New Year's Resolutions: Don't Spend New Year's in France

After my family left, my sweet boyfriend came to spend Christmas and New Year's with me :)  After touring around Nevers for a couple of days, we made some NYE plans: first we were going to go to Lyon for New Year's Eve, and then Dijon for New Year's Day.  We found hostels, booked our train tickets, and headed out, completely unaware that New Year's Eve and Day in France are treated like Sundays, and one of them actually was a Sunday, so we were hard pressed to find stores or restaurants that were even open.

Lyon, still intriguing in the drear of January

We arrived in Lyon and found our hostel across the river, then went exploring.  On our way to the other bank, we saw this GIANT bouquet of flowers, which I just loved :)

We literally walked for hours before finding a McDonald's, where we shame-facedly ate fries and had what we thought was going to be a latté (that turned out to just be ice cream).  Then we rode on the Ferris wheel, which gave us incredible views of the city! 

Soon after we got off the Ferris wheel, the sun went down and we went to see the remaining lights left over from the Fête des Lumières.  I got to show James those birds I loved so much, and gave him free reign of my camera since I'd already seen the lights.  Somehow, he took the exact same picture as I did.  Great minds ;)

We were starving and roamed around for hours looking for dinner; finally we found a Japanese restaurant near the train station where we had some pretty incredible sushi, then bought some Japanese beers to go and went to see the 11:00 showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  We set an alarm on my phone and kissed at midnight (just like we did last year); when we left the theater, another year had begun!

New Year's Eve in Lyon wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but the skyline was certainly breathtaking :)

We planned to get to sleep early since we had a really early train the next morning, but a certain party in our hostel got busted by the cops and ruined that plan of ours.  Still, we made it to the train station (albeit grumpy and exhausted) and caught our train to Dijon. 

The hostel that we had booked in Dijon had called earlier in the week to say that they'd actually double-booked our room and were sending us to a hotel across the street, but then we found out that neither hotel was even in Dijon proper, they were about 30 minutes outside the city, so we canceled the reservations and just started from scratch when we got off the train.  Luckily, one of the first hotels we tried--Hotel de Paris--was clean, affordable, central, and run by the nicest French woman I've ever met in my life.  She set us up in her last available room, and since it wouldn't be ready until 3:00 p.m., we had a delicious lunch of moules frites--mussels in mustard sauce served with fries--and then we set off to explore. 

Remember that one time I told you that nothing was open on Sundays in France, or (apparently) on New Year's?  Yeah, I wasn't exaggerating.  We walked around for a little more than 3 hours and could count on one hand the shops that were open.  I had such grand ideas--I wanted to show James the cathedral and la petite chouette that you rub and make a wish on, my favorite tea shop that has the most incredible chocolat chaud in all the land, the world-famous La Maille mustard shop that has all kinds of delicious samples served with homemade pretzels--but NONE of them could come true.  Womp womp :P

Finally our hotel room opened up, and we took a much-needed nap, then went downstairs to the welcome desk for some advice on how to spend our remaining hours in Dijon.  She was so helpful, giving us maps and circling places that would be open, including a grocery store that had special NYE hours (open till midnight!!) and sold cheap bottles of champagne.  We found two restaurants that were open for dinner, so we ended up going to both of them :P

We started at L'Imprimerie, which was right up our alley: the entire restaurant was decorated with books, newspapers, printing presses, woodblock cuts of letters and numbers and symbols; it was SO cool. 

Seriously, I'm going to decorate my personal library like this when I'm rich and famous.

We had a kir there--our poison of choice during James' stay--and then headed to Gril Laure, which had more traditional French foods as opposed to L'Imprimerie's burger-and-sandwich fare.  Gril Laure was incredible; we had the menu fixe, which included a ribeye steak with the most delicious potatoes au gratin that we had ever tasted.  And, of course, crème brûlée for dessert!  The best part was that the restaurant served pizza to-go, so they had pizza boxes in stock and they let us take our leftovers home in them. 

We spent the rest of the night eating delicious leftovers from a soggy pizza box, drinking champagne, and watching French dating shows. 

