There is no water ’cause there is Noël.

(…get it?)

Here is a backlog of Christmassy Paris pictures I haven’t been able to post because of my lack of computer.

Christmas displays at Galeries Lafayettes

Another mannequin (shot taken by me but plagiarized from Eric)

Adorable child

Adorable child and father that turned into a glowy Barbara Walters soft focus thing when I adjusted the levels in Photoshop

Eric looking overwhelmed by shiny things

Axel in front of the Hotel de Ville

Christmas tree in front of Notre Dame, taken right before I got hit on by a drunk man hanging outside of Notre Dame. It was not yet 6 pm.

Some things:

1) My new apartment is enormous and warm and fantastic. And it has a dryer and a couch that folds out into a really big bed, meaning anyone who knows me personally has a free place to crash in Paris (or right outside at least) if they come in the next few months. I woke up the morning I was to catch  my flight to Minnesota not really wanting to leave, which turned out to be prophetic because…

2) …flying home was awful. The Philadelphia airport shut down an hour before we were supposed to land, so we were diverted to Pittsburgh, which was problematic because flights from Rome and Munich coming in at the same time were also diverted to Pittsburgh. Way more international traffic than the Pittsburgh airport was actually equipped to handle. Spent an hour and a half waiting for extra customs officers to come so we would be legally allowed to get off the plane, an hour and a half waiting for bags at immigration, then three and a half hours waiting to be re-booked and put in a hotel for the night. Then the next day spent three hours sitting on the plane in Pittsburgh waiting for Philadelphia to let us come, another five waiting for my flight to Minneapolis, and when I finally arrived they had lost my suitcase. I try to remind myself that I am an incredibly lucky person to have been born in a first world country and to have the opportunity to work in another first world country and have the financial means to travel between the two countries on airplanes, but that is a much easier way to think in retrospect.

3) I have not been able to leave my house for three days because of the blizzard, so I have been doing the thing I love to do most when I am at home and not going anywhere, which is eating. My dad says I am like Brad Pitt in Ocean’s 11 because I am always eating when he sees me. Last year I remember going back to school after a holiday break and my roommate Celena saying something about having some sort of biological evolutionary survival response to being home in that she eats whatever she can find. I think this is accurate, because I definitely ate spaghetti and butter the night before I left to come home because I was too stubborn to buy groceries. Or maybe I just like eating Christmas cookies for breakfast.

Here’s some pictures of snow and other things at my house in Minnesota:

White on white

This chair normally has legs, when there is not two and a half feet of snow.

Little House on the Prairie

Ziggy and Mommy

Glowy snowflake Christmas tree ornament

Spice bread gnome from Strasbourg Christmas markets from Corentin! (placed high up enough on the tree as to not be devoured by the dog...)

My reflection/insatiable narcissism

Also, I think this is hilarious:

ma vie en panne

– This blog has not been updated in forever because my computer is toast. Dead forever. I am sans ordinateur until I go home for Christmas and get the other Macbook from my house. A hard lesson: if you dent your Macbook, even just a little bit on the bottom case, get it replaced because apparently your whole machine will fall apart and turn into a glorified iPod charger if you don’t.

– I have taken lots of pretty pictures of pretty things since Eric has been here like Canal St. Martin and the fancy window displays for Christmas at Galeries Lafayettes and Printemps but I cannot show you them yet because of aformentioned toast computer.

– I am writing this on a school computer with a French “azerty” keyboard, so if I stop paying attention and there is a “q” where an “a” should be, that’s why. Also you have to hit the shift key to get numbers, because apparently things like é, è, ç, and à are more important.

– I am moving out of my current apartment, possibly to an apartment just outside of Paris in Levallois with the Spanish assistant from my school, but nothing is yet sure.

– I met someone who finished the Master’s program I am currently applying to this year. He has a super cool job in political communications which is pretty much exactly what I want to do. The problem is he doesn’t seem to think he needed the master’s degree he has to get his job and that I may be better off getting a master’s in France and not take out another fat student loan to pay for an American one. So now I don’t know what to do with my future again. Maybe I will go to Seattle and get a job folding jeans and sleep in my friend Paige’s living room until her boyfriend hates me. That sounds more fun than continuing my education.

– I am supposed to work 12 hours a week, but due to a combination of illnesses, exams, strikes, Muslim holidays and mandatory sex education seminars, I have taught 10 hours in the pasr 2 weeks; My pay is not affected. This is a glorious country.

– This may be the best thing on YouTube:

Until next time!