I know I've been on vacation and all and should have been completely caught up on posts by now, but sometimes visiting with your brother is more important and then sometimes he leaves and you get stricken with gallstones. Even though you're only 27 and don't really have any idea what they are. This update will focus on that first (and much more fun) point. Tune in to a future post (once I really figure out what the hell is wrong with me) for more on my fun navigation of the French health care system...
Anyway, first of all, yay for vacation!!!! I don't really remember what I did most of that last week of school--it feels like so long ago. But the only really important highlights were my first "real" British meal (Sam, a British assistant, had a big feast before vacation where he made nut roast and Yorkshire pudding and gravy and it was all DELICIOUS and quite impressive--who says England doesn't have good food?) and a relatively big snowstorm, for Lyon, on Friday, the day before vacation. The snow was blizzarding about and actually stuck to the ground for a day or so, which I guess it never does. I made a little snowman on my balcony. :)
Then I disregarded the wishes of the mom of the kids I babysit for and took them out for a ginormous snowball fight in the street. It's really just not winter until you make a snowman and have a snowball fight. Oh, and go skiing. I'm working on that one still, but I WILL make it to the Alps before the snow is gone...at least once!
Maybe I was being punished for enjoying the snow too much, I don't know, but the day my brother was flying from Colorado to Boston for his flight to France, the entire East Coast got annihilated by a massive snowstorm. My brother got stranded in Atlanta, spent a million hours in the airport on stand-by and ultimately wasn't back in Boston in time to make his flight to France. I was severely depressed because it seemed highly unlikely that he would be able to get on a different flight at such a crazy time right before Christmas, and I thought I was going to be BY MYSELF for Christmas, which would have been sad and depressing. Instead, my brother somehow worked some Delta/Air France magic and got a seat on a direct flight from Boston to Paris one day later than he was supposed to land in Lyon. We were going to take a train to Paris together from Lyon anyway so I was just going to meet him in Paris instead.
Apparently, the transportation gods were still pissed off because when I got to the train station on Tuesday morning, all of the trains were fine and on time except for MY 9:00 train, which was supprimé (cancelled). I still don't know the reason, but after waiting in a super long line, I got a seat on the 11:00 and hoped that my brother would somehow magically be able to reach me without access to a cell phone and without any French language abilities. He did, by miming with some nice French woman in the train station, and called me at 11:00 from the woman's cell phone, when I was supposed to be getting into Paris and asked me if "supprimé" meant early. Ha! I had told him that "retard" meant late, but I never in a million years thought to tell him the word for cancelled... Anyway, I gave him my new train info. and told him the words for locker so he could ditch his backpack, which he apparently did and then proceeded to take a little nap in the train station. So, almost exactly 24 hours after he was supposed to land in Lyon, he miraculously found me on the platform at Gare de Lyon in Paris. Kind of crazy and amazing.
I called my host brother, who was miraculously at home, and my brother and I took a bus to their house to drop off our things. No time to relax or shower (the bro hadn't showered in 4 days...) because my host brother had to go out to run Christmas errands and he had to lock the door behind us. So I set off to show my brother one of my favorite cities in the world. It was kind of cold and gray, but Paris is still so unbelievably magical, as clichéd and stupid as that may sound. We walked from my host family's house through the Montparnasse Cemetery--I wanted my brother to see how crazy and crowded and different the cemeteries are in France.
I think he appreciated it. :) As you can see from the picture, he started doing little imitations of sculptures and things that we passed. He continued this throughout the visit, and it never ceased to be pretty much hilarious. We moved on through the Luxembourg Garden (one of my favorite places where I used to eat lunch/crepes everyday) where my brother had some more fun with the sculptures.
He also stalked a guard at the Palais du Luxembourg trying to get a picture of him because he had this funny little uniform on. I don't think you're supposed to take pictures of guards, and this guard was particularly intent on my brother NOT getting his picture. He kept hiding behind posts whenever Nathaniel pulled out the camera, and he would just rotate with us every time we moved. It was hilarious. Nathaniel finally got a picture of him through the fence when he snuck around behind the guard. Success! But the picture's honestly not really that interesting so I'll spare you.
Next, we went by the place where I used to have class and looked for my old crepe man. I think it was too cold for him and his little stand. That, or maybe he's moved on since 2002... But we consoled ourselves with a stop at the Christmas Market at Saint Sulpice for some mulled wine and the best tartiflette I've ever had.
