Christmas

Merry Christmas. I survived my first Christmas away from all family members and it was good. Saturday morning I got up and went to church. It was changed to Saturday morning so people could stay with their families on Christmas. It was a nice service. We got to sing Christmas songs too. Then I went back to my house to deliver a gift to my boss for mme Balletti. After that I decided to go visit Ruth Lise at the Christian book store. It started out well. I got to the bus stop to wait a bus and I see none. I wait patiently and after 25 min, I decide to take the next bus no matter what bus it is, and then figure out where to go from each bus. One takes me basically to the book store. One takes me to a metro and then the book store is near and finally one takes me to one metro and then I need to take another metro. Which one comes? The last one. The one that will take the longest and most effort. Oh well, I take it and finally get to the bookstore. Then Ruth Lise and I talked for a bit and figured out what we needed to get done for the evening (we were having our mini Christmas Eve party.) Then we went back to her house (the car this time) and gathered all the things we needed, and headed to the church. We got there and Marie Christine and ari were there and we decorated and cooked and waited for xuelian and her friend to come. They came and we played some games and ate and more games and more food. Then the 2 Chinese girls left around 10pm and the 4 of us stayed and talked and played taboo. We decided to start cleaning up around 1:30. The best part was…Ruth Lise let me dive home…

So I learned how to drive stick shift cars my junior year because of Pete, and even when I did drive, I never drove far and usually he was with me and there weren’t many cars. But this time…I drove across the city. A good half hour trip. They have rond points which are not in the US. It’s a circle you have to drive around and get off. Like an intersection but round. They aren’t easy. And also the traffic lights are not above you, they are to the side of you. But no worries, I got us safely home! And I never even stalled!

I stayed at Ruth lise’s place since we were spending Christmas day together as well. We woke up at 11:10 and had to leave by 11:40. We didn’t move to fast. We went to pick up David, then we went to Olivier’s family’s house. It was a really nice time. We got there and ate a few snacks and talked. Then we moved to the dinner table. There were 10 of us. Olivier, his parents, his 2 sisters and 1 brother, the friend of his brother and then us 3. Dinner was turkey, carrots, chestnuts, salad, and potatoes. It was really good. And I ATE MUSHROOMS. They were raw and on the salad and I just didn’t feel like being rude so I sucked it up and ate it. Hey if I can eat raw octopus in Japan, I think I can eat mushrooms. I didn’t talk much because it’s really challenging sometimes. It takes a lot of effort to understand normal meal conversation. I can understand most, but I can’t add anything. It’s frustrating and I just want to be myself, but its also hard because I get nervous and am afraid to speak sometimes in front of a lot of people. Oh well. After dinner we played games.

The girls played boggle. I actually scored 2 points. (The winner had 40-but hey I was happy I didn’t have 0) then we all played cranium. We had the 3 teams, the black haired, the brown haired and the blonds. Everyone thought us blonds would lose…but we were winner most of the game, but then the browns won. Oh well. We had fun! Then we watched a comedian and hung out till it was time to leave. It was really nice of Olivier’s family to welcome us in when they don’t even really know us (I met them one time)

So it was a good Christmas. I hope you all had a good Christmas also!