Christmas in Paris

It is Christmas Eve and I am alone in my apartment. My roommate left this morning to go home to England for ten days. In a couple of hours I will leave and go to Sacre Coeur for the music program that precedes the Midnight Mass. I want to go early because I think there will be a lot of people there. I thought about going to Notre Dame, but Sacre Coeur is closer and smaller.

As of this afternoon, I had no plans for tomorrow. I was just going to pretend it is any old day. Then, a friend contacted me and invited me for dinner. A few hours later, another teacher invited me to lunch. So, now I am having two Christmas dinners!

I haven't written for a long time. I have been busy since I returned from the States. For one thing, I have been working more, trying to get more hours. Also, I have taken a couple of weekend trips. In November I went to Prague to visit my sister, Karen. She has a great apartment across from the park and beautiful villa where she works. Of course, she is not there too much as she continues to travel often. In fact, my second trip was in early December, where I met her in London for the weekend. I took the Eurostar over and was in London just 2 1/2 hours after leaving Paris. It really is quite cool. I had a good time in both places, visiting Christmas markets, a castle, and quite a few pubs. We also went to the theater in London - a first for me.

In between the trips, I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner. There were 20 people here, only about 5 of whom were American. For most of the English and French people, it was their first Thanksgiving! Everyone brought food and lots of wine. From about 5 pm until almost 2 am, we had a great time. Then, as Zoe (my roommate) and I were cleaning up, it started snowing. Big, fat, fluffy flakes were falling and it was beautiful. Of course, it only lasted about 20 minutes!

So now it is Christmastime in Paris. The big department stores are all decorated and lights hang from many of the streets. There are numerous Christmas markets, although they all seem to sell the same things. I visited a beautiful creche in St. Sulpice (the church from The DaVinci Code) and wandered through the market that lines the Champs Elysées. I haven't been there at night yet to see it all lit up, but that's on the agenda for this weekend. My friend, Tabbi, is coming to visit and we will do all the tourist rounds. (In fact, today I taught a woman who works at the Eiffel Tower and she gave me a ticket to go to the top. So we'll certainly be doing that!) I'm looking forward to her being here. I've been somewhat sad; being so far from home during holidays is always tough. But, at least I am in Paris, unlike my wonderful nephew (in-law) who is stationed in Iraq. He, too, will be away from his family this Christmas. The hardest part for me is that I miss Ryan so very much!

I hope you all have a wonderful and happy holiday. Merry Christmas!

PS - I haven't put any photos here lately because I can post them more easily on Facebook. You can see them there.