Not a bad start to the New Year after all!  Though I'm still banned from planning next year's celebration :P

La Charité sur Loire

Soon after the Fête des Lumières, my family showed up :)

They drove all day and finally arrived, and I met them by the cathedral and brought them back to my Hobbit Hole for some hot leek and ham shepherd's pie.  I think they enjoyed it, though we barely all fit in my tiny apartment!

During the week that they were here in Nevers we did a lot of exploring, though the weather wasn't exactly cooperative.  On the Sunday before we left for Paris, we took a day trip to La Charité sur Loire based on a tip that one of my colleagues gave us; there was a Christmas market and book festival going on, so of course we couldn't pass up the chance to go to there!

Like most French cities, La Charité is just...sooooo....old!  I can never get over how ornate the buildings are and what a great mixture of architecture there is based on who was building what and when, nor can I stop guessing when they were built, who lived in them, what they did, who they loved.  It's an astonishing timeline, and we miss so much of it in the states because life there is so NEW! 

The Christmas market was in a cavern underneath a bunch of other buildings, including this gorgeous Cathedral.

It was exactly what you'd expect from a French Christmas market: regional specialties, vendors selling homemade goods, stands with cotton candy (?) and roasted chestnuts and vin chaud, my family's new favorite drink.  There were people selling Christmas cards, hats and scarves, jewelry, candles, wooden toys, stained glass....

...and a sax-playing Santa!

At first glance, I thought this was a giant meringue!

 We even found one man selling little scenes of French life painted on escargot shells. 

Only in France :)

If these aren't the best souvenir of France, I don't know what is...unless you get to eat the escargot beforehand :)

After we left the Christmas market, we found ourselves in the old centre ville of La Charité.  The city is known as the City of Words, and they prove that identity all over town with quotes from French authors and poets printed directly on the buildings. 

"And it's sometimes in a look, a smile, where hide the words that we never knew how to say."

We found a fun, quirky café called Babette et Eva, where we had some vin chaud (hot spiced wine) and enjoyed a live musical performance by a one-man band called Rotor Machine. 

Rotor Machine, whose CD we own if anyone is interested ;)

I think this was right before I spilled my vin chaud all over Mica :P

A dresser straight out of Alice in Wonderland. 

The music was loosely classified as French folk rock; we spent hours there, enjoying the quirky café and the great music.  It was a great rainy-day little foray into the Chritmas spirit of France :)

Lyon, la Fête des Lumières

Every year in December, the city of Lyon celebrates the Fête des Lumières, a 4-day, several million-visitor, world-renowned festival of lights. 

This year, I was there :)

The Festival of Lights started in 1643, when the Plague hit Lyon and the magistrates promised to forever honor the Virgin Mary with candles and lumignons if the town of Lyon was spared.  Thus, still today, the Lyonnais people light candles in honor of Mary, and the municipal buildings of the city are lit with extravagant displays of lights.

Jess and I took a train to Lyon to visit a new friend, Claudia.  She's one of those people we'd never actually met, but once we did, we felt we'd been friends forever.  That's a great way to start an adventure :)

The crowds were incredible, and sometimes literally impenetrable.  To escape the throngs in the streets, we ducked off into a Christmas market...which was almost worse! 

The mass of people at the Christmas Market, all craving a vin chaud!

Still, they had some really interesting booths that did a great job of putting me (even further) in the Christmas spirit :)

One that was lined entirely in wrapping paper...

One that had a vat of homemade tartiflette--potatoes, bacon, and reblochon cheese--which smells rich and hearty and just reminds me of cold winters

One that was full of liqueurs with risqué names

One Canadian booth that sold a hot drink called Caribou

And one that made Nutella crêpes (and LOTS of them).

We had dinner around 10 p.m., and by the time we were finished a lot of the crowd had dispersed.  It's amazing how much room strollers and young kids take up on the streets, and how much more room there is when they go to bed!

Each light show was mapped on a plan of the city, and we tried to hit as many as we could.  There were solar-powered windmill lights, pots of fire on the retaining wall leading down to the river, and--my personal favorite--trees filled with hot-pink and bright white origami birds, all illuminated and bright against the dark blue sky. 

There was also....

A whole hill full of dancing space invaders!

