Christmas Time is Here

Wandering down through the Christmas markets on the Champs-Élysées is one of the best ways to take a break from studying for finals. The amazing gift stalls combined with the hundreds of different food vendors combine to make a festive and joyful atmosphere, sugar-coated almond stands wedged between two scarf stalls. Every other person seems to have a cup of vin chaud-- mulled wine-- clutched in their hands, warming them up from the inside out (though personally, I find the smell much more enticing than the actual taste).

Seriously, this sign was everywhere

As the sun starts to set around 4:30, the lights start to flicker on above all the wooden chalets. Strings of light run all along the roofs, white lights blinking on and off to give the impression of snow, while signs light up in red and green, proclaiming that you've found the Christmas markets of Paris. There's a small artisan "village" that curves off to one side off the main market that I fell in love with, stalls of jewelry looking like they belongs to a fairy queen and carved wooden statues appearing regal despite being only a few inches tall.

The chalets lining the opposite side of the street

Ah yes.  Michael Jackson, the most Christmas-like you can get

The lights going on above the sidewalk

All the trees lit up

One of the trees lit up

I'm sure DC has something like the Christmas markets, but something tells me it's probably not to the same extent. There are over 200 wooden chalets along the Champs-- and yes, I looked that up. The French get into the Christmas spirit early, and they only go up from there. Every store plays Christmas carols-- mostly in English, weirdly-- and it seems as though every major boulevard and then some is covered in strings of blinking lights. It's contagious, and I've caught it, only refraining from decorating my apartment because I know I'll be leaving in a week anyway.

The Christmas spirit is a wonderful thing. It fills you up and excites you and it seems as though nothing can dampen your happiness, not even the upcoming final exams. Everyone seems lighter, smiling more and not letting the little things get to them. I wish I could figure out how to bottle that feeling and keep it around all year long, because there's something about it that makes everything seem just a little bit magical.

So, as the streets sparkle and I use this next week to finish up both my first semester of college and my Christmas shopping, I'm not nearly as stressed as I thought I would be. The Christmas markets have put a little glow inside of me that seems to absorb all of the bad and turn it into silver and gold tinsel lining instead, and I'm starting to think that maybe-- just maybe-- there is such a thing as magic after all.

Katrina

Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for many things.  I'm thankful for the position in life I was born into, I'm thankful for the schools I've had the opportunity to attend, I'm thankful for my family and friends (as cliched as that is), and I'm thankful for the amazing city I live in.  I'm also thankful for Star Wars, but that's not quite the point.

Celebrating Thanksgiving in a country other than the US is a singular experience.  For one thing, I don't get any sort of break or days off, meaning it feels almost like every other day.  For another, no one around you is paying any sort of attention to it unless they're also from the US, making it seem like it's this secret thing that only a few people know about-- which, in a way, it is.

NYU organized a Thanksgiving dinner for all the students, scheduled to start at 8 PM, a truly French mealtime.  I actually didn't end up going, so I can't speak for how the food was, but it was promised to be "Thanksgiving a la Francaise," and though I'm sure it was delicious, it seemed like something was going to be missing.

One of my friends' family lives here in Paris, working for the US Embassy.  They invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner, American-style, and I am so grateful to them for everything.  The food was delicious, and they even sent me home with extra pie, but the real thing they offered me was hospitality and a home to go to on a day marked by spending time with family.  We sat around a table and talked with their neighbors and friends, and I felt just as welcome there as I do at every Thanksgiving at home with my own family.

I FaceTimed with my family and all their various guests when I got home from dinner, stuffed to bursting, though still missing being home.  When they talk about studying abroad, no one ever says how you'll miss home when all your friends are on break and your family is celebrating holidays and you're stuck across the ocean.  Technology helps enormously-- being able to talk to people in real time and see their faces even though they're halfway across the world is an amazing thing that I am so thankful for.

I'm also so grateful I was able to spend yesterday with a group of wonderful people who made me feel at home in a country where I am very much a foreigner.  It was a strange Thanksgiving, but a good one-- still filled with family and love and thanks.  And isn't that all that really matters?

Katrina

The True Mark of Adulthood

The past few days, I've been confined to my bed with an energy-draining fever that left me unable to do most things apart from read and Facetime with my mom.  It's given me a lot of time to reflect, however, and I've been left with one giant realization.  The mark of adulthood-- at least for me, at this moment-- isn't cooking for yourself, or doing laundry, or cleaning your apartment; it's getting sick and having to drag yourself tooth and nail through it, depending on your own force of will to get things done.

I never could've done it without my amazing friends, of course-- so many of them offered their help, and brought me soup and cough drops and their sympathies as well as missed homework assignments.  But for the first time in my life, I didn't have my mom here with me, checking in on me every half hour, constantly reminding me to keep drinking liquids and asking if I wanted anything else.  She did the best she could from half a world away, for which I am extremely grateful-- being trapped in bed without energy to get up is very lonely after a day or two, and having her to talk to was a blessing.