WAY better than the stuff at the Lyon Christmas market. We poked our noses in the St. Sulpice church, which supposedly has one of the biggest organs in the world. Nathaniel wasn't impressed. I probably should have reminded him instead of the important role the St. Sulpice church plays in The Da Vinci Code...
We were still cold and needed a little rest from walking so when we stumbled upon all the famous writer's cafes near St.-Germain-des-Prés, I let my brother pick one for a little coffee break. He was basically falling asleep and needed the caffeine. Plus, in order to really experience France, you HAVE to go out to have a little mini cafe! Of course, he chose Le Deux Magots because he thought it should be pronounced La Deutsche Maggots, which would be a hilarious and kind of disgusting name for a restaurant. An important note to add here is that throughout the entire trip, my brother was constantly harassing me about the fact that the French don't pronounce a third of the letters of any given phrase (he calculated the percentage several times with several different phrases--unfortunately, it seems to hold true). He did make a valiant attempt to learn the rules and made drastic improvements in his pronunciation, but he couldn't seem to get rid of a little Spanish lilt. ;)
Anyway, after his much needed caffeine break and the best (and most expensive) hot chocolate I've ever had, we ventured back out where night had fallen and the City of Lights was showing itself in all its Christmas spirit splendor! It was amazing. We went from the Louvre, to the Place de la Concorde (where there was a huge ferris wheel and Nathaniel had his first banana-nutella crepe and fell instantly in love), along the brilliantly lit Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe.
We climbed up the 288 steps of the Arc de Triomphe and had the best view of the city ever.
We spent a good long time up there because my brother was fascinated by the RIDICULOUS traffic below. I honestly don't understand why there aren't more accidents. There are no lanes or lights really, cars come shooting into the mix completely randomly it seems, little Smart cars and scooters zip in and out through spaces that can't possibly actually be there, and at times it looks more like a haphazard parking lot than a functioning traffic circle.
I finally tore him away from tracking the little Smart cars and waiting for a huge pile-up, and we set off for the Eiffel Tower. It was amazing, as always, but without even planning it, we randomly stumbled upon it (literally, we were at the base of the tower) just as a light show ON the Eiffel Tower began. It was like the Fête des Lumières in Lyon, but it was 100 times better because it had music, lights, lasted for 15 minutes, and was ON the Eiffel Tower IN Paris.
We kept looking at each other and asking if it was really happening. And then it just kept on going! So cool.
My host brother had texted me asking if we were coming back for dinner awhile earlier so we didn't have time to try to go to the top, but I don't think even the view from up there could have competed with the amazing light show. We took the metro home in time for a delicious dinner with my host mom and dad and two of my host brothers, Timothy who's 20 now and Jean-Raphael who's 25. It was an adorable dinner, and my host mom valiantly tried to speak English. They had a cute little Christmas tree up, and Jean-Raphael had bought the most delicious champagne to go with dinner. After we ate, I made my brothers play guitar for me, and they miraculously had three guitars.
They spent most of the time pretending to tune and being shy about actually PLAYING anything, but I was in heaven. :) Then my brother and I went into my cute little room, and he promptly and IMMEDIATELY passed out.
I had a little trouble waking him up the next morning, and I really wanted to just let him sleep, but we had things to do, Paris to see! We had a nice little breakfast with my host mom during which, via me, she and my brother had a cute discussion about the environment and politics. Then we headed out. After stopping at my old neighborhood boulangerie for the best pain au chocolat in all of France, I'm convinced, we took the metro up to Montmartre and walked up to see the Sacré Coeur. It was kind of gray and foggy so you couldn't see much of the city, but it was impressive all the same. We made the trek back down, debated about buying a scarf for Nathaniel (he was rocking the one he brought so well that I wanted to buy him a nice French one, but we finally decided that he basically wouldn't ever wear it back in the states--sigh), and jumped on the metro to go to Notre Dame since it was freezing and too far to walk. Made a quick stop at the Pompidou Center to see the crazy architecture, almost stopped to go skating at a public rink set up by Hotel de Ville, and then meandered over to Notre Dame.
There was a beautiful Christmas tree up in front of it and tons of people (and pigeons, like the fat, cold, little guy below) milling about.
