The Week Before Christmas

The week before Christmas I didn’t really do much of anything.  I mostly just hung out in my foyer relaxing and it was rather nice because it wasn’t very noisy in the foyer since the majority of people had gone home for break.  There isn’t too much to say but I did hang out with Clayton, a guy from my program, on the 20^th in the afternoon, we went over to Sacré-Coeur and walked around that area for a good two hours.  It was fun getting to hang out with another person from the program before he left to go back to the States.  However, on Wednesday the 21^st I did actually do something fun and I got to get out of Paris and visit the suburbs, well actually it was just one suburb, Joinville-le-Pont.  Now, you may be wondering what was there to do in the suburbs and why did I spend the day out there?  Well, I have some French cousins, Christine & Bruno and their three kids and Christine’s parents, Michele & Noel all live out there.  Christine’s kids are in high school and middle school so it was nice to be around young people closer to my own age.  I got to the train station in Joinville-le-Pont at 11am and didn’t get back home until about 8pm.  We had a very nice lunch which was a delicious lasagna and of course a salad and we had a yummy dessert.  We also had some aperitifs, and of course you have to have wine with lunch and then Christine pulled out some champagne to go with dessert.  It was all very good and I loved just hanging with the family and being able to help set the table and whatnot.  It was a great way to spend the day!  Hopefully, I will be able to go out and visit them again!  It is only a 20 minute train ride away.  Here are a couple of pictures from my day in Joinville-le-Pont.

 

Noel, me and Michele

From left to right: Morgane, Jimmy (behind), Noel, me, Michele, et Dylan

Christine, me and Bruno and their dog Canelle (I look rather scary in this picture, I have no idea what is going on with my hair lol!)

But anyways, it was a wonderful day to spend a rainy Wednesday, we were hoping to walk around the town and by the river but it was rather rainy so we just hung out around the house which was fine with me.  I had a great time nonetheless!  On Thursday I did absolutely nothing and on Friday I went shopping over by Hôtel de Ville to find a Christmas present for Perrine’s younger sister.  At Christmas we are going to do a present exchange and I pulled Perrine’s sister’s name.  Hopefully it will be a nice weekend!