Christmas!

It was so nice to go back to Paris and stay where I lived when I was studying abroad. I walked around a lot, and the first couple of days it snowed lightly, so it was like a dream. What can I say, j'adore Paris.

 Christmas eve, checking Santa's list

                                                                   And they were off!

                                                 The metro was decorated on my ride home.

                                          Eliza, from Goucher! She's living at Foyer Charonne.
                                     We were at the Pompidou cafe, where her bottle of Evian cost 4 euros.

 Communal cooking space at Charonne, brings back memories. They were making a feast for dinner. Eliza      was making cookies. I mushed some butter to help.

 Julia and her sister Erin and I went out for Christmas dinner at Hôtel du Nord, right next to the Canal St. Martin. Julia found it on the internet, and it turned out to be a pretty cool place, good atmosphere, and delicious food! I took pictures of the menu so I would be able to remember what everything was.

Les entrées: Crème brûlée au potiron et feuille de brique au brie

 Ravioles de chèvre frais au basilic et copeaux de parmesan

 Little view of the restaurant, this is when we arrived around 8:15, by the time we left (like four hours later...) it was all filled up.

We're actually all in this photo!

 For Julia: Filet de daurade à la plancha, fondue de poireaux, jus passion/carotte

 For Erin: Brochette de joue de lotte aux litchis, riz vénéré

 For me: Noix de Saint Jaques grillées, au beurre d'orange, quinoa et légumes croquants

 Dessert!
Crème brûlée menthe et citronnelle

 Tarte au chocolat et basilic, glace au sésame blanc 
(hard to tell, but stuck into the tarte is a breaded basil leaf)

 Riz au lait à la vanille et confiture de vieux garçon

 Then we left and danced the night away!

Eliza and I wento out a couple days later to the American Breakfast cafe in the Marais. We got cheeseburgers and split a chocolate milkshake.

                          

Christmas lights in Paris are a little bit classier than in Questembert.

 This I took the morning before I left from the window of a new friend's (Eliza's friend) family's two-story apartment in Montmartre. Totally sweet place and location. Sad to leave.

December Questembert

Christmas dinner with assistants! Charlotte on the right in the picture on the right and Mareike on the left. Charlotte roasted a delicious chicken and potatoes, vegetables etc.

 I made chocolate mousse for dessert. It was good!

                                            I took these on my walk home from their apartment.

My street is below with Santa.                  

I couldn't get over this "Santa" in the middle of town. A female mannequin wearing sneakers always gets me in the spirit.

Les Trans Musicales

I went to one night of this music festival in Rennes. There were a whole bunch of concerts going on at once, with a bunch of different salles. There were a lot of groups I'd never heard of, the big names I saw were M.I.A. and Janellele Monae. 

Below, it's hard to see with the blur, but those are jellyfish hanging from the ceiling.

 

                            I thought these fish were great, I might do something like it in my room.

Around the House

This is outside my backdoor. The neighbor's cat is always lurking and it scares me a little, as does their other white cat with two bald spots above its eyes.

 You might be curious about what is hanging in the tree. I didn't know either, so I asked my roommate and she told me that they're dead rabbits. The one below was pretty fresh, most of the others... not so much. It is supposed to scare away birds etc. from their garden underneath. It is scary. It is not something super "French," just something a little creepy that this one old couple does. Thankfully, there's no noticeable odor.

        Here's Questembert's train station. Generally about 3-6 other people getting on the train with you.

I did a craft project! I saw this on the internet and had been feeling the need to cover our ugly bare hanging lightbulbs.  I bought two different types of string, wallpaper glue, round balloons, and voila!

        This was taken standing in the living room looking into the kitchen.   Can you spot Chaussette?

 This is a view of the town from the cinema very near to my house. If you could start walking straight about two inches to the left of the photo, you'd get to my house in about one minute.