Christmas in France

This post is about a month late, but better late than never, right? One of the hardest parts of being abroad is missing out on holiday traditions. Thanksgiving wasn't that bad because they don't celebrate it here in France. That made it easy to forget that I was missing it. That, and my wonderful English team tried to make me a French Thanksgiving. Christmas would have been miserable. Fortunately my dedicated family brought Christmas to me! Unorthodox as it was, we ended up having a fantastic Christmas and New Years.

Of course France wouldn't be France without a strike every once and awhile. We couldn't have my parents coming all the way to France without experience one! So, of course, when they arrived at CDG there was a flight attendant strike in full swing! Because they were late out of JFK they ended up missing their connection to Toulouse. Finally they were put on a flight via Geneva to Toulouse, and guaranteed that their luggage would follow them there. Right. The next three days in Limoux were spent trying to get a hold of the airport and find their luggage. What a wonderful way to start a vacation, and my brother and father first international trip. Luckily the trip got nothing but better...

The first night we spent in Limoux. My parents came to the school to pick me up and then we had an apero with Virginie and Francoise. My parents got to meet most of the English professors. Here are a few pictures (granted not very good pictures, my hand isn't steady enough to take night pictures sans flash.) of the Christmas lights in Limoux:





The next day we returned to Limoux in the morning so that my parents could check out where I live and work. They also got to see the Friday market and some of the Jour du Talents at the lycee. For the afternoon/evening we headed to Carcassonne to check out the medieval city. In town, Matt, my mom, and I took a ferris wheel ride to check out the view of la cité at night, unfortunately, the pictures didn't turn out very well.














The next morning we drove to Toulouse to finally get their suitcases. Everyone was excited to finally have clean clothes. It wasn't a completely wasted day, though, because on the way home we stopped in Albi. The church below is the Basilica of my patron saint, Cecilia.