In the end, though, it all came down to me.  I was the one who had to take my temperature, take Advil, get tea and water, email all my professors and my chorus that I wasn't going to be there because I was in bed with a fever.  And, I have to say, laying in bed with a fever and less than no energy doesn't really make it easy to get up and make a cup of tea when you run out.  It's a lot easier to just stay in bed and bemoan your fate.

Eventually, though, after laying in bed for about a day, I realized bemoaning my fate wasn't really the best option.  That didn't mean I stopped bemoaning my fate-- I just did slightly more about it.  I managed to muster energy throughout the day to get out of bed and get more liquids and blew through three and a half books (though to be fair, I had been reading before I came to this revelation).

That's not to say I think I've stumbled upon the revelation of the True Mark of Adulthood.  It's just to say that I've stumbled upon another tiny step on the road towards becoming a Semi-Functioning Human, and though I felt like death for a few days while doing it, I've come to realize that I'm maybe more capable than I've been giving myself credit for.

Plus, I got a few days in bed to just lay and read, and who doesn't want that?

Katrina

A Visit to Champagne

There are many perks to studying abroad as a college student.  One of these perks is that you get to take advantage of all the trips organized by various student study-abroad organizations and travel for prices that probably shouldn't exist, they're so low.  I utilized this perk, along with one of my friends, Rachel, and we went off on a day trip to Reims and a tour of the Mercier Champagne cellar with the University of Connecticut.

Reims is an extremely beautiful little town.  Parts of it are still cobblestone, and sometimes it seems slightly medieval.  This is helped, of course, by the huge cathedral in the middle of the town, its half-gothic architecture creating the sensation of being transported back in time.  Inside the cathedral is a mix of the old and the new; stained glass dates from the time the cathedral was built all the way up to a new installation of stained glass created by Marc Chagall in 1968.  Somehow it all blends together, and I was awed by the enormity of everything inside the cathedral.

The square outside the cathedral

The Reims cathedral

Stained glass inside the cathedral

The Marc Chagall stained glass inside the cathedral

After lunch, we headed away from Reims into the heart of the Champagne region, going to tour the Mercier cellars.  The bus ride itself took about an hour, winding through tiny roads, surrounded on either side by vineyards stretching as far as the eye could see.  Finally arriving at Mercier, we were all placed on a little train that chugged along through the underground tunnels stretching for miles, giving us a glimpse into how Mercier makes and stores their champagne.

The start of the champagne tour

Stone decorations in the cellar

A very long, very blurry hallway filled with bottles of champagne

Part of the Mercier vineyards

Upon finishing the tour, we were given a taste of the Mercier champagne and then set loose to peruse and purchase at our leisure.  I enjoyed the champagne enough to buy a half-bottle of it, which is now sitting patiently in my refrigerator, waiting for an occasion to be opened.  All in all, I would count it as a very fun day, complete with a beautiful view of the sunset on the bus back into Paris.

Katrina

A Visit to Marseille

Manipulating your umbrella in windy conditions so it doesn't reverse or break has become an art form.  That comes slightly later, though; let's start at the beginning of the trip.

Up bright and early at 5:45 AM Friday morning to catch the TGV to Marseille was painful, I'll admit.  I could've done with a few more hours of sleep before attempting to get to the train station from my apartment.  I managed without incident, however, duffel bag slug over my shoulder and ticket in one hand.  I would write about the beautiful three hour ride down into the south of France, but I fell promptly asleep right after sitting down in the train.

Arriving at Marseille, I was immediately struck by the enormity of it.  Being the second largest city in France (as long as you're not in Lyon, which is apparently also the second largest), I shouldn't have been shocked, but the sprawling buildings covered the entire space between the sea and the hills off in the distance, so I'm sure you'll understand my awe.  I got a better view of the city up from the Notre Dame de la Garde, a huge cathedral on top of a hill overlooking the city.  Everywhere I looked, there were buildings, Mediterranean-style roofs stretching as far as the eye could see-- until they reached the sea, of course.

The view from the train station

One of the views from Notre Dame de la Garde

A different view from Notre Dame de la Garde

Another view from Notre Dame de la Garde-- seriously, it's a huge city!

The Notre Dame de la Garde itself was beautiful, seeming almost like a cross between a church and a fortress.  In the main sanctuary, thousands of little boats hung from the ceiling, something I've never seen before but was thoroughly delighted to witness.  Below the sanctuary was the crypt, much smaller and barer, but just as beautiful.

