It has been awhile since the last blog post; please excuse our radio-silence.
Most of what's kept me busy since the last post is school. I took 8 courses last semester, which meant 8 exams and papers.
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| Festive decorations at Sciences Po. |
We did find time to go out, however. In early December, we made it to the Opéra National de Paris to see Cenerentola, aka Cinderella. The real attraction of a trip to the Opera in Paris is the theater itself, which is an extravagant beaux-arts era building. The gilding may not be good for acoustics, but it is a wonderful sight to see. Intermissions at the Paris opera are unusually long, probably so that you can wander through the theater and take pictures.
We were also very lucky to have our families visit in December. We were getting a bit homesick by the end of the year, right when they arrived. We love showing people around Paris, so we put most everything else on hold to go out and have fun in the city with family.
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| The Eiffel Tower by night |
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| Super-flaky croissants from Du Pain et Des Idées |
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| Getting the last bits of fondue from the bottom of the pot |
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| Meeting our new kitten Minidou and immediately making friends |
Paris is beautifully-decorated around Christmas time. Lights hang from the front of every shop, and decorations drip down over the streets. On the Champs Elysées, a Christmas market pops up at the end of November, offering gifts, snacks, and vin chaud.
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| Decorations in the Passage Colbert |
In mid-December, a hint of snow appeared early in the morning, briefly coating the city in a quarter-inch of frost before melting away.
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| Not quite enough for a snowman |
Mostly, the weather was cold and rainy in Paris. It's quite miserable to spend weeks on end without any sun, but I suppose it makes it easier to stay inside and study.
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| We were rewarded with a double rainbow after a particularly nasty storm. |
We celebrated Christmas in Paris with a buche de Noel shared with friends, and a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
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| A buche de Noel is a roll of cake and pastry cream coated in icing, shaped to look like a log. |
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| We later put ornaments on the tree. The cat later batted them off and chased them under the couch. |
Finally, we headed back to Texas to celebrate Christmas day with our families. I was especially glad to see all of my pets back home. Technology has made it easier and easier for me to communicate with my parents, my sister, and my friends from abroad, but it's still not possible to skype-cuddle my dogs or email a treat to the cats.
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| A very large cat deals hides his holiday weight gain by standing in front of an enormous Christmas tree. |
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| Matching Christmas sweaters |
At the end of two very short weeks, we came back to Paris. I was back in classes before the jet lag had worn off, finding it very hard to concentrate on work after all of the excitement of the holidays. Although the new semester and the new year should inspire me to start with renewed energy, I am mostly inspired to stay in bed until noon. My new year's resolution is not to exercise more or to apply myself more diligently in school (it's my last semester, after all...), but to eat more croissants and act more Parisian.
