English Christmas, Swiss New Year

I've been putting off writing this post for a couple days now, because it's kind of intimidating to imagine writing about all of the things that I've done over the last 4-5 weeks. BUT I shall give it a go, and rely mostly on pictures to tell the story. I'll try to keep it short!

This is a shot of the Reims Christmas market, which I visited several weeks before my mom arrived, and again with her while she was here. It was the most beautiful one I saw, with booths winding around the city for blocks and blocks, with vendors selling hot cider, mulled wine, foie gras, crepes and waffles, and various knick knacks, like candles shaped like fruits and vegetables and remote control cars.
This is the basketball team I play with! The teams I play/practice with come from Gauchy, a small town right next to Saint Quentin. I practice with L'Equipe 1, but can't play games with them because I would have to pay 400euro or something ridiculous. So, I play Equipe 2, pictured below! They are a lot of fun, they're all in their 30s and have kids, and have been playing together for 20 some odd years. #6 is Stéfanie, the woman who works in Tergnier and has been so, so nice to me, helping w/ paperwork and getting me set up with the basketball team and all that jazz, and next to her is Fabian, her husband.
This is the Christmas pageant we had at Blériot about 4 weeks ago-- these are the preschoolers, getting ready to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "If You're Happy and You Know It"! My friend Libby, who visited for a couple days from Spain, was there to take pictures.
Paris' Catacombs, which Libby and I visited. The sign on the entrance read that "children and people of nervous disposition" might want to avoid the visit. It was a morbidly beautiful sight.
Libby & I on boat on the Seine!
Before Christmas at Condren, the preschoolers made sugar cookies-- here they are flattening the dough :)
The older kids at Condren made gingerbreadmen!
The weekend before my mom arrived, I visited some Grinnellians in Paris. On the left is Zoe, who I worked with at the Phoenix Café in Grinnell. On the right is Carla, and next to her is Hannah, who studied abroad in Paris this past semester. Next to Zoe is Thomas, a friend of hers from home. We were at the le Musée de Quai Branly, and saw a great exhibit called "L'Invention du Sauvage".
...We also climbed the Eiffel Tower, the same night as Paris' first snowfall of the year. Romantic, but also extremely cold and windy.
After a couple days with Zoe, Carla, and Hannah, I headed to Gare du Nord (a big train station) in Paris to meet my mom, and after much stress and explosion of bags (I think I wrote about that last time?) we FOUND each other!! We came back to Tergnier and spent a few days doing day trips around Picardie & Champagne-- to Saint Quentin, Amiens, and Reims. This is a picture of a booth at the Amiens Christmas market-- Picardie is famous for its marionettes, and the man who hand makes these has been doing it for several decades.
On Dec. 22, my mom and I took the Eurostar train to London! The train goes about 180mph, and goes under the English Channel. We stayed at the London School of Economics, which kicks most of its students out of the dorms during holiday breaks so as to rent its rooms to people like us! It was nice to be back in an English speaking country. Our first night, we walked down to Trafalgar Square and saw some carolers raising money for a charity. Behind them is a huge Christmas tree given to English by Norway every year.
Caroline's Effluent Services, Ltd truck :)
My favorite place we visited in London was the Tower of London, which we visited on a whirlwind day of museum/monument going, as the 23rd was the only day during our visit that they were open. The Tower of London was built around 1078 by William the Conqueror (right after he invaded and conquered England, like in the Bayeux Tapestry says! remember?), and at the time was the tallest building in Europe at a whopping 4 stories. The Tower has been used as an armory, a mint, a treasury, and a zoo, but is most famous for being a prison, and the site of hundreds of executions, (only 7 within the Tower walls, the rest on a hillside nearby) including the beheading of Ann Boleyn. Many famous people were imprisoned there, like Sir Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth I, and Lady Jane Grey. We had an entertaining tour from a Yeoman Warder (aka Beefeater! They've been the guards of the Tower for more than 500 years). Here he is in the middle of saying that if anyone uses a camera during the tour, he gives us permission to punch them in the kidneys. Oops.
These days, the Tower houses the Crown Jewels, which are guarded by this guy (and several others like him). I wonder how he feels about his job, because in theory it is quite an important and historically significant one, but it seems like most of what he does is get photographed by tourists like me. (might get annoying after a few years, maybe?) My mom and I got to see the Star of Africa, the largest cut diamond in the world!
The White Tower, built by William the Conqueror. The rest of the castle (other towers & surrounding walls) were built later on. The walls of this bad boy are 15 feet thick at the bottom, and 11 at the top. this used to be the tallest building in Europe!
The Tower was built on top of Roman ruins, which are pictured here in the foreground. The wall on the right is part of the White Tower, and the tall building in the distance, beyond the trees, is The Shark-- 1000 years and about a hundred stories later, it will be the tallest building in Europe when completed in the next year or so.
A lot of historic armor & weapons is displayed in the White Tower-- here is the largest suit of armor in the world (Guiness Book of World Records plaque and all), and one of the smallest.
After the Tower tour, we went to the Tate Modern. This is a shot of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millenium Bridge from the other side of the Thames.
...After the Tate, we went to the British Museum! By that point we were so tired we only had energy to see the Rosetta Stone, the stone carving from Easter Island, and the mummies, and then made our way out, oohing and aahing at a few other things along the way. Here is the Rosetta Stone!
Hoa Hakananai'a, from Easter IslandOccupy London protesters camped out in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. Their camp was pretty quiet the day we visited the cathedral, and it was hard to imagine what camping out in rainy, soggy, chilly London for months on end would be like. I have felt very removed from the OWS protests (believe it or not, there's no active Occupy Tergnier movement), and wish there had been someone I could have approached to chat with. If anyone knows of Occupy movements in France, give me a shout, I'd be curious to see what it's all about.
On Christmas Eve we went to Oxford St., one of the biggest shopping streets in London. It. Was. A. ZOO. (Apparently Boxing Day, Dec. 26, is the biggest shopping day of the year in London, and this boxing day, someone got stabbed at a Foot Locker on Oxford St. Zoo.) The purple building is Selfridge's, a fancy pants department store where we saw a glasses case for $3000. Best part of experience was bagpiper & calypso Christmas carol band in the street!
Also on Christmas Eve, we went to a beautiful church called St. Martin in the Fields for a Caroling service. The church was full, and we had an hour of beautiful organ and choir music, and also got to sing some familiar carols. Another highlight of the trip for me.
Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day!
Big Ben & the Houses of Parliament, and us on a bridge over the Thames.
The day after Christmas we came back to France. In between our Christmas & New Years' trips, we spent one day in Paris. This is a shot of Ile de la Cité (where Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle are) and le Pont Neuf (oldest bridge in Paris). All the locks are on another bridge nearby-- I'm not 100% positive, but I think they are "locks of love"-- you can buy one from vendors along the Seine, and each lock comes with two keys, one for you and one for your boo.
Le Sainte Chapelle! Built as a private chapel for the King and his family in 1242. The stained glass was made by the same craftsmen who did the windows at Chartres. The chapel was built to house the relics of the Passion (Jesus' crown of thorns, splinters from the cross), which are now housed in Notre Dame.
Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, near Ile de la Cité
Apartments along the Seine
For New Years', my mom and I took the high speed train (le TGV-- c'est chhhhoooueeettte!) to Geneva, Switzerland. An old friend of my mom's lives their with her husband, their names are Teresa and Tim. They were wonderful hosts, treating us to tours around town and delicious typically French & Swiss meals- we had fondue one day, and on New Years' Eve Day (??) we drove to a ski resort town in France and enjoyed one of the most memorable meals I've ever had.
I started with 6 oysters, which the French apparently love at New Years, then had scallops w/ carmelized endives & a saffron cream sauce, and a Paris-Brest (pastry filled w/ praline cream) for dessert, followed by coffee. The whole meal lasted 3 hours, and was truly an experience! The rest of the visit was relaxing, and we spent a nice New Years' Eve together talking about this and that, drinking some wine, and watching a French cabaret & an English Hootenanny on TV next to a fire in their cozy living room. Pretty ideal.

