Friends and Family

As charming as Christmas trees, lights, carols, and presents can be, I firmly believe that what truly make the holidays fun and special are friends and family. And, thankfully, we are very blessed to have fabulous ones. While I am sad to say that we only had one of each for our holiday season, our visiting friend and family made our season bright.

As I mentioned previously, Megan (yes, my former student and a dear friend) came to visit the week before Christmas. Despite my vomiting in the metro on the way to pick her up from the airport and a couple of days during her trip where I couldn’t leave the house due to nausea, we had a wonderful trip. There’s nothing like being with someone you love when you feel like crap (poetic, huh?). Anyway, I can’t express enough gratitude for how loving and patient she was with me… I am very blessed by her friendship and was very blessed by her visit.

We still managed to get in quite a whirlwind of Parisian sights: the Eiffel Tower,

the Rodin Museum (home of “the Thinker”), Napoleon’s Tomb, the Bastille and the Marais area (complete with the Jewish quarter, and no, despite Chris’s encouragement we did not break out into Israeli dancing in the streets…), Notre Dame,

Saint Chapelle (a 13^th century chapel with incredible stained glass telling the entire story of Scripture), the Conciergerie (a former palace and later prison where people were kept on their way to the guillotine), the Louvre (home of the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, among thousands of other treasures), the Orsay Museum (housing famous impressionists like Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Van Gogh), the Tuileries Gardens and the Orangerie (home of Monet’s greatest Water Lilies), the Place de la Concord (where blood ran in the streets from the masses slaughtered under the guillotine),

the Arc de Triomphe (Napoleon’s ridiculously gigantic attempt to compensate for something), the Champs Elysees (home of Paris’s most elite shopping), and the Montmartre area (topped by the white domes of Sacre Coeur and bohemian home of the Moulin Rouge).

Wheh! I’m exhausted just recounting it all! We also managed two excursions outside of Paris (mentioned in the snow post): Versailles and Chartres. So… come visit me in Paris and I won’t let you miss anything!

The day after Megan left, my dear brother came to visit. Rhys has been living in Naples, Italy since July of this year, and he has not been able to see anyone in the family since he moved. Additionally, the poor guy has missed every Christmas with family since he joined the army over three years ago. Needless to say, we were THRILLED to see him, and so glad that it worked out for him to visit, especially because he could not get enough leave to go all the way to the US… but a trip to Paris for five days was easy! Even more fabulous, he came bearing gifts from his stores on base that carry American items: like chips and salsa. We were SO excited to have some chips and salsa… I can’t even explain.

Anyway, Rhys is not quite the tourist that Megan is (and don’t worry, I cater to each guest’s individual desires ;-), but we still managed to have a great time. We did lots of wandering around the city (being silly, of course),

and we did see the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Montmartre, and the Arc de Triomphe (think we look alike much??).

Plus, we also went into Paris’s catacombs – quite a creepy experience. You spend about an hour more than a hundred feet underground, walking through dimly lit tunnels,

most of which are lined with the bones of hundreds of thousands of Parisians taken from all the cemeteries in Paris in the late 1700’s when they decided that the cemeteries were full and sanitation was bad. Since there were tunnels all under the city from the mining that had taken place over the centuries, it seemed like a natural place to move all those bones.

The warning at the entrance to the tombs is great: “Stop! This is the empire of the dead.”

We also found a couple of English-speaking pubs (one British and one Canadian) to watch Liverpool games – a very important resource that we had not found before his arrival; thanks, Rhys! We spent one evening seeing Tom Harrel and his quintet playing jazz… Jazz in Paris – it’s worth it. And, of course, we had one solid 2 ½ hour French meal, which began with INCREDIBLE foie gras de canard (duck) and onion soup (Notice here it is merely "onion soup" rather than French onion soup... so what about French doors? Do they just call them doors? Food for thought...).

We had a blast, and I LOVE my big brother. I pray that you all had similar fun and joy with your friends and family over this Christmas season.