Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year)

Christmas was definitely well spent this year. My trip to Alsace was absolutely wonderful in every sense.

We left Monday, the 21st, around nine for the Nice airport. I packed in one of the big suitcases I brought my life in when coming over to France. It was all I had, and I figured I'd want some extra room to bring back souvenirs and presents for people back home. As we're checking our bags I'm sweating bullets worried that mine will be over the 20 kilo limit... I guess you could say I overpacked a bit (oops). I weighed in at 18... whew. However, my bag exceeded the 90 cm long length limit. The man at the counter jokingly said the French just weren't accustomed to the large sizes of everything from the U.S. So my bag had to go to a special "oversized" area. Typical.

The flight was only a little over an hour long. We flew into Strasbourg. My host parents generously gave me the window seat which had a breathtaking view of some towns on the outskirts of Strasbourg covered in snow and nestled in valleys between rolling mountains. At the airport we were greeted by my host mom's parents and every bag except for mine. After talking to the baggage claim woman we learned that my bag was still in Nice. They never put it on the plane. It would be coming on the last flight from Nice that night. My host grandparents live about an hour or so away from Strasbourg, and the suitcase delivery service wouldn't be running until the next morning. Oh well, just one night spent in my host grandparents' pajamas. At least my bag wasn't lost, and I now have a little Air France travel case with toiletries and an XL t-shirt for a souvenir.

We loaded up in the car and started to make our way towards the small town of Soultzbach-les-Bains. On the way to Soultzbach we passed through the city of Colmar. Colmar is the hometown of Frédéric Bartholdi who designed the Statue of Liberty. They erected a slightly smaller Statue of Liberty, in his honor, in 2004. Lady Liberty greets the people as they enter this beautiful town. Yes, I had to go all the way to Colmar, France to see the Statue of Liberty (which, ironically, I did not see when I went to New York-now that's a shame). My host mom's sister, Sophie, lives in Colmar so, naturally, we stopped to have apple tart and coffee at her apartment. I was bombarded with snowballs as I got out of the car when we arrived at Sophie's. My host parents were magically transformed back into children when their feet hit snow, as was I (although I still think of myself as a child most days). I'm always down for a good snowball fight, and I understand what it's like to be deprived of this white, cold goodness that falls from the sky. It made me extremely excited to live in Vermont next year! Sophie is so nice. I was looking forward to meeting her and then getting to spend more time with her throughout the week. After our afternoon coffee we continued our drive to my host grandparents' house. By the time we arrived in Soultzbach it was already dark. We took a little drive down into the small town, and I got to see the lights and decorations with the snow. It is such a cute little town. We got to my host grandparents' house, and they showed me around. It finally felt like Christmas as the snow fell that evening.

I awoke the next morning in my host grandmother's sleep shirt and my host granddad's pajamas pants to be told that my bag would arrive around 12. After a leisurely breakfast my host mom and I played a game to continue the lazy morning. My suitcase came just before lunch, perfect timing.

Soultzbach is right next to Munster-home of Munster cheese, which smells really bad but tastes really good. My host mom and I decided to take a walk around Munster and spend the rest of the afternoon there. It was a bit gray and rainy but not awful. The town was still very picturesque. I love the style of buildings in Alsace. They all look like Hansel and Gretel's cottage in the woods, which makes sense because Alsace has heavy German influences. A large building in the center of Munster had windows that were all decorated to be an Advent calendar. A small Christmas market, which offered some warmth with multiple little fires, displayed hand made crafts and sweets. Munster had several stores for being such a small town. Many of the stores were Christmas shops. My host mom and I spent a good bit of time in the majority of the stores there, only shopping for ourselves for a small portion of our afternoon; how selfless we are! My host mom and I always say we're friends because we both like desserts, chocolate, taking walks, and shopping. I already began to see the specialties of this region of France. It's definitely an area that caters to the Christmas season.

France is a small country but with much to offer. Throughout my time here, many people have asked me the specialities of my region in the U.S. And while there are some things more specific to the South, it is nothing like France. Each area here has specialities that exist, for the most part, only in that region. The architecture in Alsace is completely different from that in Provence. There are differences in food, tourism, and accents. It was very interesting to see.