We wandered through the Latin Quarter and got a delicious kebab and some more banana-nutella crepes, and then I dragged Nathaniel to my idea of heaven: the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. I think I'd been there before, but I forgot how cute and amazing and wonderful it is. Bookstores here are just older and cuter and quainter than in the U.S., I'm convinced. Perhaps my calling is to open up a crowded little European-style bookstore back in the states. I would make it EXACTLY like Shakespeare and Company.
I scoured the children's section for any sign of Curious George. I mean, it's an English bookstore so even though the French don't seem to care for my favorite little monkey, I thought I would maybe still find him. Alas, no. I did find The Little Prince and even took a stalker picture (they had a piano, which my store would definitely have too, so I made my brother pretend to play it) of a guy who, while we were there, randomly picked out Diary of a Wombat (the first Houghton book that I wrote the back cover copy for!) and started seriously reading it. I almost died.
My brother finally dragged me out, and I quickly showed him the Holocaust Memorial near Notre Dame that I did a project on and that I really love, if it's okay to love Holocaust Memorials... Then we took a sort of longer route than I thought back to my host family's house with a quick picture stop at Avenue du Maine. How could we not!
We were running a little late so we said a quick goodbye and thank you to my host mom and host brother and ran for the metro. We kept making jokes that we'd miss the train, but we shouldn't have worried because, of course, every single train was running and on time except for ours. Which was, you guessed it, supprimé. I couldn't actually believe it at first. I mean, honestly! Really?!?! I became immediately annoyed and depressed that we would miss the soccer game in Lyon that I had tickets for that night--we were already cutting it close. But we split up and waited in some super long lines for awhile before I flagged down a SNCF person who told me we could just board the next train to Lyon and get a seat onboard. (Apparently, I probably could have done that on Tuesday morning too. Oh well. Good to know for future cancelled trains.) So we ran for the next train and were lucky enough to find two seats together in the food car. Not that they were comfortable, normal train seats, but the train was packed and everyone from the cancelled train crowded on to the food car eventually, standing and sitting on the floor, so we were really among the lucky ones. After hearing the happy news that I could get fully reimbursed for the train tickets and convinced that we'd make it back for at least PART of the soccer game, we both passed out.
Finally back to Lyon, we raced to my apartment to drop our stuff off and pick up my OL scarf and made it to the game at half-time. :)
The score was 0-0 still, but Montpelier ended up winning 2-1 in a pretty pathetic game with some of the worst reffing I've seen yet. But it was still fun to be there--we were sitting in the crazy section where you stand up and cheer the whole game so I'm glad my bro got to experience that. After, we dragged our tired selves out to Croix-Rousse where our family friends who live in Lyon gave us a delicious late dinner that included the most amazing soup ever made from bananas and tomatoes! Who knew!
Christmas Eve, we mostly laid low. We put the ornaments that my brother had brought from home on my poor, dry, dying, little tree. He brought some of the ones Oma had made and some really AWESOME ones that he had made in elementary school that he knew I would just LOVE.
But it did feel a lot more like Christmas with those ornaments on the tree. :) Then I took him to my market right before it ended, and we lounged and napped and made mom's jello mold. We went up to see the Fourvière once it got dark and wandered around the very empty streets of Vieux Lyon on the hunt for a crepe. Unfortunately, everything was very, very closed. It WAS Christmas Eve, I suppose. We stumbled on to a Christmas Eve mass at Eglise St. Jean, and quickly stumbled out, and then headed home for a nice home-cooked meal and bed.
I got up early to make a quiche since I had invited some people over for Christmas Day dinner, but Nathaniel didn't move until almost 1:00! Turned out Santa had come and channeled Dad's spirit all the way across the ocean trailing Reese's peanut butter cups all over my living room. :)
We opened the presents Mom had sent (a perfect bag for market shopping and two beautiful Maine calendars) and then roused ourselves because it was a beautiful, randomly warm, blue sky day. We took the metro up to the Parc de la Tête d'Or and rented Velo'v bikes to ride around. It was perfect! Although Nathaniel did bemoan the fact that the Velo'v bikes were too heavy to do wheelies on... I had forgotten to remind him about the random free zoo in the park so we stumbled pretty quickly on the deer in the middle of the park who seem to be roaming around free. (There's actually a deep ditch you can't see surrounded by rocks so they can't really get out, but it looks pretty open from afar.) Nathaniel was confused to say the least.
