I'm extremely lucky to be spending my semester abroad just outside of Paris, something I have always dreamed of. I could not have done it without each and every one of you, you're the best! I'm loving every second of my experience here (well maybe not every second of the 3 hour classes) and am truly enjoying sharing all my stories and adventures with you guys :)

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Christmastime in Paris

Caitlin and I decided that there was no way we could study abroad in Paris in the fall and miss going to see all the Christmas markets and the department store's decorated windows. So we headed into Paris to do some last minute Christmas shopping. We first wandered around the Champs Elysee and wandered through the Christmas markets that I went to with the boys on Thanksgiving. I ended up buying a couple of Christmas gifts and as it started the get dark, the Champs Elysee's Christmas decorations started turning on and it was gorgeous. The buildings are already so ornate that the twinkling lights added even more to them. If I didn't love Christmas before, I would now!

After finishing up at the Christmas markets, we made our way over to Galeries LaFayette, which is one of the main department stores in Paris to see all the decorated windows. It was so crowded trying to move from window to window, I almost felt like I was home trying to look at the windows at Macy's. The windows were awesome, the theme was Broadway musicals so each window represented a different one. At Galeries LaFayette, the incorporate their clothes and other merchandise into their windows, which I thought was really interesting. The store carries such high end clothes from famous designers from all over the world, so it was a different way to display them. At each window they were playing the main track from the musical, it took me a while to realize they were in French! When you are used to the tune of the song, you don't even notice that it's in another language. While we were in the crowd of people looking at the windows a group of carol singers showed up, it started to feel like we were living a Christmas movie, it was that picture perfect. After taking in all the decorations outside, we went inside where the store was decorated just as beautifully. I love Christmas, have a mentioned that before?! It makes me so happy.


After we finished up shopping we headed over to the Latin Quarter to meet up with some of our friends who had been at a play for dinner. We had a fairly large group with us so we wandered up and down the cobblestone streets trying to find a restaurant that sounded good, and reasonably prices of course! We ended up in this little French restaurant and when we randomly picked it by the menu hanging outside what we were getting ourselves into. We sat down at our table and ordered a bottle of wine to share and then it began. Apparently the restaurant has live entertainment, and entertaining it was. There were two women who switched back and forth performing, sometimes even performing together. They could sing, they could dance, afterall this is France! It was actually quite hilarious, from ballet in the tiny spaces between tables, when we literally thought they were going to kick someone eating their dinner, to draping themselves across the piano while singing you honestly never knew what they were going to do next. Dinner was full of funny conversation and lots of entertainment, plus the food was very good, you have to love the multiple courses of salad, entree, and the fabulous desserts! As excited as I am for all the food that I miss, I'm also going to miss the way dinners are here in France.

I still can't believe that this was possibly one of my last nights in Paris! How did this happen!?