IM ALIVE! i swear, i know its been a while, and so much has happened since i've last written to all of you!
so as i indicated in my post before break, i started my christmas vacation by helping alex move out of his apartment in rennes. i arrived late friday night and everything had to be out of his apartment by 10AM saturday morning. we were pressed for time because a guy was coming that night to buy alex's car and so that took up a lot of our time, so by the time that was all said and done, it was close to 11PM. so we did a little organizing and then called it a night, and planned on waking up early the next morning. welllllll we all know what a monster i am in the morning, so alex was less than impressed with my help, something i'm not very proud of. (sorry alex!) but in the end, everything was out of the apartment and clean by 10AM. after a pit stop for a hamburger (duh!) we headed to alex's hometown of Le Mans in the big moving van. When we got to his house, we had the pleasure of unloading everything from the moving van into his garage because we had to bring the van back that night. let's just say not the best thing that happened over break! haha :)
it was nice to be in Le Mans with alex and his family. they are super nice and especially during the holiday season, it was nice to spend family time, even if it wasn't with my family. so we spent a few days at his parents house, just hanging out, doing some last minute christmas things, going to the movies, walking around the christmas market and so on.
on the wednesday before christmas, alex and i headed to PARIS! :) i was super excited to see the big city during the christmas season (it was the only season i have never been). we stayed with alex's brother, romain, and we brought some of alex's things to bring to his new (tiny!) apartment that friday. so we spent most of our time seeing the touristy things around the city. we went and saw where alex will be working in the business district of paris. (i'm really proud of him, he seems to be enjoying his internship so far, and is looking forward to working on some projects he has been assigned to involving a little bit of traveling). we went to my favorite part of paris, montmartre. this is where all the artists are painting portraits and little paintings and selling them in the square, not to mention the beautiful view down on the city with the amazing church, le sacre coeur, just behind you. ahh, bliss! :) love it! we also walked the champs elysees and saw some lots of christmas markets, christmas lights, and dad's favorite, l'arc de triomphe. then, of course, you can't leave paris without seeing the eiffel tower! still as magnificent as the last time. :) and this time, not far from the eiffel tower, there was a christmas market and a little ice rink where kids were ice skating, it was super cute! it was a short lived trip, only three days, but we packed it full of things and had a great time, i can't wait to get back and now that alex is living there it will be much more often. :) so excited!
visit this site to see a few pictures from the trip: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150516413462137.397612.503662136&type=1&l=1de4de3dda
on friday night, alex, romain, romain's girlfriend eva and i headed back to Le Mans to celebrate christmas with his family. eva is from estonia, so i wasn't the only non french speaking person, which took a little pressure off of me! and she is super nice, as is romain, so it was fun to get to know them better. we got back really late friday night, and then saturday was already christmas eve! time was already flying by, but thats what happens on vacation. so for christmas eve, we had fondu and it was DELICIOUS. we did fondu with meat, and the last time i had done that was prom junior year. i forgot how delicious it was, and lots of fun! it was a nice relaxing day and before we went to bed, we watched a movie. :)
after a good nights sleep, it was CHRISTMAS!! it was weird not to have maddie knocking on my door at 8AM to open presents this year ;) (love you moo!) so we slept in until about 10:30AM, took a quick shower and headed downstairs to open presents. thanks to my LOVING family and alex's very generous parents, i had many presents to open. (thank you family! you are the best! :D) alex's mom and dad bought me two bracelets and a jewelry box and some chocolates, romain and eva got me some bath scrub and such and alex bought me a ring! :) i was so surprised, i was shaking. it was a little bit too big, so we brought it back to get resized so i won't have it until next weekend :( i can't wait to have it back! apparently everyone back in the U.S. thinks that this ring has to have some sort of meaning, so to all of you who want to know what it means i asked alex: 'so apparently this ring has to have some sort of meaning behind it, so what does it mean?' and he said, 'it means i like you'. so there you are folks. :)
after christmas, alex and i spent some nice quality time relaxing and doing a whole lot of nothing. it was nice to be with him! but on the tuesday after christmas, he left for london to celebrate new years with some of his childhood friends. it was hard to share him with his friends, but christmas break is really the only break they all have at the same time, so i had to put on my big girl boots. :) so since alex took off to england with his buddies, i met up with ben, steven and ben's american friends, phil and molly who came to visit ben for the holidays in Caen, France. Here we visited the Peace Memorial Museum and explored the town a bit. i got to spend some good time with steven, the other Cobber studying in Tours, France because there were only 3 open slots for the Normandy Beaches tour, so while ben, molly and phil were on the tour, steven and i explored downtown Caen. after Caen, we headed over to St. Malo for a day or so. it has to be one of my favorite cities; right on the ocean! although, it is a lot more enjoyable when it isn't super windy and rainy, but it was still fun to do a little more exploring with steven! after our short tim in St. Malo, steven and i headed to Tours for new years. so we said goodbye to ben, molly and phil and made our way by train to meet up with our friends.
when we got to Tours, we met up with grant and valeria and headed over to fanny's apartment. fanny was nice enough to let us crash at her apartment which was really nice of her! we hung out for a bit, and then grant, valeria and i headed back into town to go to our host families house for dinner. it was really really nice to see them! pretty much the same old same old with them, although mathias has grown SO much. it is so nice to feel welcomed in their home every time we go back. they are such a great family, and i am so grateful to have been a part of their little family. after a long night of catching up, we went right back to fanny's and went straight to bed.
the next morning we slept in super late, preparing for the nights festivities because it was new years eve! once grant and i were up and ready for the day, we hit the town to do a little bit of exploring and we also wanted to buy fanny a present to say thank you for hosting us for the new years celebrations. she spend all day cooking an AMAZING four course meal. seriously, it was so delicious. we had some appetizers, foie gras, duck and potatoes as our main course and caramel cheesecake for dessert. after our delicious dinner, we could barely move. but we drank in the new year and played cards and called a night around 2AM. it was a really nice night had by all!
after new years, i took the train back to la roche and it felt nice to settle back into my apartment after being gone for so long. it has been hard getting back into a rhythm after vacation, and only 31 days away ;) school is pretty much the same as before, nothing too exciting. just yesterday i went out dancing with the other teacher ladies from my school. that was pretty fun to get out and to be able to get to know them a little better. they are fun and super nice! this weekend im going to paris to see alex and i am SUPER anxious and excited! i will be going thursday night and staying until sunday evening. he will be working on friday, so i plan on spending most of my day at the musée d'orsay soaking in as much impressionist art as possible! :D i can't wait, and then the rest of the weekend we will be hitting up the sales that start this week and relaxing. its going to be great!
sorry for taking so long to write this post! it was quite daunting, considering so much has happened since i last wrote. but now you are all caught up! and i promise to blog more often to appease you and make it easier on me!
i love you all and miss you to pieces! i hope you all had an amazing christmas and a happy new year. it'd be good to hear from some of you soon, seems like its been forever!
XOXO,
france-y pants
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