A couple more

Me on New Years, just walkin' around in the streets.
The tracks of my Metro Station, from above. I live by the newest line, so it's super nice and all fancy looking!
The pyramid in front of the Louvre. It's hard to get a good picture of it w/o a tripod, but here it is nonetheless!
Some lights running the lenth of rue Mouffetard, where I rang in the New Year at a bar with my host sister and some of her friends.
The cake after Christmas dinner. It was humongous, and amazing! It was a rum cake with layers of jam, covered in cream cheese icing and walnuts!
You saw the empty table earlier, so here's a picture of part of it during the actual dinner, full of people!
This is one of my "host brothers" Olivier, who I never really see. He's got two kids, and is a Chef somewhere. He's in the middle of shaving pieces of dried ham (raw, of course) from a pig leg. There's a hoof underneath the towel he's using to grip the leg!

So blogspot is being funny, and I'm not sure why it loaded this picture twice. But for some reason, I can't delete this one without deleting all the pictures. I'll just leave it here, and use this opportunity to mention that that pig hoof (from the ankle down, anyway) is to this day still sitting in our refrigerator. Who knows why...

Mostly Christmas Pictures

Christmas Eve: the table before the celebratory meal. To save you the trouble of counting, that's 27 place settings. On the menu (among other things): rivers of fine wines and champagne, dried pork (shaved from pig leg by Olivier), foie gras, turkey, raw salmon (not smoked), truffle salad, real caviar, nine types of cheese, bread, rum cake with jam layers, coffee, and fine chocolates.
Jean-Jacques telling Father Christmas that he'd been "wise enough" this year. (That's actually his brother-in-law under the suit.) Everybody (and I mean everyone) recieved a present from Santa upon sitting on his lap, declaring that they'd been wise (the equivalent of "good), and giving him a kiss. You can also see four-year-old Maxime right next to them--he's my buddy, grandson of my host parents.
Rue de Rivoli lit up before Christmas. Interesting hanging lights, I thought. They went on for quite a while. You can also see the BHV (a big department store) all decorated.
My favorite accordionist. He plays every night at this corner, at the start of a bridge just next to Notre Dame. You run into quite a few accordionists in Paris--but this one's really good.
Notre Dame with it's Christmas tree (sapin, in French).A different view.
Hotel de Ville and some lights on the Seine.
My friend Molly and I. Molly and I were in the same freshman seminar course at Berry last fall, and met up in Paris this holiday when she was on her way home from a semester in England.

A few more

The table at one of my very favorite cafés in Paris--Café Jenny. It's got a semi-American name, but don't let that fool you--it's quite French.

The host dad, Jean-Jacques. He's quite the unique *crazy* man, and I love him. Note the monocle. Yes, he wears a monocle. Chantal, the host mom. What can I say? She's very maternal, and quite nice. She cooks me yummy dinners.
A piece of the Champs Elysées lit up before Christmas. If you look carefully to the back, you can see a little bit of the Arc de Triomphe.
La Sainte Chapelle--the windows in this place are amazing.
More pretty windows.
A little canal in Chartres, in November. (Chartres is a small town in northern France, known for it's cathedral.)

Pére Noël climbing up an old building, also in Chartres. Some of the very first Christmas decorations of the year.

Some more pictures...

Omaha Beach? Or maybe Utah, I'm not exactly sure. Anyway, this is part of one of the D-Day beaches. And American soil now, technically--as this part and the American cemetery were given to the US by the French. I guess as close to home as I'll get for a while ;)
Where some German Soldiers used to hide out.

Cliffs near the Normandy Beaches. (This is actually Pont du Hoc, where there were lots of german bunkers and such.)

My good friend Amy and I. We're at a cidre tasting at a little place in the middle of this marshy field, and you can see Mont Saint Michel behind us. I love this picture!

For a change in location and theme, a few pictures of where I live. This, believe it or not is the entrance to where I live. The dark green. As you can see, it used to be a store, with an apartment behind. The family has since turned the store space into apartment-type areas for various members of the family, and then the actuall house starts pretty far back, and is three stories--with a really cool cave/basement to boot.

This is what you see as soon as you open that big green metal door. This hallway is open to the sky, and usually has lots of laundry drying in it. The house proper begins when you go through that blue door at the end. The ladder leads up to Anne and Manu's apartment, just above where I was standing, with the grandmother's and other daughter's living spaces to the left.

Once again, blogspot is acting up and not letting me put up any more pictures. I'll try again another day!