Climbing mountains. I am woman hear me roar!

Having wine with dinner, as one does.

We set off with foul moods because of past failures/painful memories of this mountain. It was Anna and Sarah's third attempt and the last time Emily climbed it she nearly died.

Pretty pretty.

We met a group of small children, a boy asked Emily (in english) what her name was. She eloquently responded "Ha!" Above is the reenactment. Poor kid.

Persevering.

Bread!

Cheese! (and a cheesy smile)

Working our glutes.

Lovely.

Just to prove we are all friends.

"We ain't going no farther till I've had a breather!"

Are you impressed?

At the top!

Victory is ours!

Anna became a little emotional, she fell to the ground and wept grateful tears.

Just taking it in.

We only had one major injury on this adventure. Emily's knee was severely mutilated and her pants ripped beyond recognition.

Saint Victoire.

One of Cezannes' many paintings of Mount Saint Victoire.

Is it too late to post about Christmas? Also Emily arrived, as an afterthought.

Making Christmas dinner (and looking good)

Also looking good (and making Christmas dinner)

The cheese plate!!!

I've only been here four months and I already have a wine named after me.

The feast.

Snowflakes sent from the wonderful Gordon and Greenwalt girls.

Shmumpkins is here!!!

We spent a relaxing afternoon writing letters. (Sarah looking fiiiine!)

I just wanted to post this because I look better then them. Sarah and Emily agreed to it because they look better than me in real life.

Sarah and I made the board game Clue. Be impressed.

Marseille

Victory is ours!

We walked blindly to the sea.

Marseille, we owned you.

As you can see from the haiku above, we went to Marseille last week. We are quite proud of ourselves because we did not get lost once.

We saw the Mediterranean for the first time!

Cathédrale de la Major

The doors are amazing.

We didn't take many pictures because they don't do it justice.

We went to the only Starbucks in the south of France. It was spectacular.

Hooray for good ole American coffee.

This is not Marseille...It is the Quatre Dauphine fountain in Aix.

After a lovely afternoon in Marseille, we went to the Chritmas market in Aix. You are probably wondering why we look so happy in this picture...

It's because we were eating chocolate covered pears.

Une parodie de L’Automne de Victor Hugo.

                                                       L’hiver

Les fleurs est moins vivants, le soleil est moins chaud, l’humeur est moins gaie ;

Les jours des vacances sont passés, Les promenades d’étés finissent.

Hélas ! La neige est ici !...

L’hiver est comme un vieil homme qui pleure.

Et le beau temps est oublie.

Thanksgiving/Christmas market

Thanksgiving dinner...

Stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy...we had it all.

We even had turkey! There was a Thanksgiving meal at the English speaking church and there was leftover turkey, so they let us have some.

We made Vin Chaud, it was scrumptious.

We miss snow! So we made our own.

We have Advent candles! They are not all the right colors, but we made it work.

They really go all out with Christmas decorations here. The lights are absolutely amazing.

This is the main street, Cours Mirabeau.

Hotel de Ville. This is a square right by our apartment.

Cours Mirabeau.

The Christmas market on Cours Mirabeau that is open every single day.

We tried Macarons for the first time! They were interesing...

You all should come and visit us, if not to see us then for the lights, they really are breathtaking, and they are everywhere! The church that we go to is having a Christmas carol concert on Sunday. We are both in the choir for it. The service is in the main cathedral in town, and it is a candle lit service. From what we are told, there are usually about a thousand people there. We cannot wait, it sounds glorious. And we get to sing in a huge cathedral!

We rebel against clever titles!

It was an absolutely beautiful evening, so we decided to go out for some nice hot mulled wine. It was scrumptious. There is nothing better than hot wine on a chilly night.

It was gone all too soon.

One of our new favorite things is Nutella hot chocolate. It is so good! I don't know why we didn't think of it sooner.

We are very proud of our wine bottle collection. Five bottles in a month and a half is not too shabby

It rained nonstop all last week, which was also the week of our break. I woke up one night to the sound of dripping, I ignored it for a while, but then finally decided I should find out where it was coming from, and it's a good thing I did! When I finally found where the leak was I discovered a big pool of water just inches away from all of my books. I almost had a heart attack. Over the course of the next week we found several more leaks, the grand total now is nine I believe.