Wednesday my host dad, host mom, and I took the little train from Soultzbach to Colmar to go to the much larger Christmas markets there. After breakfast we went down to the small station and hopped aboard. We got off the train and walked into the city. Colmar was absolutely beautiful. I think I took a picture of every building in there. Christmas markets were everywhere. Buildings were wrapped in garland and Christmas trees filled the streets. All that was missing was a little bit of snow (a lot of it had melted because the week of Christmas was actually a bit warmer than the preceding days). The Christmas markets were stands set up with vendors selling everything from giant pretzels (a speciality of the region) to cactus flavored chocolate (it tasted mostly like white chocolate with a hint of cactus-it was green!). I saw la creche de Noël (the nativity) with figurines and live goats and also fully in chocolate. Throughout the day I got to taste samples of several different types of Christmas sweets. My host dad bought me a pretzel-the best one I've ever eaten. I tried de vin chaud, hot wine, which is a hot red wine with a spiced taste somewhat similar to apple cider. I also had a sandwich that was on the same bread that makes up a pretzel. My host mom bought us each une tete de nègre (yea, interesting name) which has a white creamy interior (similar to whipped cream) and is covered in a hard shell of chocolate. MMMMM... so delicious. In the evening before getting back on the train my host mom got une gaufre (waffle), and I got un manala (the little man made from brioche-same thing my host dad made his birthday weekend). Ok, so the food part aside, I have to mention La Petite Venise in Colmar. Little Venice is an area in the town which gets its name because of the little river that runs through it. All of the buildings are bright colors, such as yellow, purple, turquoise, and green. There truly is an air of being in Venice (although I can't really attest to that as I've never been to Venice-after I go in April on the EuroTrip I'll change this statement if I find it contradicting my actual venetian experience). A faux santa was even on a gondola in the river. It was wonderful! I loved Colmar, and I want to go back during the Christmas season at some point in my life.

After getting back to the house, we relieved ourselves of all the shopping bags to settle down for the evening. I believe this was the night that my host grandmother called me over to the kitchen. "Leslie, viens ici. Regardes. On vas manger ça ce soir, mais pas toi." I figured this was a meat item since she said I wouldn't be eating it. As I looked at the crescent shaped, red meat on the cutting board I realized that it was a tongue. Yes, they ate cow tongue that night. My host family jokingly said that it was an Alsatian rabbit tongue. I didn't get a chance to steal a picture before they cut it, but I'm not too upset about that. Needless to say, I had fish that night.

Le Repas de Noël (The Christmas Meal)

J'ai hâte pour Noël. No, I don't hate Christmas-I know, it looks deceiving; literally, I have impatience for Christmas. Better said, I'm looking forward to it. Lunch, today, put an extra gust of wind under my holiday spirit sails. It was the Christmas meal. In honor of this momentous Thursday eating, I wore the ornament earrings and Christmas socks Parker sent me in my package. I also wore my red coat and a green headband. The extremely warm and fuzzy socks were pulled up over tights with shorts to show them off nicely. Yes, I looked a bit bizarre, especially in the French world of black, gray, and brown clothing, but I felt it was my duty to show of my good mood for the holiday I love most. Classes were stopped from 12:30 to 2:30 in order for everyone to have a bit more time to savor the tastes of the season. The meal consisted of l'entrée (appetizer-again, deceiving) of smoked salmon, foie gras, and toast. Le plat principal was fish, for me, green beans, and potatoes dauphinoise. Dessert was a raspberry cake, somewhat like a congealed salad. Everyone also got an orange, bread and a choice of cheese (of course), a little bag of chocolates and candies, and a choice of an orangina or coke. All this at the high school cafeteria. If there's one thing the French know, it's food. They know how to cook it , serve it, feast on it; everything concerning food is taken care of here. This being said, I was very happy to take part in the festivities with my friends over good food.

My good humor has also been enlightened by the stash of Disney movies I found in Deborah's room. I've already watched Alice in Wonderland, most of Aladdin, and Pocahontas. Not only is the dialogue dubbed into French but also the songs. It's interesting to hear how everything is translated.

On a very sad, negative note, I can not go to Paris with the youth center in Cavalaire. It's not possible because the big trips are only available for youth under 17 years old. Yes, I was very upset, but I'm still expecting my holidays to be extraordinary. I'm continually looking forward to Alsace, especially since it's only four days away!

