Freezing in France!

hi everyone!

This past week has been pretty relaxed and not too much new has been going on. On the weekend, I went to the Flea market of St. Ouen with Tarah and we had loads of fun looking at odds and ends but overall the market was a bit too pricey for us. It would have been incredible if you had a lot of money and were in need of such things as chandeliers and beautiful old furniture. The weather has changed drastically since last weekend when we were in our tshirts at the Jardin de Luxembourg!! Its freezing here now and both Tarah and I were not at all prepared for the weather when we set out on Sunday morning. Today it even got down to -1. I am sorry I don't have too much to tell you but instead I thought I would just post a bunch of pictures!

Love you

xox

M

At the Market trying on Fur... Looks like I might actually need a coat like this.

Jardin de Luxembourg in the sun!!
Palais de Luxembourg
Tarah in the Gardens
Gorgeous little place in the Jardin de Luxembourg

Philippine at horseback riding lessons. (Don't worry the horses she rides are maybe 1/2 this size)
A pretty pony

Philippine again

Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Friends and Family,

I will start this post by saying Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!! I would like nothing more than to be eating turkey and enjoying the company of my family and friends at home, but I will have to settle for sunny weather and roast beef!

This past week has been pretty busy, starting with Wednesday night. I went to a Monet exhibit at the Grand Palais with Cecile. We booked our reservations a month ago, and still had to wait in the rain for 30 mins! This is the largest Monet exhibit ever and it was really incredible. All of his most famous paintings were there, the water lilies, the japanese bridge and lots of others. It was so busy inside, and this exhibit is here for 6 months! It was really nice for Cecile and I to get out of the house together and have a bit of a girls night. I couldn't take any picture inside the exhibit, but I did buy an exhibit book that I will share when I get home. I loved the whole thing so much that I just made reservations for mom and I to go when she is here in a few weeks!

Thursday night, I was super lucky and got to meet up with Gisa Straith, who comes to Paris every 6 weeks for business. She was so sweet and brought me lots of treats from Mom and Dad at home! I got books, gum, candy, melatonin and nailpolish. Gisa also brought me a can of pumpkin, which came in extremely handy this weekend. We had a really nice dinner at a cafe really close to the Louvre and t was so nice to see a familiar face! Its hard to be away from family and home on the holidays so I was so thankful to be able to spend time with her.

Friday morning I had my french class, and when it ended at 10 I thought about going back home but the weather was so spectacular I decided to go for a little walk. I found out pretty quickly that my school is situated about 2 blocks from the Arc de Triomphe so I took lots of pictures there and then continued on. I ended up stopping at a bakery for a sandwich and then just kept walking until I got to the Eiffel Tower. It was about 25 degrees so I ate lunch in the park and read my book. A really amazing day!!

Place Victor Hugo, Where I go to school

Memorial for Lady Di

Where I ate my lunch :)

Saturday morning, I met up with my friend Tarah and we took off to the market here, and then on the bus and Metro to St. Germain des Pres. We got lunch and a bottle of Rose and went to the Jardin de Luxembourg for the afternoon. The weather was incredible again and we had fun watching the little kids sail their boats in the pond. The Garden was absolutely packed with people but I guess thats pretty normal for a saturday. We continued the day, walking around the area and exploring different little neighbourhoods. I even managed to find a Canadian bar!! Its called The Moose, and it shows NHL games, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to find it... Even though there was a Maple Leafs jersey in the window!!!

On Sunday I got up and got to work making my Pumpkin Pie!! I was so excited with all the tasty smells of fall. Cecile and Xavier had said they wanted to make a thanksgiving for me, but because there are no Turkeys for sale in France right now, we had roastbeef. They were really sweet though and we had a nice bottle of champagne to toast the holiday. My pumpkin Pie turned out incredible! Unfortunately, I was the only one who thought so. Basically the family wasn't super keen on the idea of it, and not so much on the taste either, but the important thing is that they tried it... And now I have a whole pumpkin pie to eat to myself.

