Home for the Holidays

After a quick trip to Strasbourg and some festive get-togethers at the high school, I was headed home for the holidays.  If you’re wondering if it was even worth it, a transatlantic flight just for two weeks home, the answer is yes, yes it was.  Nothing beats being home for the holidays.  Nothing.  Last year I spent my first Christmas away from home in London with my friend Anna who came to visit from the States.  We had a really pleasant time decorating my small dorm room for Christmas, making Christmas dinner together, watching all the best BBC Christmas specials, and of course, going to mass at Westminster Abbey was special, too, but being with family always trumps the lonely, vacant streets of London on Christmas Day.

My journey started on December 23, just two days before Christmas and one day before the Italian side of my family’s big celebration.  There was something really symbolic and special about leaving from this airport train station:

which closely resembles this lovely iconic Milwaukee hot spot...

..probably because they were both designed by famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.  This makes it the 3rd Calatrava I've been to haphazardly, including his Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden.

So Calatrava is a pretty clever and creative dude, and it was definitely a pleasure seeing something familiar as a liaison home.

This was probably the most nervous I'd ever been flying.  No, not because of all the hours and transfers etc, but because of the contents in my suitcase that I could only hope would make it through customs and/or not break all over the place.  2 bottles of wine, 4 large bottles of beer, some individual beers, a whole lot of cookies and chocolates tucked away, hopefully safely, in between shoes and clothes for a week, and some cheese which may or may not have been illegal for me to smuggle in, but I was clever and declared it on the customs form under its cheese name and not just "cheese" and they were none the wiser.  I believe I mentioned this kind of cheese in an earlier post somewhere (my weekend in Nevache), but the cheese I brought back is called Raclette and it's a cheese mostly eaten in winter and used for fondues.  I'm pretty sure it's a legal cheese to take on planes, but for excitement's sake, let's pretend it's not.  When I arrived at O'Hare I was one of the first people through customs (winning) and went straight to the baggage claim belts as I tried getting in contact with my parents to let them know I'd be out soon.  So there I was, impatiently expecting my bag to come out first, and as bag after bag came tumbling down the belt I got more nervous.  No bag.. no bag yet... they probably took it and are drinking my beer and sending a bomb squad on my cheese... crap..crap..no, really, it's Chistmas, it's okay... until about 25 minutes later I felt relief as my bag fell down but at the same time was expecting to see a huge puddle under it, or some plastic wrap on it, or a quarantine sign attached to it.  Whew, luckily it was there, in seemingly good shape, and I was just a 10 foot walk past a beasty customs officer away from Christmas with my family.  They looked at my customs card and completely overlooked anything important, asking me if all I had was cookies and candy.. a simple "yep" was all I needed and I was free.  Yessssssssssss!
 
 Coming home from a transatlantic flight is always an enjoyable haze of a night.  I love the excitement and emotions I get seeing my parents at the airport, knowing I'm in the safety of familiarity again.  Then, of course, since I'm always starving, we have to get a ridiculously huge and delicious American sized meal somewhere before I go home and pass out for 14 hours until the next morning.  This time we tried going to a new Italian restaurant my parents discovered in my absence, only to find that it was too busy to get into.  So, for the biggest reverse culture shock of all, we went to a place called Texas Roadhouse.  Just imagine the most over-the-top sports, beer, country music, suburbanite-filled restaurant ever with portions big enough to make anyone obese, naturally.  I definitely forgot about the unclassy-ness that springs up in suburbia.  Yet all the sports teams and Milwaukee beer posters on the wall were strangely comforting to be surrounded by, although expat Angela was judging a lot.

Waking up at home on December 24th was a dream.  My LaRosa grandparents and my brother's girlfriend/my good friend from high school, Sarah, came over to open Christmas presents before heading to my aunt and uncle's place for a big Christmas meal.

The highlights of my gifts:

My forever-anticipated trip to Iceland was finally solidifying!  Over my break at home I booked flights and airbnb's and made plans with two of my best friends, Deanie (studying in Cambridge) and Anna (visiting from the States for a month in February) to finally reach my dream destination.

Needless to say I was pretty much on top of the world this Christmas, and seeing more of my family just made it all the better.  Some nice highlights from our Christmas Eve meal:

Spiedini! The perks of being Italian.

Sarah, T-Bubz, and my cousins Alex and Andrew; still at the kids' table

We ate.  We drank.  We were merry.  And then my uncle started singing the Beatles while Alex played piano and things got even merrier.

After the Christmas festivities were over I spent the majority of my time meeting up with friends, going to Alterra (a few in one day, even), and hitting up some familiar Milwaukee bars with familiar faces.

Ice skating with Anna and Helena (my roomie in France who studied at Marquette last Spring and lived in Global Village with me and came back to Milwaukee for 3 weeks over Christmas).

Skating with Anne!

Skating with Helena!

I also enjoyed some of this...