One of the towers of the Notre Dame de la Garde

Stained glass in the crypt

The main sanctuary

Hanging boats in the sanctuary

A statue in the sanctuary

After the visit to the cathedral, we took the Petit Train back down to the port of Marseilles, winding down the hill through tiny streets mixed with the occasional large road that felt entirely too much like a highway for me to be entirely comfortable with just being in a little train.  We passed an old abbey (that I've forgotten the name of, terribly sorry), and got a view of the island fortress that Alexandre Dumas based The Count of Monte Cristo on.

The Abbey

Passing the arch looking out across the sea

Seaside houses

A collection of small islands off the coast-- one of which is the setting for Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo!

One of the many little streets we drove down

The Old Port of Marseille

We also took a walking tour around the Old Port of Marseille-- completely in French, so I'm impressed with the amount of things I now know about Marseille.  Did you know Louis XIV (that's 14 right?) stormed Marseille with his troops and then built a fort where the canons could be turned to point on the city in case of rebellion?  Fun fact of the day.

The weather was beautiful on Friday, despite the predictions of rain for the whole weekend.  We'd all gotten excited about the prospect of another sunny day in Marseille on Saturday, when, all of a sudden, disaster struck.

They say it only rains 50 days out of the whole year in Marseille.  Apparently we were unlucky.

Saturday, we woke up to a chill and some wind, with skies that did not look like they were going to reveal the sun anytime soon.  Nevertheless, we headed out back to the port, and got on a boat for a three and a half hour boat tour.  Being prone to seasickness, I was not looking forward to the boat tour to begin with, but when you add in rain and wind, I was dreading having to spend the morning out on the sea.

I have no pictures from Saturday, for many reasons.  The first is that I was terrified of getting my camera wet and it breaking, and the second is that I was trying so hard not to get nauseous on the boat that I couldn't think of anything else.

At any rate, about half an hour into the boat tour, our guide decided to cut the tour a bit short, so instead of taking the long route around Marseille, we took a short cut, meaning we were only on the water for about two hours.  Two hours of my life I'll never get back, but at least I managed to stay un-seasick.  We were then given a huge amount of free time to shop and get lunch before meeting for another walking tour, so Grace and I went and wandered down the streets in the slight drizzle and heavy winds in search of soap (Marseille's top export, apparently) and sandwiches.

I didn't get any soaps, though I did buy some amazing lavender-filled tiny pillows to hang in my room before we headed back to meet up for the walking tour.  By this point, many people were already soaked and windblown, but we continued on nonetheless.  Umbrellas in hand, we began our march up one of the hills of Marseille.

In the two hours of our walking tour, three umbrellas broke, and everyone's turned inside out at least twice.  You were lucky if there was one bit of you that was left dry by the end of it, and everyone looked like they had just walked out of a wind tunnel.  Luckily for us, we got another few hours of free time before we headed back to catch the train to Paris, so I plopped myself down in a cafe across from where we were meeting and didn't move for two hours.

Finally, we left Marseille and headed back to Paris.  The TGV is an easy, comfortable way to travel, and I got both some sleep and some writing done.  Marseille is a beautiful city, though occasionally feels more like a large collection of suburbs than a true city.  If I do go back, it'll probably be sometime in the spring, when I can lay in the sun without fear of getting rained on or blown over at any moment.

Katrina

Pictures: September

Whew, the workload has picked up some over here!  Luckily, I've gotten a head start on the work for next week, since I'm heading down to Marseille tomorrow with NYU.  Expect a full post after that trip-- in the meantime, here are some pictures from the last month, as per request.  Enjoy!

Versailles

The span of the gardens at Versailles

One of the many (many, many, many) fountains

A statue in the middle of one of the garden labyrinths

Another one of the hidden fountains

The dancing fountains in a lake at the edge of the gardens

The square in front of the palace

A shockingly empty hallway in the palace of Versailles

One of the many sculptures

The top of an organ

The ceiling and chandeliers in the Hall of Mirrors

I see you

One of the views of the gardens from inside the palace

Chantilly

NYU took all the freshmen on a retreat to Chantilly for a weekend in order to better orient us; lucky for us, the site was beautiful!

The hotel where the retreat was held

The ceiling of one of the rooms at the museum of the Chateau de la Tour

The largest room of the museum, covered in paintings

Black and white stained glass

Another ceiling in the museum-- sensing a theme yet?

The gardens of the museum

Two tiny puppies wandering the stables

Pepito is watching.  Always watching.

Grace, Rachel, and me

Wandering Paris

We were taken on a boat tour of Paris; this was the start of it

The Musee d'Orsay

The Eiffel Tower

The Notre Dame

Rachel and me with Jimmy Buffet at the American Library in Paris

The Eiffel Tower again-- but this time, at night!

Since the train to Marseille is three hours plus change each way, I should have a good amount of time to write, so don't worry, you'll get the stories behind all these pictures, I promise.  For now, au revoir!

Katrina