And then he was just blown away by the zoo and the fact that it was free and had pretty cool animals in it, like lemurs, which he had never seen, and a species of lion that is extinct in the wild. These are things I had appreciated before but needed a bio-minded person to really draw my attention to... We basically walked our bikes around the zoo in the beautiful weather for a couple hours. Got to see most of the animals, who were surprisingly much more active than any other time I'd visited the zoo. The lion even roared while we were there! Nathaniel kept saying that it was an awesome day but most definitely NOT Christmas since we were riding bikes, it was warm and sunny out with no snow, and we were at a ZOO. I have to admit, not the typical Christmas Day for us Mainers...
We returned the bikes and busted home to just make it before the first of our Christmas Day feast guests arrived. Maty came with an amazingly delicious turkey she had made, Zane brought dangerously good eggnog and mashed potatoes (and his guitar!), Javier brought the requisite baguettes, saucisson, and cheese, and Ryan and his friend from home brought the most amazing frosted cookies. I contributed quiche, jello mold, and sugar cookies. And of course we had wine!
It was quite the feast, but we didn't seem to have any trouble finishing most of it off over the course of 7 hours... :) I think the only things left were some bread, a little potatoes, some jello, and some turkey. Every single one of the 6 dozen cookies were gone. Yum! But we didn't just eat. We played Christmas songs on the guitar, including an almost neverending rendition of Feliz Navidad, which apparently just keeps going and going and going.
And we played Apples-to-Apples (junior edition) and Nouns in a Bag. Not too shabby for a Christmas abroad!
Nathaniel and I originally wanted to go somewhere fun/exotic on Saturday, but the Alps ski trips didn't seem to be happening or were too hard to get to, and I was nervous about pushing our nonexistent transportation luck to take a train to Geneva or Grenoble when Nathaniel's plane was leaving so early on Sunday morning. Plus there's plenty to do in Lyon! So we met Zane for a quick coffee, which gave Nathaniel a chance to really channel Dad.
Then went to the Musée des Beaux-Arts because you can't really visit France and not go to an art museum. We didn't really stay too long and needed to take a kebab break in the middle, but the permanent collection was pretty good, and they had a cool temporary exhibit of Picasso and his contemporaries too. We went home to rest and shower and confirm Nathaniel's super early cab ride with François, my new best friend, and then went back into town to meet up with Ryan and his friend, Tasha, for a French restaurant experience. We chose a cute little place on Rue Mercière, and it was delicious. Goat cheese apps, quenelle de brochet (a Lyon speciality), and the best crème brûlée I have ever had.
I might have to go back just for dessert...
After playing on the slides by the river for a bit, we miraculously were able to get into one of the boat bars, which is notorious for randomly never letting people (namely, Ryan) in. It was kind of empty since we were a little early, but at least my brother got to go out for a bit in France. We caught the last metro home (too cold to risk Velo'ving later), had a midnight banana-nutella crepe, and went to bed...for three hours. Nathaniel stumbled to the taxi at 4:45 with cute François, and I proceeded to stalk his flights all day. Unfortunately, his bad transportation luck wasn't quite over. His plane from Lyon to Amsterdam was fine, but then, thanks to the stupid guy who lit himself on fire or whatever for the Detroit flight last week, the security was super heightened in Amsterdam. So instead of busting into Amsterdam to explore for a bit during his 5-hour layover, my brother had to stay in the airport and then sit on the runway for three hours before they let his plane to Boston take off. And it doesn't even end there! While he was in France, some awesome little Masshole decided to break into his car and steal his suitcase. So my brother got back to Boston and found out he basically had no clothes left. And no suitcase. And no sleeping bag. And no basketball shoes. And no favorite t-shirts worn in to the perfect softness. I would have freaked out and quit life or something. I mean, that's some serious bad luck for one week! But he took it in stride and is amazing and just moved on. To Cincinnati to save the planet or bust!
I guess it's true that nothing horrible happened. He made it to France, we had an AWESOME time, and he made it home without getting hurt or sick. I mean, I'm the one who had the random gallstone issue (or whatever it is). Hmmmm, maybe there's a lesson here. No more freaking out. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Anyway, I apologize for the length of the update, but I couldn't control myself.
Thanks for making the trek, bro!!! You're welcome to visit me anytime, anyplace, for however long you want. :)
