I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes...

Christmas market at La Defense

Becky, me, Maria, Megan, and the tuba player from the band...

my host mom's nativity!

Yup, I really want to watch Love Actually, but with finals there is no time. This is a sad byproduct of school.
It's been really nice to have a weekend in Paris without either guests or travel plans. It's the first time in ages. Friday Megan and I tried a Moroccan place in the Marais that our professor from Richmond had recommended, Chez Omar. We both ordered chicken couscous, which consisted of a huuuge platter of couscous, two chicken breasts that were marinaded in really yummy spices, and a bowl of vegetables in a spicy broth. It was yummy, not my favorite ethnic cuisine but good. And the waiter really liked us so that was fun. Next on our list was the Musee du Vin. My high school teacher told me about this little wine museum hidden away a few metro stops from the Eiffel Tower in a residential neighborhood. It's a short museum about the history of wine and process of winemaking, and at the end you get a free glass of wine. After seeing a lot of different corkscrews and wine bottles and presses, we got to taste a glass from the southwest of France that was a mix of 5 different kinds of grapes, I don't remember all the kinds but it was pretty good.
That night we had dinner at the French version of Friday's, which is called Hippopotamus (which cracks me up because the French don't pronounce the letter h, so they say it more like "eeeppo"), and I tried New Orleans chicken, which was a nice spicy chicken breast. It's always funny to try "American food" in a French restaurant. Then we met up with Becky, Maria, and Maria's cousin Orlando at les Feeries d'Auteil, a Christmas fair. What was special about this one is the "Mille et Une Creches", or 1001 nativities. There aren't really 1001, but there are a lot! My host mom teaches at a school nearby, and each class in the school had to make a nativity scene. Florence has been going crazy working on her class's creche, because it's a contest and she really wants to win. So we finally got to see the fruits of all her labors, and vote for it, too! But in addition, we got to: see firebreathers, hear a French gospel choir, try hot spiced wine (not a fan of it, but everyone else liked it), see nativities made in gold and silver all the way from Poland, see all the other nativity scenes, shop in craft stores, hang out with Maria's fun cousin, listen to a band that kept following us around, meet up with my host parents, and buy chocolate-covered marshmallows! mmm. My host dad was so cute, he kept following us around to check in on us and then came in when they got home to make sure we had gotten home OK.
Saturday Megan and I went out to lunch with our friend Amy, then spent most of the day doing work, since we have a lot of papers to write, and catching up on American TV. I can't believe that I'm only going to have to watch 1 more episode of Grey's on a semi-legal website.
Today was fun too! Megan, Becky, and I went to a Christmas market at La Defense, which was really fun. It was a gigantic craft fair, tons of stands and food everywhere, lots of shopping. I might go back there with a list of stuff I still need to get for people. It was very Christmasy and fun. And now unfortunately, back to the grind of papers....
I can't believe I'll be home in 11 days. I'm stocking up on Nutella crepes because I'll really miss them, haha. It's hard to believe I'll be home soon because I just finished a paper and still have one long paper and 5 exams to go. It seems like there's a lot to do before we leave!