So, the Thanksgiving feasts are over and everyone's looking towards Christmas now! We American Assistants got together last Friday night, invited some "foreigners," and we each made a dish to pass to share as much of the Thanksgiving tradition as we could. We ate picnic style at Tom's apartment, and he supplied paper and markers so that we could all make handprint turkeys (see above for mine [left] and my friend Lana's [right]). It was lots of fun! We even had pumpkin pie (pumpkins are NOT easy to come by around here...and it was made from a real pumpkin too)!! We even took a few minutes before eating to go around and say what we were thankful for, so that was really nice.

Then yesterday I went to the Marché de Noël (Christmas Market) in the Parc des Expositions, which was super cool. They had food, cotton candy, Santa!, Moving displays of woodland creatures doing random stuff in houses...kinda weird...see photobucket for pics, crafts for sale, and these really creepy singing space people...creepy...REALLY weird. It was tons of fun, and I even got to get a Santon, which I'd heard about for years in French classes. I've wanted one ever since my French class in high school! :-D


It snowed ALL day yesterday, and it was coming down pretty hard too, which resulted in a couple inches of snow and a full stop to all public transportation, which means no work for us assistants today! Snow day! :-D Patrick was right. When I first moved here and asked him about snow, he said, "If it snows two inches, everything shuts down." I'm liking this :)

Also, this snow is SO beautiful! It's the first time I've really noticed the beauty in a while, since in WI it's beautiful for about 2 seconds, until you realize you'll have to shovel it, drive in it, and trudge in it. Speaking of trudging, I DEFINITELY need to buy a pair of winter boots! I was slippin' and slidin' all over the place last night on my way home. Luckily I DO have a sturdy umbrella now.

I also bought my tickets last night for the eurorail to London for Christmas. Turkish delight, here I come! :-D Well, I'm being observed tomorrow morning by our program coordinator, so I'd better go over my lessons again, and do my French homework. A few paragraphs on what I think about France so far. I'll try not to let my homesickness do the talking.

À bientôt!

Meg

P.S. There are tons of new pictures in my photobucket album, if you're interested!