The Holiday(s)

Christmas was surprisingly easy to weather while I was away from my family in sunny Nice. I had my friend Tracy here (she works as an assistant in Bordeaux) and we made the most of my splendid location. On the 24th, we took a gorgeous 2-hour bus ride up to Valberg, which is a sleepy little ski resort town in the French Alps, to see some snow. Unfortunately, the mildness of this year's winter seems to be global, so all of the available snow was man-made. Nonetheless, we each grabbed a handful with pleasure. This was followed by a nice, cozy lunch and a wonderful cup of steaming hot chocolate. Delicious.

The next day we prepared a traditional American breakfast for my Algerian roommates. French toast (with maple syrup), scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, and OJ. Yum. Then we were off to the beach because...pourquoi pas? It was a beautiful, sunny day--which felt pretty surreal until I looked up the weather in MN and realized it was a balmy 51 degrees there. Apparently this winter season at my home sweet home was not one to miss

For Near Year's Eve, I have another friend who is here for a little vacation--Kaliya. We decided to do a little house-party hopping since most places in Nice (and in the Western world) required a relatively steep cover for entrance. We ate some delicious Lebanese food at a friend's apartment and then came back to my place for a dance party extravaganza and the countdown to midnight. Fortunately, we could see the fireworks that were shot off along the Promenade des Anglais from my terrace. Perfect.

So, what are my New Year's Resolutions?
1. Start going to more language exchanges--since there is such a huge student and foreign population in Nice, there are multiple places where you can go to have a drink and a conversation with many people in the language you want to practice. Usually it's a French-English exchange, but there are some that do an hour of French and then an hour of whatever else people want to speak (which usually defaults to English, but at least the options are more open). Though I do feel that my French has greatly improved, the added practice couldn't hurt!

2. Start running more.

3. Enjoy the rest of my time here with the great people that I have met.

Happy Near Year, everyone!

Cheers!