Christmas Eve, Christmas and, well, not Christmas.
This week has been pretty exciting and full of new experiences. The Saturday was Christmas Eve, so the morning was mostly preparing for the evening meal. In France, they have their big dinner on the night of the 24th, not on Christmas so already that was a change. They also dress up very tidily for it and definitely do not turn up in togs, jandals or whatever you come in from the beach from. The food was also quite different from what I have at home for Christmas but it's always good to try new things!
There was a starter (pâté en terrine with brioche if I remember correctly), then Salmon with cream. After were the shrimps, oysters, shells and eggs. The shrimps were very nice, but I didn't really like the other options. And of course...the snails. The snails were very nice and I definitely ate more of them than anything else (apart from the dessert, obviously). They taste a lot like chicken but with a slight difference but I would eat them again. For dessert there was a choice of chocolate mousse, ice-cream cake, gingerbread cookies and another really nice dessert with lemon and cinnamon that I cannot remember the name of. After I had finished eating dinner, I went and Skyped my family to wish them a Merry Christmas and just catch up with them which was nice!
After that, I played Mario Kart for the first time (which was interesting...) and around 12:30am we opened our Christmas presents. My host family were so kind and gave me some lovely gifts! I was (and still am) so thankful for that because they didn't have to give me anything, I mean, they are giving me a place to stay for three months! I also gave them some gifts from NZ each which I think they liked as well. By the time we went to bed, it was about 3:30am...oops. However, I set my alarm for 7:25am so I could wake up and Skype some of my other family at their Christmas party. It was really cool to catch up with them even though it was short and I was a little bit tired. Once I had finished talking to them I went back to sleep for another 4 hours which was also very nice. For the rest of Christmas day, I mostly read and we also watched the Smurfs 2 (in French).
On Monday, we went for a bike ride in the woods which was lovely. It was nice to go and do some exercise and see around the countryside (although we did get a bit muddy). We also went out to dinner that night but accidentally...there was a miscommunication but we ended up staying the night and had a great time!
Skipping forward to Wednesday, I went into Paris with the Pronust family by train. First, we went to Le Grand Palais which was absolutely amazing. The building was massive and the statues outside were incredible! At Le Grand Palais we went to see an exhibition about Contagion. Not just of disease and bacteria but also emotional and cultural. This topic is exactly the sort of sciencey thing that interests me so it was amazing to read and learn about it. Next was the maths one which was cool, but I definitely preferred the science one. As a break, we walked to Five Guys to have a milkshake and then continued to walk around. We went to where the Mayor of Paris stays and looked around there for a bit which was spectacular. There were so many statues and it was massive!!! Out the front, there were also dancers and a big crowd watching them, they were pretty funny but very good. Then we walked across the bridge and over to the Notre Dame, you know, as you do. The Notre Dame was amazing. It was very busy but for me, when I looked at it, everything just felt calm. It was strange but magnificent. After taking the obligatory tourist photos, we walked back to the others (however on the way back we had to stop for Starbucks...it was freezing!). Our last place we visited was the Louvre which was also so beautiful. The pyramid lights at night were so lovely and it was just so amazing. The statues inside the museum were amazing and it would be great to visit there properly for them. Again, we took some tourist photos and headed back home on the train.
We are gonna skip ahead again to Friday because this is already crazy long...so sorry about that! Congratulations if you are still reading...you are up to this last day.
We went to Paris again to pick up Aimy from the train station but also to visit some other places while we were there. Our first stop was the Chinese corner of Paris for Lise. She absolutely loved it and was in heaven the whole time we were there! After we looked around for a bit, Matthieu and Lise went to the station to pick up Aimy and I went with Hervu, Jade and Clara to go to the Musée des Arts Forains. This museum is full of old things and things that represent the old Paris - and it had a lot of Merry-go-rounds. One dated back to 1890 and originated in Germany which was pretty amazing. They all had very intricate paintings on them and looked like they were in very good condition. In the background, you could hear french music being played and there were also old french fairground games available to play. It seemed magical. While we were there, we saw an aerial dancer and of course, bought some crepes with chocolate hehe. Once we had finished, Hervu and I went back on the tram and went into a cafe called Paris Orleans and had a hot chocolate while we waited to be picked up except we had to drink them quickly because they arrived earlier then we expected.
There was snow today! Not in Echouboulains (well our part anyway) but definitely on the motorway to Paris!
