Holidays in France!

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January 11th 2008

Published: January 11th 2008

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Euro Chica

Christmas in Avignon!

View of the Christmas market in the Place d'Horloge

Bonjour!

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année à tout le monde! I hope that you all had nice holidays, and that this new year has started well for you. I wish you all good health, lots of love, happiness, and success in this new year, and of course, the same in the years to come.

The atmosphere in France 1 month prior to Christmas is exactly the same as in the States. Pretty much the entire town of Avignon was decorated with beautiful lights, and everyone was running around like crazy, trying to buy presents. They do not, however, play any Christmas music in stores, and I haven't seen a Santa Claus around, but I'm sure they had one in a shopping mall somewhere around. The week before our vacation, I discussed Christmas traditions in all of my classes, and I asked the students what they wanted for Christmas; not surprisingly, a lot of them said that they wanted money and some expensive gifts. They told me that "in France, you must buy expensive things for your family so that they would be pleased," and then we argued on what is more pleasing, an expensive item or something that you

Christmas in Avignon!

Chillin' with Celine at the Christmas market, drinking tea. :-)

put a lot of thought and effort in, but that's not expensive, because not everyone can afford to buy GUCCI sunglasses. Many of them still said that expensive things are better, and I realized then that it is useless to argue with them because they are blinded with materialism, which made me sad.

Right before our vacation, all of us language assistants decided to have a Christmas party, and exchange gifts. I wanted us to play Secret Santa, but it got too complicated because we had A LOT of people, and it would have been almost impossible to get everyone together before the party to draw the names, so we decided to play a game called White Elephant. Each of us brought a gift to the party, and we put all of the gifts in the middle of the room, and then we assigned numbers to each person... whoever got #1 got to pick the gift first (any gift they wanted), #2 could either steal #1's gift or pick another one, etc. We had some good laughs with this game, as some gifts were really nice, while other not so nice... all of the nice ones were stolen a

Christmas in Avignon!

The entrance into the city center

couple of times, but you couldn't steal 1 present more than 3 times, so those who were assigned higher numbers were the lucky ones.

So for my Christmas vacation I got 2 weeks off, which was fantastic! Half of this vacation I spent in Lyon where I stayed with my cousin (from my dad's side - his sister's daughter). On Monday, December 24th, I took a train from Avignon to Lyon... it was one of those slow trains, which took about 2.5 hours to get there. However, I wasn't complaining, because I truly enjoy train rides through the countryside.... nothing better than putting some mucis on, and daydreaming while enjoying the wonderful views in front of you. Once I got on the train, some old guy sat next to me, and then started talking to me, even though I clearly was trying to IT (stands for Introvert Time, used as a verb in this case) everyone with my IPod...lol...plus, he was talking to me in this thick southern accent, and I had no idea what he was saying, so I just nodded and smiled. :-)

The next day was Christmas day! Even though my cousin is Serbian, and

Christmas in Avignon!

Streets of Avignon on a late Sunday afternoon, 1 week before Christmas, filled with busy shoppers!

we celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January, her boyfriend (Alain) is French Catholic, so she celebrates both Christmases, which is great, I think. He wanted us to attend Catholic mass with him, so we went to the mass in the morning, and then came back home to open presents and eat lunch. The rest of the day we spent sitting around the house and watching TV because it was too cold to go outside, and the whole city was pretty much dead.

The rest of the week was spent pretty calmly... I watched a lot of French TV (mostly American shows, translated into French), and spoke a lot in French with Alain. However, one day that week, Eric, Stefan (my cousin's sons) and I finally decided to go out and embrace the cold. Eric's friend from Mexico came to visit, and since he had never seen Lyon, we did a lot of touristy things... we went to a museum, and walked all over the city, visiting all of the cool monuments and nice buildings, such as the Opera. During our walk through one of Lyon's main streets, I suddenly saw a Starbucks, and could not believe my eyes

Christmas in Avignon!

Francesco oppening a gift during the White Elephant game at the Christmas party!

because I didn't think they had it anywhere else in France besides Paris. After our little tour, I made Stefan go back with me to Starbucks because I just had to have it. He, of course, had never heard of it, and he thought that I was crazy waiting in a huge line for a cup of coffee, but he changed his mind right after tasting the magic of Starbucks coffee! :-) Later on that evening, we saw an outside ice skating rink in one of the city's main plazas, and I went ice skating just because I've always wanted to skate outside, and this seemed like a perfect occasion. Ice skating at night was almost magical... they had techno/dance music playing, and everything around us was lit up.

