Here Comes Papa Noel!

Season’s Greetings from Christmas-y and chilly Strasbourg!

 (The giant sapin of Strasbourg)

This past week was a tough one, with a 10 page (single spaced) French paper on the history of this region of France and a Linguistics exam. I spent hours every day working on that paper, listened to “Let It Go” in seven different languages in succession, ate a lot of snacks, and didn’t sleep as much as I wished. But the paper was finished and I turned it in this morning (hopefully in the right mailbox…). So happy to be done!

It is crazy that Christmas season is upon us. In some ways, it very much feels like the season, but in others, it seems like the first day I came to France when time is frozen and I’m just stuck. But my host family did get a sapin, or a Christmas tree, and I watched “Love Actually” with Erin and a bunch of French people in the movie theater on Tuesday, so we’re getting there.  The Christmas markets (Marche du Noel) are also partout (everywhere) and remind us that it is the most wonderful time of the year!

Additionally, I’ve had some wonderful friends come to visit recently, Karla, Mariana, and now Tom, visiting from Dijon, which makes me feel right at home! Love you all<3

 (Me, Mariana, and Erin)

(It was a real fete, with treats,

decorating Christmas trees,

and lots of people!)

Let’s see, what’s been up? Well, Thanksgiving was really good, all the Holy Cross students went over our coordinator’s house and we had a traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner. We all made a dessert and I couldn’t believe how good everything was. I missed my family of course, but after a long dinner and even longer night over Renata’s laughing over children’s jokes and deep talking over tea, I really enjoyed the holiday.

(On the left is the day before Thanksgiving, me trying to make pumpkin/chocolate cake with an actual pumkin, no storebought puree in sight. On the right are some of my favorite people, Jose, Renata, and my little host brother, Martin, making MugCakes. You can see he’s warmed up to me a bit :D)

In other news, I have decided to retourner for the holidays! Honestly, one of my favorite parts of this is being able to sing “I’ll be home for Christmas” and get all excited. I really need a break of the unfamillar and get back to my beloved United States. But today, as I laughed and struggled through French with a friend from my host mom’s organization as the two of us stood in the middle of a plaza trying to survey the French and tourists alike, I realized I’ll be excited to come back to France after Christmas. Though it did hit me a little harder than expected when I deleted “Come Home!” on January 13th out of my phone’s calendar. But it’ll be a-ok.

Anyway, I have been struggling with faith a little bit this week, so I’m off to the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the Cathedrale to renew my spirit and heart and try to further align with God. Keep praying!

Hope you all are good and for those taking finals, hang in there, you can do it!!!

Love and Peace,

Jessica

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 5th, 2015 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Here Comes Papa Noel!”

1. Cyndy says:

   December 9, 2015 at 12:46 am

   So Beautiful there, I wish I could be there to see it with you.
   Alas we are doing our best here at home to make ours the home of the season and can not wait to hug and kiss you without typing XOXOXO. Great pictures and great blog !!! (and great little brother in France)

   • jpvoze17 says:

     December 14, 2015 at 12:26 pm

     Thanks mom:) Can’t wait to see you either and Martin is so adorable!