74. i smell like chocolate

well here's a post i wrote like 3 weeks ago...

les vacances de noël have begun & i'm rather enjoying it. family is gathering (papie & mamie are over) & hot chocolate is being made increasingly frequently. as you must know, vacation started earlier for me (tant mieux) & ever since, i've been taking things s-l-o-w. i miss you all back home but my family here treats me like family so nostagia is barely noticeable.

& every night, we've been playing cards or some other kind of jeu de société after dinner, which i love to do. except i wish that adults didn't have to sleep so early to go to work the next morning cause by the time we clean up the cards, i'm only just warmed-up. we play tarot, which exists in english too, i'm certain but it sounds cooler in french. :o

i've been hanging out with my afs girls a lot too cause one lives a 10min. walk away & another is staying at her house until the end of the holidays. first, they came to surprise me on sunday with a birthday gift--a food tasting!!! & at night, i went to see her host mom sing in a chorale freezing cold outside in a town next door. i tried du vin chaud, which is red wind heated with holiday spices; it was too strong for me. bleugh!! but i got a picture with santa!!!

yesterday, we went up north to amiens, a rich city historically meant for trade where we went to the marché de noël. it was fantastic!!! basically, artisans sell their products in their own individual little cabins, whether lanterns, roasted chestnuts, nougat, leather, etc. it was nice & festive. with the girls, we each ate a metre-long crêpe filled with nutella...6/10.

today, i went to see them so we could buy a present for her neighbour who took us to paris & allowed me to make my alphabet picture album. it was extremely kind of them so we wanted to thank them.

then i went for my chocolate massage (birthday present) where i had to wear a one-time-use-one-size-fits-all (meaning XXXL) string. nice. :o

& now i smell like chocolate.

[bt]