Another favorite of mine, the squid that took over an entire alley full of art galleries

Yet another favorite, the GIANT Pixar lamps, all with different colored light filters

And this museum, which danced....

And then turned into a face that moved along to the words when people from the crowd sang into a microphone!

A mermaid in the fountain fishing for rubber duckies

The church that went back to Nature; this one reminded me of my sister :)

And the crowning jewel, Place des Terreaux (I think), where the fountain changed colors along with the tie-dyed ponies.

I've never been so impressed by the power of light, but let's admit it, I'm obsessed with lighting to begin with :P  I can never get enough of Christmas lights, or outdoor decorations, or paper lanterns or strings of lights....so, basically, this festival was one of the coolest things I ever went to :)   Plus they gave us free postcards, so I could share the festival and my fantastic experience with a lot of people on PostCrossing!

Now I just need to find a way to get to Lyon every December for the rest of my life.... ;)

I won't go into the grisly details, but...

I went to a party the other night.  And not just any party; this was thrown by a Spaniard, for his French and American and British friends, and there was no single language in common.  It was quite an experience. 

I'm really only writing about it here because I learned a new game from the British girls.  It's called The Cereal Box Game.

You set an open cereal box on the floor, and take turns "swan diving" and picking it up with your mouth.  After each turn, a little bit of the box is cut off.  It gets shorter and shorter, and you get drunker and drunker...

Ruth taught us the game...

Javi laughed, "Es impossible!"

Stephanie just showed off all night (:P)...

And Étienne surprised us all. 

Les Soirs de la Guitare

Recently I've been taking guitar lessons from a friend of one of my colleagues.  One day I went to Catherine's house (the most charming country cottage I've ever seen!) for lunch.  She knew I played guitar, because I taught the kids a song on the second day of class and she provided the guitar, so she invited her dear family friend Rémi to lunch so that we could chat.  He hosts guitar lessons every Thursday night at his house for a few hours, and invited me to attend.  Of course I couldn't say no :)

He also gave me a child-sized guitar to play on because all the Real People Sized ones were too big.  Womp womp.

Pretttyyyy :)

So, basically, we sit around for a few hours, practice finger picking, learn a few songs (in French AND in English), and then sit around for a bit longer and enjoy a gourmet beer together with snacks. 

It's definitely the highlight of my week, even though Thursday is my longest day of work.  Nice to have something to look forward to at the end of the day! 

In the Doll House Now

So, if you know me at all (and I presume that most of you reading know me fairly well; I’m the most open of books!) then you KNOW that I LOVE the movie Amélie.  That movie—with its bright colors and its whimsy and spontaneity—helped me decide, first to fall in love with France, then to study it, master its language, and move there.   Thanks, Amélie ;)

So, the point of this blog entry is this: Audrey Tautou (who played Amélie; she was also in The DaVinci Code, Dirty Pretty Things, and Coco Before Chanel), adorable French pixie that she is, came to Nevers. 

Oh, Audrey.  Too cute for your own good. 

Yes, really.  She came to where I live. 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Maison de la Culture de Nevers et de la Nièvre (regional theatre in Nevers) staged a rendition of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and Audrey played Nora, the protagonist. 

The play was in French, which always makes things interesting, but for the most part it was pretty easy to follow.  Even though we were on Balcony Row Z, literally at the upper back corner of the theatre, you could still tell from that far away that the woman on the stage was Amélie; her hair, her smile, her posture, it was all so unbelievably clear, even from so far away.  

The only good picture I got (from the LAST row of the balcony), but you can tell who it is! (Don't forget that clicking on the picture makes it appear in its original size, which is downright Brobdingnagian.)

For perhaps the first time in my life, I was pretty star struck!  The best part is, a friend from Lyon came to see the play with me, and afterward we had a drink (albeit a medicinal-tasting one) and discussed the show.   

There’s nothing better than seeing someone who changed the trajectory of your life and getting to experience it with someone you admire :) 

Painting with Light

It's rare that the sun comes out here, especially during the winter, but once it did while I was in the Cathedral de Saint Cyr.  The stained glass windows threw patches of colored light everywhere, and I had an absolute field day photographing it.  Enjoy :)