Anyways, there is a strike in Paris tomorrow so I am not sure whether or not I will have class because my teacher said there was a big possibility that she herself wouldn't make it! I am going to hope for the best and try to get there anyways.

I am going to finish off my post in true Thanksgiving Tradition, and tell you all of the things that I am thankful for.

I am thankful for my family and friends at home. I am thankful for this new adventure I am on and all the wonderful people I have met so far and will continue to meet. I am thankful for all of the support my family has given me, even though I decided to drop out of school!

I hope you all had a wonderful long weekend filled with family and good food!!

Love you lots,

M

good week, bad week

Hello Friends and Family,

This past week started off really awful but got increasingly better. I will start with the downs...

It started off monday after lunch, Philippine and I walked back to school after eating lunch at home. At some point during the 2 block walk from door to door, I managed to lose my blackberry. I have absolutely no idea what happened but I realized as soon as I dropped her off that it was gone. I walked the path 3 times before giving up and I searched all over the house even though I am sure I put it in my pocket before leaving. If it fell out of my pocket, I am fairly sure I would have heard it fall. Xavier suggested that I may have been a victim of pickpocketing, but I really don't know. I tried calling it and although it was fully charged, it had already been turned off so either way, it is a lost cause!! I was basically devastated because as well as being my easy way to connect with family friends through bbm, anytime, anywhere, the thing is also really expensive and I really do not have the extra funds to just buy a new one!

On Tuesday afternoon, I decided to go to La Defense which is one of the business centres of Paris where there are a lot of sky scrapers and people dressed looking like they mean business! There is a mall there with an Orange boutique so I thought I would go see if I could buy a new phone. Unfortunately, the man who I asked for help wouldn't even give me the time of day without Xavier there or with his identification! I was very frustrated at this point but I did manage to find a Virgin Records store that had a pretty good selection of English books. I also bought a new pair of headphones because mine recently broke so the trip wasn't completely useless. It also gave me the chance to take a couple pictures of the Grande Arche de la Defense. It is a massive building that creates a straight line to the Arc de Triomphe and then onto the Obelisk and the Jardin des Tuileries. The pictures really don't do it justice as it was too big to get into the frame!!

Lunch time at Le Grande Arche.

Wednesday was a really long day because the kids don't have school and it was the first time since being here that I spent the entire day with Philippine. Needless to say, I was wiped out and went to bed really early!

I didn't do a whole lot on Thursday because of the rain but I did manage to clean the whole studio. The bathroom and floors were getting pretty bad but now it is spotless. I also spent the day organizing my things for school. Thursday night I had a great night with the kids because Cecile is away on Business and Xavier had a dinner to go to. Philippine let me french braid her hair for the first time and I think she liked it so hopefully she'll let me again.

Miss Philippine after she let me do her hair!

Today was by far the best day of the week even though I had a really early start. I got up at 6 15 this morning and was out of the house by 7 on my way to school. I have to say though that I don't particularly like getting up before the sun and the walk to the bus stop was a little bit creepy in the dark. I found the school no problem and right away walked into a tiny little classroom crammed with chairs. There are 17 of us with 1 teacher but I think the class is going to change around a bit as people decide what level suits them best. i think the level I am in is really good for my level so I am going to stay where I am. I met a nice girl from Germany and we went together after class to get our books. I came home after that, and thank god I did because not 15 minutes after arriving home there was a knock on the door and there stood the post man with a nice big box, addressed to me!! I really wanted to tear it open, but I was able to resist and I grabbed my camera to take a few pictures. The package was from Nancy and Ted and it is perfect!! Nancy responded to my call for peanut butter as well as a bunch of other treats including 3 books that I am really excited to read. Thanks to both of you for making my bad week into a good week!

I have a love of getting mail (hint, hint) but a package filled with goodies is even better!

Hope everyone at home had a better week than mine and I wanted to say that I love you all so much!!

The Box.

The goodies inside the box!

The goodies laid out: Kraft dinner, books, tea, ginger snaps, peanut butter, rockets

Rockets.....? Smarties....??? hmmmm. Candy from Texas, made in Canada!!