Le Sapin de Noël (the Christmas Tree)

Yes, as my title hints, the Christmas tree is now up and decorated at my house, grâce à moi. My host mom told me I could decorate the tree so after we got it standing and put the lights on she let me have my way with it. Last week when the two of us were in a home store, something similar to Pier 1, we found an American flag ornament that she bought so that I could have a French and American Christmas tree. ☺After I put the last ornament on I told her that I had a little gift for the tree. I then proceeded to give her an ornament Mom had sent me from Tupelo from Midnight Pottery. It is the state of Mississippi and very cute. It's hanging towards the top of the tree. Another Christmas decoration that I'm very fond of is la couronne de l'Avent. Apparently these are very widely known in Germany and since my host mom is from Alsace, which is heavily influenced by German culture, she knows of the decoration from Alsace. It's a round wreath for the table that holds four candles which decrease in size. We light a candle each Sunday before Christmas, beginning with the tallest. It burns down to the size of the second candle. On the second Sunday we light the first and the second, and they burn down to the size of the third, etc. I was so excited the first Sunday to light the candle (which we actually lit Monday because we weren't at the house much Sunday. Oops!) I'm definitely in my full on Christmas mood, though, with all the lights in town, decorations in my house, etc. It also helped that my wonderful, amazing, beautiful, hilarious, perfect, bff Parker sent me a indescribably magnificent Christmas package! It included all the essentials: fuzzy Christmas socks, a Santa hat, blue ornament earrings, candy canes and chocolate, the perfect holiday card for me, a letter that provoked laughter and tears, American flag sunglasses, and a magnetic Barack Obama that I get to dress in all sorts of outfits. That's right, I get to dress our president every morning after stripping him down to his knickers at night. My host parents and I had some good laughs over that.

Friday night I shared with Paul a wonderful fusion of chocolate-ly goodness called Brownie S'mores. Brownie s'mores were created by the wonderful Kathryn Carroll and Kelley Frances Fenelon. However, I made this deliciousy goodness with my aforementioned friend of perfection, Parker, and my equally glorious friend, Janie. Brownie s'mores are quite easy to make. Just put the brownies in and when they are finished with half their time, take out the pan, place crumbled graham crackers-or in the French case butter cookies because graham crackers are not available-on top, then bars of chocolate, then graham crackers again, and finally, top it off with halved marshmallows. After, you put it back in the oven for the rest of the cooking time and voila! Brownie s'mores. MMMMM! I'm so happy I've brought this creation to France; although, now I must share it with a French person.

Saturday, I went to Toulon... yes, again. This time we met up with Anna, a New-Zealand exchange student that's not with Rotary. She lives in Toulon so she took a bus out to the shopping center. While we were there, we ran into Tracy, another exchange student with Rotary that doesn't live far from Cavalaire. It was good to spend time with Anna and Tracy. We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant!! Oh I was so excited!! I had missed Mexican so much... of course, it was Las Margaritas, but I settled for what I could get. As night fell and our exchange student group dwindled back down to three, we went to wait at the bus stop. Paul and I had the not-so-great experience of missing the last bus to Cavalaire on the last Toulon visit so we went extra early to the bus stop. After waiting and seeing six or seven buses pull in and stop, we finally saw our bus, number 8814. We stood on the curb and signaled for it to stop but for some unknown reason it did not even attempt to pull into the stop. It didn't even veer a little to the right. Paul tried to chase it down to the next stop, but it didn't pull in there either. Oh it was awful! Of course our bus just drove right on by. Why would it stop? Ugh, so once again we went and sat in the warm McDo where I called my host mom who came and picked us up. Apparently the shopping gods don't want us to get back home after our day trips to Toulon.

The following day my host parents had seven friends over to the house to eat lunch. One of these friends was a Moroccan man who made couscous for the big meal. It was a wonderful blend of sweet and spicy with the sauces and all. Oh, I loved every bite. This wonderful meal was preceded by appetizers and followed by cheese and dessert. Five hours later, I was stuffed. Yes, we stayed at the table from 12:30-5:30. Typical. But I'm not complaining. The food was superb and everyone was friendly. My host parents' friends had some bold personalities that made everything very amusing. Our much laughter and wine, everyone returned home, but the leftover couscous stayed (yes!)

