Shang Dan Kwai Le!
So many of you are like my students, asking me what I'm doing for Christmas - how I celebrate and what activities I've prepared. So it's well-known you can't celebrate without a Christmas tree, so courtesy of Katia I had a lovely Christmas tree in my room...
Saturday evening we met up around 6 PM and went shopping for dinner. Katia decorated my place with lights and tinsel. 
Matt's on the left, he's the American who teaches English and lives on the third floor. This is us after making our wonderful centerpiece. Doesn't look like the traditional French centrepiece, but it did its job and lasted the whole evening.
We had to wait for Loic, who because he's a French teacher, had to sing a French song at a concert organised by the French department. He came over around 9:30 PM and at this time we're pretty much starving.
My student gave me a sandwich maker which I found out makes great toast, as you can see in the pic. Matt brought over some take-out beef & potatoes, we had ham & cheese, fois-gras brought in specially from France (delicious!), and saucisson (French salami). Quite a feast. And then came the best part...crepes!!! Guillaume took a recipe off the internet and we had a few crepes each with Nutella (bought at Carrefour) and jam...very hao-chir (delicious)!
I think the tiredness is visible...but the candles are still tall and we ended the night when the candles went out so the night is still young in this photo.
They all came over this afternoon to help with the cleaning up...
We had a gift exchange and here's Guillaume wearing his present - thoughtfully thought of by Gaetan: a straw hat and a typical made-in-China broom that's already dirty and will dirty up your floor more than it'll clean up. He's sitting on the stairs outside my apartment. The blue stuff is what we threw at each other whenever somebody entered the apartment.
This morning we had a get-together among colleagues (a bit more serious...) at an American woman's apartment. Her name is Caryn and sometimes we go eat together. She teaches American culture at the university. She spent a year or more in Switzerland and speaks French well. The woman on the right of the picture is a wonderful lady. I haven't quite pinned down whether she's Canadian or American. She speaks French, German, Arabic, Russian...and her Native language is English. She can get a bit crazy, she looks a little crazy, but we all love her. She sang Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer for us. The guy on the left is the American who lives above me and sings opera. He spent twenty years singing opera and twenty years on Wall Street before his job went to some guy working in India who was willing to work for a tenth of his salary...
We did a gift exchange at this party too, and here's the guy who received my present - a hat with Chinese candies inside. He seemed to like it. I don't know him, I just see him in the hallways and we smile at each other. He's American, I think.
Guillaume, Matt and Katia with their presents from the gift exchange. Matt got Loic's present - two stuffed dogs. :-) Katia got a portable coffee set and Guillaume got a huge funky-looking mug.
Tally - an American studying Chinese - with her present from Matt (a lovely lantern-light) and Guillaume showing the right side of his mug.
Me showing my present (who knows who it's from) - a "China" plate - Loic, Gaetan, and Tom showing his present - the bracelet.
Tom, Caryn (the hostess), Guillaume, and Matt. There was champagne, red wine, and vodka served at this party (which started at 10 AM), and some people were drunk by noon (not me!). Tom had slept only three hours since he partied hard with other friends the night before.
Saturday evening we met up around 6 PM and went shopping for dinner. Katia decorated my place with lights and tinsel. 
Matt's on the left, he's the American who teaches English and lives on the third floor. This is us after making our wonderful centerpiece. Doesn't look like the traditional French centrepiece, but it did its job and lasted the whole evening. 
We had to wait for Loic, who because he's a French teacher, had to sing a French song at a concert organised by the French department. He came over around 9:30 PM and at this time we're pretty much starving. 
My student gave me a sandwich maker which I found out makes great toast, as you can see in the pic. Matt brought over some take-out beef & potatoes, we had ham & cheese, fois-gras brought in specially from France (delicious!), and saucisson (French salami). Quite a feast. And then came the best part...crepes!!! Guillaume took a recipe off the internet and we had a few crepes each with Nutella (bought at Carrefour) and jam...very hao-chir (delicious)! 
I think the tiredness is visible...but the candles are still tall and we ended the night when the candles went out so the night is still young in this photo.
They all came over this afternoon to help with the cleaning up...
We had a gift exchange and here's Guillaume wearing his present - thoughtfully thought of by Gaetan: a straw hat and a typical made-in-China broom that's already dirty and will dirty up your floor more than it'll clean up. He's sitting on the stairs outside my apartment. The blue stuff is what we threw at each other whenever somebody entered the apartment.
This morning we had a get-together among colleagues (a bit more serious...) at an American woman's apartment. Her name is Caryn and sometimes we go eat together. She teaches American culture at the university. She spent a year or more in Switzerland and speaks French well. The woman on the right of the picture is a wonderful lady. I haven't quite pinned down whether she's Canadian or American. She speaks French, German, Arabic, Russian...and her Native language is English. She can get a bit crazy, she looks a little crazy, but we all love her. She sang Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer for us. The guy on the left is the American who lives above me and sings opera. He spent twenty years singing opera and twenty years on Wall Street before his job went to some guy working in India who was willing to work for a tenth of his salary...
We did a gift exchange at this party too, and here's the guy who received my present - a hat with Chinese candies inside. He seemed to like it. I don't know him, I just see him in the hallways and we smile at each other. He's American, I think. 
Guillaume, Matt and Katia with their presents from the gift exchange. Matt got Loic's present - two stuffed dogs. :-) Katia got a portable coffee set and Guillaume got a huge funky-looking mug.
Tally - an American studying Chinese - with her present from Matt (a lovely lantern-light) and Guillaume showing the right side of his mug.
Me showing my present (who knows who it's from) - a "China" plate - Loic, Gaetan, and Tom showing his present - the bracelet. 
Tom, Caryn (the hostess), Guillaume, and Matt. There was champagne, red wine, and vodka served at this party (which started at 10 AM), and some people were drunk by noon (not me!). Tom had slept only three hours since he partied hard with other friends the night before.
posted by Caro at 3:33 PM
1 Comments:
I think you'll realise on your own that I was pretty tired when I wrote this post, so the lady with the reindeer horns is actually on the LEFT and the American opera singer/wall street businessman is on the RIGHT of the picture. Thanks for your patience.
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