Here's a shot of Teresa, Tim & my mom, with Lake Geneva and the Swiss Alps in the background.

The cemetery where Teresa's parents are buried. Teresa's father Joachim was my mom's father's best friend.
Geneva is home to THE LONGEST BENCH IN THE WORLDDD (ooooo)
Pretty green shutters in the Old Town
And there you have it! I am extremely grateful to have seen and done so much over the past few weeks, and so thankful for such a long, wonderful visit with my mom. We said goodbye Friday morning, and I was very sad to see her go.

Now I am back in Tergnier for a bit, settling back into work. I went to a professional basketball game the other night in Saint Quentin, which was enjoyable most of all because of the utterly unenthusiastic mascots, who would come onto the court at halftime and slowly walk in circles with their arms swinging by their sides until the game started up again, and spent the rest of the game leaning up against a wall with their costume heads under their arms, chatting up their girlfriends. Also funny because the team's mascot is the white fox, but one costume was a grey squirrel and the other a brown chipmunk. This afternoon I have a basketball game of my own! And next week, my college roommate Brita is coming to visit for a weekend from Germany, where she spent the holidays with her brother and the rest of her family!

Lastly, my computer charger came way earlier than expected (A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE), so I will try to post shorter things more often. Love to you all, happy New Year and late Christmas, vous me manquez beaucoup!