After school Friday I'm out for Christmas! Woo hoo! Holiday time gives everything a euphoric air; one that awaits me year after year. We're having a Christmas meal at school Thursday. I'm planning on being the obnoxiously excited Christmas kid by wearing most of the items Parker sent me. Oh well, I have no shame. I'm an American.

L'Anniversaire de Christophe (Christophe's Birthday)

I've definitely started getting into the Christmas spirit after December rolled around. At first it was hard because Thanksgiving wasn't present this year, but now I've been listening to Christmas music, wrapping presents, and making cards. I haven't had the chance to make a Thanksgiving meal for my host parents. I don't know if we'll have time to get around to it. I converted all the recipes and made a list of ingredients in French but without a break from school for Thanksgiving I didn't really have the time. Thanksgiving week passed slowly. It was the most homesick I've been since arriving. My family in the States didn't do anything too special, but it made me miss my house, cooking with everyone, our fireplace with a fire in it (although our fireplace here is lit all the time which warms my soul). Plus I missed decorating the tree which is always something joyous to look forward to. I love all the Christmas decorations that consume much of my house the day after Thanksgiving. To say the least, I was feeling a bit blue.

However, this past weekend was the perfect antidote for my not-so-perfect mood. Saturday, the 5th, was Christophe's (my host dad) 50th birthday. In celebration of this, his mother and his sister with her daughter and the daughter's boyfriend, came down from outside of Paris, his brother came to Cavalaire from Alsace, and his other sister came from Rome with her Italian husband and their two daughters. It was so wonderful to meet them all! Everyone was extremely warmhearted and kind. His sisters told me to come stay with them anytime; definitely opportunities I will try and take advantage of in some point in my future. The weekend was spent eating a bounty of food and talking a plentiful amount as well. I spoke a good bit with Amelie (Christophe's niece) and her boyfriend Nicolas, and I also spent a good bit of time with Elisa (one of the nieces from Italy). We ate every night at a house just up the road that has a bit more room. My host parents' friend owns it and rents it out in the summer. Every night we ate at a long, lovely decorated table. It was so picturesque in the cute little French house with everyone talking and laughing, toasting, and passing around the delicious food. Saturday night for dessert we had a lavender cake with raspberries that Christophe made. It was delectable. Christophe also made Manala for Sunday morning breakfast. Manala is an Alsatian bread shaped like a little man. They look similar to gingerbread men except they're puffy and bready. It went great with my morning cup of coffee. Christophe also made a Tarte Tropezienne. It was mouthwatering as well. It was a weekend full of jubilation which made me completely lose all traces of homesickness. I truly feel like a member of this family. I'm very comfortable with my host parents, and I'm starting to realize how extremely hard it's going to be to change host families and in a few short months come back to the U.S. But, I make myself focus on living in the now and concentrate on soaking up every moment as it happens, so I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.

This weekend really boosted my confidence in language skills. I've realized that I understand basically everything now, give or take some words. Speaking remains as the more difficult task, but I've definitely progressed a substantial amount and will continue to do so. My classes at school are much easier to follow as well. And after hearing my host parents' nieces fire off rapid Italian to one another, I think I'm going to try and sit in on one of the Italian classes at school when I have a free period. It's an advanced class not for beginners, but since it's during my free period I figure why not. I can at least be exposed to it.

The town is now decorated in Christmas lights which were illuminated this past weekend. A sleigh with reindeer is down in town along with other lights on the light poles and the likes. I'll take some pictures next time I'm down in town at night. Seeing all the family and then the Christmas lights and receiving my Christmas package with all my presents from my parents has cast an air of delight over me. I've been in the blissful mood that comes this time of year. My host mom's parents have been at their little house in Cavalaire for the past two weeks but are going back to Alsace tomorrow morning. Tonight after dinner they took some of my Christmas presents for me so I wouldn't have to take them on the plane on the way over. They'll be waiting for me. The time is passing my very quickly. Just the second half of this week, next week, and then I'm leaving for Alsace for Christmas. I've signed up for a trip with the youth center in Cavalaire to go to Paris the 27th to the 31st of December. I'm extremely excited and will blog about that more as it gets closer to time and then of course after. For now bonne nuit. I have sport tomorrow morning, which equates to running in the cold. Alors, it's necessary that I get some sleep.