2012 Wrap Up

After my vacation with my parents came to an end, I resumed my normal routine of working 12 hours a week, scampering around Dax on the weekends, French Coffee Friotellas on Wednesdays, attending the home rugby games and burrowing indoors on Sundays since nothing is open and the weather was usually discouraging anyway.

At the end of November we held our own Thanksgiving, which I not-so-cleverly dubbed Frenchgiving. Although only 2 of us are actually American (Emily and I), Emma lived in the US when she was younger and used to celebrate the holiday, and the others were eager to try it out. We missed out on many of my favorite traditions, including watching the Macy's Day Parade, the football game and watching the loads of Christmas movies on TV. I was sad to not be home, but it was still a lot of fun to celebrate here. We had some of your typical foods, such as sweet potatoes with marshmellows, stuffing, gravy, butternut squash and a green bean casserole. We also had some non-traditional foods, such as french onion soup (I made this last year too) and pigs in a blanket. Instead of turkey since it's hard to acquire one and we don't have the capacity to cook one anyway, we went to the market that morning and got two farm-fresh chickens. Not a bad substitute! And of course we had plenty of wine to go around.

We celebrated a lot of birthdays towards the end of the year as well: Emma's was in mid November, Rosalyn's and Sherry's at the beginning of December and Emily and Natasha's right before Christmas. We had the standard cake and ice cream for each. If we were feeling fancy we went to eat at a nice restaurant. We also celebrated our friend Emilie's birthday by going bowling and eating tapas at this place called Tex Mex which was fun. I somehow beat everyone (~20 - 25 people) during the first game since I kept getting lucky with strikes and spares. When we played a second round though, I came in second to last :(

At Tex Mex

I made a couple little day trips, one to St. Jean de Luz/just across the border in Spain with Keidy and a teacher from school, one to Bayonne with Sherry and Elena and another to Bordeaux with Emma and Rosalyn (we met up with Natasha who was staying with her friend for the weekend). The best parts were the Christmas markets - best invention ever. Good food, hot wine and tons of cool gifts. The Christmas market in Bordeaux had a tiny little animal petting farm which was sahweet. There was a silly billy goat that kept staring at my drink. In Bayonne we went to a chocolate museum which was mucho mucho better than the one I went to in Biarritz. In Bordeaux we also ice skated on the outdoor rink. 

In St. Jean de Luz

Bayonne

At the chocolate museum in Bayonne with Elena 

Bordeaux

In Bordeaux with some hooligans

One Sunday morning Emily, Emma, Sherry and I went on a wine tasting tour with a very eclectic teacher from the high school. She took us to Jurançon, south of Pau for "La journée des portes ouvertes" (day of open doors). Numerous wineries in the region host free wine tastings for the occasion. Each also had really good food typical of the region. By the 3rd one we were a bit white wined-out and all passed out on the ride home.

In Jurançon

In mid-December, I traveled to Montpellier to meet up with Andrea, my friend from my host family when I studied abroad in 2010. She lives in Colombia so we don't have many chances to see each other. We stayed with our host family so it was fun to see them as well. It was weird to be back though without the familiar faces I was accustomed to seeing in that city. Also I forgot how sketchy it could be with the homeless/gypsy/traveler population. Note to self: don't listen to your friends when they tell you you don't need to buy a tram ticket; you will get fined. It was fun to go back to the places we used to go out and I went to my favorite restaurant: this hole-in-the-wall asian fusion place (where I incidentally almost choked on their stir fry). All in all it was a good weekend, full of reminiscing. Miss you, la petite folle!

The week before break, we decided to hold a Secret Santa gift exchange. We held it in my room since I'm an xmas freak and had the most decorations. We each brought a dish to share (I made spinach artichoke dip mhmm) and Emma played Santa's Helper handing out gifts. Emily turned out to be Santa thanks to a Santa hat she got, given by yours truly.

Secret Santa

Out of nowhere it was already Christmas and we were each on our way home, to visit family, or to travel across Europe with friends for the holidays. I had a minor freak-out on the way back since I had forgotten to print one leg of my train journey and then forgot to make sure my flight was confirmed (oops!) but both turned out fine. My flight was delayed and then customs in DC was a complete mess. However, it wasn't nearly as stressful as the time I flew home after study abroad in 2010 with the big snowstorm (I had a break down at Charles de Gaulle thinking that I wasn't going to make it home for Christmas at all- people had been sleeping on yoga mats in the airport for days).

When I left the US back in September I didn't have the intentions of coming home at Christmas, but I'm really glad I did. I couldn't imagine Christmas without my family (& Cami, my cat). It was also really great to see a bunch of my friends. I made the requisite Tyson's trip, went skiing, went to a day spa and had a lot of lazy mornings. And I got to ring in the New Year with these two goofballs:

Bonne Année!