Italian Christmas cookies

Wisconsin beer and cheese.

 Hung out with a lot of these...

 

Adam with his new kitten mittens

Did a lot of this...

Shared a lot of tender moments...

Went to a wild underwear edition New Years Eve party with all of my favorites and thensome...

This is as wild as I'm letting it get on here.

With Helena and Maggie who came back from Spain for the holidays!

Leaving all this behind was hard to do again when it came time to go, but Milwaukee is dear to me and holds many memories, friends, and family members and I will never be too far away. <3

Les Marchés de Noël en Alsace

As though my December wasn’t busy enough, I decided to squish in a quick weekend trip to Strasbourg before going home for Christmas.  Strasbourg had always been on my necessary list of places to see while in France again to visit my old roommate Marion and an even older friend, Mélanie (who’s already made a few appearances here) because they both live in/near Alsace.  This also just happened to be the big weekend for the huge Christmas markets in Alsace, which are supposed to be of superior quality.  Alsace was also my second choice of region for the teaching program I’m in, because I was intrigued by the German influence on the area and was hoping to be able to work on my German as well while there, but, of course, Lyon won overall.

Iris, the other American assistant working with me in Belley, was also spending the weekend with me at Marion’s but we arrived on different trains.  My 5 hour train journey began at 10 am on Friday and I had a seat at a table on the upper level near a woman from South Korea and a German guy whose brother is well-off in politics and knows Angela Merkel (apparently).  The plan was just to listen to my music and enjoy the scenery for 5 hours, but then they started speaking German and I couldn’t help but eavesdrop.  They had been talking earlier but when the train reached the TGV tracks and started going 306 kph (190 mph) the German got all excited so I listened, wondering why.  Apparently 306 kph is really fast, so I took a picture too.   

My eagerness to listen to them did not go unnoticed and soon enough I was asked in German if the cookies I was eating were Prince cookies (of course they were).  I gave him a “ja” and then the guy seemed surprised that I understood or was just expecting me to say more, and it got silent… so I followed up with “I’m an American but I speak French and some German” because the awkward silence made me want to reveal all my secrets, or at least not end the conversation on such a weird note.  So he was excited to learn that I speak English and from then on we chatted the next few hours about the differences between America and Europe and eventually parts of Asia (he was surprised our Korean neighbor was so tall for a woman).  Towards the end I just wanted my music back because listening to music on a long train ride is what I love, but I got over it and was just proud of myself for at least getting that far in German.

Upon my arrival I hung out at the train station until Iris’s train pulled in.  Once together, we headed towards the city center and grabbed a bite to eat and some vin chaud (mulled wine) at one of the markets along the way.  We walked around a bit to check out some of the markets and hung out in the biggest square, Place Kléber, where we eventually met up with Marion.

Strasbourg Cathedral

 

The name of a market in Alsacien, the local language

 

After picking up a quick dinner, Marion had fun plans for us for that evening: a French improv show!  One of the teams that came out was dressed in very American military costumes, waving a huge American flag.  They probably never could have guessed there would be Americans there that night.  Luckily for us though, as part of the audience we were able to vote which team had the best performance after each game.  Also for some reason the theme was The Walking Dead and the MC's were dressed in apocalyptic or zombie costumes.

The next morning Marion, the sweetheart she is, bought us all breakfast from a boulangerie so we could try some Alsatian/Christmas specialties.

After our delicious breakfast we headed out to the markets again before a fun roadtrip with Melanie!

In the afternoon we met up with Melanie at the train station and headed out to a small town called Riquewihr to check out its famous Christmas market and see more of Alsace.

Following our trip to Riquewihr we stopped by Melanie's parents' house in Matzenheim, just outside of Strasbourg, for some lovely homemade Alsatian Christmas cookies. 

Once we filled up on cookies and hot chocolate we thought it'd be a good idea to go and meet up with Marion for dinner in Petite-France (the cool, old-school German-style part of Strasbourg).

 The cool thing about Strasbourg, in addition to the fact that it has an impressive multicultural, Franco-German feel, is the fact that the main city center is basically an island, called the Grand Île, surrounded by the Ill River and is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site, being the only entire city center to have such an honor.

For dinner we ate at a well-known restaurant along the river where I enjoyed some salmon and potato pancakes.  Being from Wisconsin and having a rich German heritage, potato pancakes are commonplace to me, something I had taken for granted until I found out Iris had never had them or even heard of them before.  Gotta love the heritage (and Milwaukee/Wisconsin in general).

Sunday was sadly my last day in Strasbourg.  Iris left early in the morning so it was just Marion and I strolling the streets of the 'bourg.  Gratefully it was a sunny day and I was able to take some better photos of Petite-France and other endroits.

Marion & I

After lunch and some more vin chaud with Marion, I headed to the train station and departed for Lyon.


Next up: home for the holidays, my trip to Iceland and my return to London!