Merry Christmas from Paris!

Today after breakfast I set out to run to the Eiffel Tour, and you’ll never believe this, but I ran for twenty minutes in the wrong direction.  Haha!  I was at the Place de la Bastille before I realized my mistake.  Due to this blind trust of my terrible sense of direction, what had started out as a forty minute there-and-back fun run turned into an hour and a half knee-grinding, hip-popping mini-marathon.  Oy!

When I did finally make it to the Eiffel Tour, I found it crowded with tourists from all over Europe and Asia.  I heard so many different languages: Arabic, German, Russian, Chinese, Korean, you name it!  Globalization at it's best?  My cold Christmas jog back along the Seine brought on the starkly contrasting feeling of solidarity with local hardcore athletes who were also running along the river alone.  Church bells all over town were ringing and a half moon hung in the day sky, making this particular Parisian morning just a tad more magical.  

I made it back to the hostel and realized that if I was going to get to yoga, I required a nap.  After a quick lunch, I conked out for a good two hours straight.  Yoga was calling, but first I had to turn the town upside down to satisfy my intense craving for banana nut bread (Thanks, MacDonald’s).  The five o’clock class was crowded, so we sweat a lot!  My back bends were back (Woohoo - I saw the tip of my mat!), but my legs felt like lead throughout the entire rest of the standing series.

I grabbed a mushroom and emmental cheese crepe from a vendor outside the Pompidou on my way home and made it back in time to skype with my family Christmas morning.  

Remembrance Day

168 Saint-Cyriens gave their lives in the First World War.  This morning I attended the inaugural ceremony for a fountain next to the City Hall in Saint-Cyr which signifies and honors their lives.  The ceremony was attended by the Mayor of the city, the president of associations, military, police and firefighters, schools, and families.

It was a clear, cold morning, which made my flip flops a special treat for anyone in my vicinity...  They drew some attention away from the weighty topic of the day and added a little (unintended) levity to peoples' mornings.  I got the classic stare, the look + laugh, the double look, the triple look (which is a lot like the double look, but includes disapproving eye contact), the foot to face stare, the foot to face and back to foot stare (which clocked in at an amazing twenty three seconds!), and the very nice "Aren't you cold?"  I was most uncomfortable and, needless to say, had a difficult time focusing on how deep and beautiful this moment was in the history of the city of Saint-Cyr.

Nevertheless!  The eleventh of November is a national holiday in France that commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany on "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month".  The fountain remembers the 168 fallen soldiers and innocent men, women, and children from Saint-Cyr who died for France in World War I.  The inaugural ceremony was quite beautiful, and (appropriately) French.  Afterwards there was a snack!

A Very Very Un-Scarey Halloween

Halloween came and went here without much excitement at all.  Our practice was cancelled that night, so I went to the gym to workout and on my way back home I spotted one trick-or-treater who, from what I could gather, was being asked by a kind old lady to wait on the sidewalk while she searched in her house for a piece of candy.  I just kept riding, laughing to myself a little, imagining her dumping out her purse on her kitchen table, turning wool sweater pockets inside out, eventually getting out a flashlight, and finding a year old candy bar in her basement.  Poor kid.

The remaining bike ride home from the gym also produced one haunted house sighting.  A neighbor decorated inside and out for what looked like a Halloween party with a mostly invisible attendance (but that could've just been my mind playing tricks on me).  Haha!  All in all, it was a most uneventful evening: no costumes, no gunshots, no stabbings, no drunk adults roaming the streets in ripped stockings, no zombies, no screaming until 3am, no sirens...  Why is this list making me miss home???  :)

With Halloween grossly overlooked, I thought November would come equally quietly, but I was wrong.  Overnight, the cemetery around the corner from where I live turned into a botanical garden of chrysanthemums.  It was a Halloween miracle!  I wish I could've taken before and after photos because it was such a beautiful thing to see almost every grave come to life with bright autumn hues - magenta, pink, yellow, orange, and purple - leaving this previously gray and gloomy plot of land just bursting with color.

After asking around and a little googling, I found out that in France Friday, November 1st is All Saints Day (Toussaint) and Saturday, November 2nd is the Day of the Dead (Jour des Morts).  These holidays are marked by the distinct ritual of honoring the graves of deceased family members.  Apparently on this day more than 22 million chrysanthemums (94% of total annual sales) are sold in France alone.  What a beautiful tradition!