Belated Joyeux Noël!

Hi everyone,

Hope everyone (anyone?) reading this had a fantasic and merry Christmas. While I have to admit that it wasn't the most joyful of Christmases, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I treated myself to a nice steak dinner,(rubbed with cumin, chile powder for a little kick, and coffee! of all things^^) complete with mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, carmelized onions, and homemade baked bread. And because I've gotten into the weird habit of photographing dishes I make, here's a pic:

Also in the spirit of the season, I decided that as my gift to Kevin, I would bake gingerbread cookies to decorate. Made quite a bit actually, and he enjoyed getting to do that. Don't have pictures of the ones he did, but here are mine that I did later after getting home:

(As a funny side note, I tried taking a picture of them with my phone after I took this one, and accidently dropped my phone onto them and killed Mr. Gingerbread man...oops.)

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And in the few days leading up to Christmas, I got a little nostalgic, naturally, so when I found English muffins at the store, decided to try out Eggs Benny :) I know I'd seen the powder for regualar hollandaise sauce somewhere, but couldn't find it again, and so just went with the herb version of it. It was still pretty good:

AND THEN, I decided to finally take on the daunting task of croissant-making. I'd been meaning to for ages, even though many people had told me that making them was difficult. In the end though, it wasn't so much that they were difficult to make, just that the process was very time-consuming. But here is it, (one) of my beauties :)):

AND THEY WERE SO DELICIOUS!! In fact, the only downside to making them yourself, is that then you know exactly how much butter is in them ^^;. But hey! As long as you don't eat them allll the time...

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So anyways, pretty much everyone from ISA has left, and so it'd been pretty uneventful of late, but I did make a trip up to the Christmas market at La Defense for a little festive evening just wandering around:

(above) The Grande Arche looming beautifully in the background :)

I tried to get a picture of the enormous pans they cook food in at the martket, and while these aren't the largest I saw, (or even that great of a picture) it's better than nothing.

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On Christmas day, did meet up with the only other person from ISA that was still in town, Andrew, and so to keep us from being lonely on frickin' Christmas, we decided to meet up in the Luxembourg Gardens for a very French brunch. It was bloody cold, but nonetheless we enjoyed croissants, coffee, jam, bread (all brought by me) and cheese, fruit, and foie gras (curtesy of Andrew). Plus of course, each other's company. Oh, that, and the rather frightening pigeons and seagulls that kept stalking around our bench...but yeah, like I said, it was nice not to have been alone on Christmas. :)

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In other news, I am happy to announce that 2 weeks ago, I finally received some money from my school, and though it wasn't enough to cover my rent (had to e-mail my landlord and explain the circumstances so that she would hold off on cashing my check) it was enough to buy the things I needed, like food, a warmer blanket, TP, soap, etc. I might have enough for a Christmas gift or two, but I won't be receiving money again until a few days in January, after my bills are due, so gotta set some money aside for those..Regardless, it's nice not having to literally live from week to week with only the little money I'm getting from babysitting.

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So yeah, while money issues are not my favorite thing to post about, I feel like it's important because even though studying abroad is like a dream come true, I have to be realistic and put out there that not every dream is perfect. But you know what? It's still worth it, and that's the important part.

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And finally, Maura is in town! She got here just before Christmas with her family, and while they're leaving tonight, she's stay into the end of the first week of January. She's staying with Nadya starting tonight for a few days, and then on the 3rd-6th, she'll be crashing here with me. So that should be fun :)

Anywho, time to shower, tootles!

Rachael