Last night, we actually had a Christmas Eve dinner of frozen pizzas -- oh well. It was bound to happen at some point. With dinner, we began watching one of my all time favorite movies -- White Christmas, which my dad had brought with him. Apparently, it was the first time that Dan had seen it!
We had heard that going to a Christmas Eve service at Notre Dame isn't really a "French" thing to do. Well that may be, but every tourist likes to go to Notre Dame for their Christmas Eve services. We got there around 10:40 for the 11pm service...which was a bit too late. We found ourselves near the end of a very long line that began moving shortly after we arrived. When we had made it about halfway up, two men came rushing up, briefly flashing an armband reading "POLICE", and told us to follow them...which seemed fairly suspicious. My dad was quick to follow them which was surprising. Some how, by following them, we ended up getting right into Notre Dame which, indeed, was PACKED.
We stood on the right side and watched the service on a tv screen that was behind an enormous column -- we could still hear fairly well though. It was a great experience, but for whatever reason, the majority of the music that was sung or played wasn't familiar. It was only at the end that they sung "traditional" Christmas songs. It was a little disappointing, but it was still Christmas Eve. At Notre Dame.
Today, we tried our best to recreate Christmas a la francaise. We had our usual sausage breakfast casserole - where we substituted ham chunks (or bacon) for the sausage! Not bad at all! A bit "breadier" than usual, but still pretty good. The grits that my mom makes all the time tasted delicious, but the consistency was a bit different than what we're used to....oh well. And of course, we had some French pastries from the boulangerie just up the road.
After our late brunch, we watched Love Actually, which is always amusing. And that was followed by a lovely stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens! There was a surprisingly large of people out and about for a Christmas day. I am now sitting on the couch watching Holiday Inn with everyone -- Mom, Dad, Dan, Becca, and my friend Louisa who came to spend the day with us! It's kind of hodge-podge of activities -- trying to clean up for our departure tomorrow morning, cooking various things while having a tiny oven, blogging, etc.
A few highlights from the past couple of days:
Monmartre : quite an incredible place. We went for the first time on Thursday, and got off at the Chateau Rouge metro station off of the Ligne 4 -- warning to those who approach Sacre Coeur from this metro -- it's quite a different place.....But we had a fun time wandering through the Christmas markets and through the square that was full of quite the variety of artists...
Le Ribouldingue : Friday night, Dan found this restaurant called Le Ribouldingue which was not too far away -- just across from Notre Dame -- which specializes in dishes that aren't terribly common....They claimed to have had a selection of "normal" options, but were mysteriously out of all but one helping of the scallops....My appetizer was delicious -- it was a puree of pumpkin and bacon with a layer of white foam on the top. Really yummy. I had the lone order of scallops that was left which was good -- not incredible, but good. And then for dessert, I had a rice pudding that was flavored with vanilla, and then there was a little pot of thick caramel sauce to go on top -- soooo good.
That's all I can think of right now -- lamb and potato gratin dinner being served up soon! Tomorrow we're off to Normandy, Brugge, and then Budapest for New Year's! Should be a fun week.
Here are quite a few pictures courtesy of my wonderful father:
Band playing on the steps of the Opera Garnier:
Laduree decked out for Christmas:
Tree in front of Notre Dame:
Me and Dan in front of the Louvre:
A bientot! J'espere....Joyeux Noel a tout le monde!
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