On Saturday, the 29th, my other cousin from Sweden (Milenko) came to visit my cousin in Lyon (his sister) with his family. We thought that we had a bunch of languages spoken in the house prior to them coming, but after they came, it was a nut house! In addition to French and Serbian, we had English and Swedish on the top of those 2. We could not find one

Christmas in Avignon!

I got honey as a gift! :-)

common language that all of us could speak in... for example, Milenko's wife (Inger) is Swedish, so she only speaks Swedish and English, and then Alain only speaks French, so they had a difficult time participating in our conversations, which were, of course, in Serbian. I was a translator for Alain and Inger, which got a little confusing at times because I was trying to translate between Serbian, English, and French. Then, however, Eric (who also speaks Spanish) and I were showing off by speaking in all 4 languages at the same time, which was great! My cousin Milenko's kids (Nikola-10, and Viktor-12) were sooo cute, but we couldn't really communicate that well because they speak very little Serbian and I don't speak Swedish at all...lol... but, I think that we still bonded.

So I was going to go back to Avignon to celebrate the New Year with my friends here, but I was convinced not to go, or I should say, I was bribed with some amazing champagne to stay :-). I had a really great time with all of them on the New Year's Eve... we had a nice dinner, and at midnight, we oppened the champagne.

Christmas in Lyon!

On the Christmas day in Lyon, with my cousins.

After a couple of glasses of wine/champagne, we put on some Serbian music and started singing and dancing to it... I think that Alain was a little freaked out because French are too sophisticated for that kind of behavior, but I explained to him that this is how Serbs act after we have some alcohol, and he was cool with it, or so it seemed. :-)

I came back to Avignon on the New Year's day, and I didn't really do much for the rest of the week. Even though it was warm, we had lots of rain, which is totally uncommon for this area, so I just stayed in my room, planning my next vacation, and watching my roommate's movies on DVD. It was so difficult going back to the gym because I hadn't gone in days, but I'm back on track now. :-)

Then, on Monday, January 7th, was the first day of Serbian Orthodox Christmas. This was the first time I'd been away from home on Christmas, and I was getting really nostalgic.... I listened to the Serbian radio from Bosnia online the entire day on Sunday, and then I went and called my parents.

Christmas in Lyon!

Moi with Stefan and Eric on Christmas day.

However, Micaela (the woman I stayed with when I arrived to France) wanted to us to celebrate Christmas in the traditional way. So, she invited me to spend the night at her house, and then in the morning of Christmas day, we got up really early (5 AM), made cesnica (traditional Christmas bread with a coin in it), and then we had a huge breakfast, with 3 candles on the table, just like in the old country. Moreover, the tradition is to have "polozajnik", or a person who comes to your house to wish you Merry Christmas really early in the morning, and since my roommate had early classes that day, she come over at 6, so she served as the polozajnik. Right before we started eating, we prayed, and then we broke the bread together. Oh, and I was the one who found the coin in the bread once we broke it, which according to the tradition, is a very good thing. :-) She also wanted to cook dinner for us that evening, and she invited some of the other assistants and one teacher from my school. Everything that Micaela prepared was, of course, delicious! I was so lucky

Christmas in Lyon!

Streets of Lyon at night

to have found her... I've never met anyone who cared so much about other people as she does.

So the school has finally started, and my classes went well this week. I was getting really worried about what to talk about... I didn't want it to be anything difficult because I assumed that kids hadn't spoken any English during the break, so I decided to discuss what everyone did over their break. I started off with telling them what kids in the US usually do (most have to work, study for finals, etc.), and then I asked each of them what they did, whether they made any new year's resolutions, etc.... it worked out pretty well! Next week I'm thinking about discussing US election with my older students, but I have to prepare because it is a broad topic. Plus, it would be good for me to do some research on it, because this is my first time voting!

As crazy as it sounds, next month (on Feb. 8th, to be exact), I get another 2-week vacation! :-) I'm soo excited about this vacation, because I'm planning a trip to Spain and Italy with a couple of my

After Christmas days in Lyon!

With my cousins, Dusanka and Milenko, and Milenko's wife Inger.

friends from here, and hopefully my cousin Aleksandra who lives in Dubai, if she can make it. We're thinking about visiting a few cities in the south of Spain, such as Granada, Sevilla, and Cordoba, and then heading to Florence and Rome. I will make sure to take A LOT of photos and post them a lot of them on here, and on facebook! :-)

Anyways, I hope to hear from you soon!

Lots of love,

Darija

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