't think think Delpha expected anything major out of the encounter, but François was evidently pretty smitten, and they'll be getting married in March! Sounds like the plot from a movie...
Tuesday night I was invited to a play put on by my friend Roxane's business school: Du vent dans les branches de sassafras or The Wind in the Sassafras Trees. From what I can gather, the original play was in French, written by a French guy who was born in Hong Kong...although I did find this less-than-enthusiastic review of a production in Boston...
Anyway, it's a western parody, so overall pretty appropriate for me to see. Roxane is French but will be studying at UT next semester; fellow Longhorns, I'll probably be calling on you guys to show her around! (In fact, thanks to my advice, she'll be living in Laurel Co-op, which shares the building with Halstead (where I lived last year) and Nueces. I'm hoping co-op living is a rewarding experience for her; it definitely was for me!)
Wednesday was spent in yoga class, tutoring (2 families) and on skype. Mom, Dad, and Nicole - it was very nice to see you! :)
I failed to heed my first 2 alarms Thursday morning, but the sight of SNOW outside jolted me awake once I finally made it to the window. Paris actually doesn't get snow that often, so the excitement in the air was pretty tangible. Walking to school, I passed lots of kids (and kids-at-heart) building snowmen and throwing snowballs. I haven't lived with snow since I spent my freshman year of college in Pittsburgh; Thursday brought back a lot of not-so-distant memories. I had figured that snow in Paris would get gross pretty quickly, but the city stayed pretty neatly covered in our white blanket through Friday evening, and before I knew it the snow was gone on Sunday.
All of France got snow this time, and the cities in the South, much like southern cities in the States, didn't know how to handle it; Marseilles was pretty much shut-down for a couple days!
Friday was spent with Texans, kind of. First I saw my friend Colleen (who goes to UT) on skype, then I went to a birthday dinner for Xavier, a french guy who currently works in Houston but who returned to France with his wife for the holidays. Thanks so much for including me, Xavier!
I saw La Route, otherwise known as The Road (American film based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy) on Saturday, after which I thought I might never be happy again (it's an apocalyptic story). Well, that's a bit of an overstatement, but it definitely wasn't your typical "holiday movie"! Later Zina and I checked out the Christmas Market on the Champs Elysées and the mini-carnival that was set up in the Grand Palais. Neither was anything too special, but I did get some cool pictures from one of the rides:
Later we saw Le Vilain, a French comedy. Good practice for our French! Zina now has the unlimited cinema pass as well, so I predict more outings in the near (and distant) future!
Laurence, Camille, Maurice, and I were supposed to go to Normandy (where Maurice has a country house) today, but they cancelled the trip because of the snow. Due to updated weather forecasts (and some pouting on Camille's part), they just decided that we can go tomorrow. Yeehaw! I need to work on an Italian paper, which isn't exactly what I'd like to be doing during the "vacation", but it'll be nice to get away from the distractions of the city for a couple days.
Stay warm, y'all!
xoxo
Alina :)
Posts
Alina Marie:
ReplyDeleteSo glad to hear you dodged the severe weather, and that you will still get to go to the country now that it has calmed. Hooray for Camille! The photos of the bird/human tracks should be award winning, so enter it somewhere! Ditto the ride photo. "Wine tasting" is one of the most important courses you will take in college, and it sounds as if (in Paris) you have enrolled in an honors class! Great update, thanks so much, Papa.
I agree with Papa; I loved the snow tracks. At first I thought the pigeon tracks were little plants, though. Either those are small human feet or pigeon feet have a surprisingly large span!
ReplyDeleteAmore